when i bought the gun, it looked like this...
this is what it looks like now...
this picture was done after i smoothed the edges.
you can see the very light scratches from the 2000 grit, but that 555 polish from brownell's or midway will remove those. i started with about 180 grit. they don't do a lot of good finishing on the GI models. there are some seriously deep scratches from the roughly finished metal. you don't see that until you start trying to make it shine. you go horizontal with one grit, then go to a higher grit vertically. going cross hatch like that will help you see when you've eliminated all the scratches from the previous grit. i started with 180, and went through 300 - 400 - 600 - 800 - 1000 - 1500 - 2000. the higher grits are available at auto paint supply stores.
i carried this as a duty gun for about 6 months, so i didn't polish it beyond the 2000 grit. i knew it could get scratched, and a serious polish is something i wouldn't want to mess up. scratches are easy to fix on this gun, depending on how deep they go. the good thing is should you decide to go back to factory, i've seen smiths charge like $20 to bead blast, and a few hours with 400 grit will brush the flats. i got a ton of comments when i carried this pistol openly. some guys i worked with didn't think it was very tactical, but i could use it as a mirror to peek around corners.
after a few weeks, a couple of guys showed up with nickeled guns, and shiny stainless. guess their tactical theory went out the window. if you take something like this on, be prepared because it took me a long time to get it like this. i left the top rough because i don't want the glare where i'm looking. when i clean it, i rub on mother's aluminum wheel polish to make it have that mirror shine to it.
