Article on Colt Finishes Article on Colt finishes, previously published in "Bullet N Press" magazine, Vol 1, No 4 and reproduced here by permission. The Colt Blues Metal Finishes by Bill Adair No, "The Colt Blues" doesn't refer to having to lay out $8,500 for a 10% Cavalry or a 50% early black-powder single action. This is about the way Colts were blued from "The Beginning" through WWII, (for most of us, "The End"). "The Beginning" takes us back to the post-Patterson days, starting with the Walkers. Since Patterson's were fire-blued end-to-end and made in New Jersey, they don't count. We have to move to Hartford where the blue-and-cased Walkers were born for the real beginning. Even though most Walker cylinders exploded, and nearly wiped out the Texas Rangers early on, it is the big revolver with color-cased frame, hammer and loading lever, with other major parts being "heat" blued and the minor parts being fire-blued, which established the standard that Colts would generally follow up till "the end". Along the way, some interesting changes were made, particularly during WWI. So, Let's go back and track the events that changed the way Colts were finished from one era to the next. Note: The term "heat-blue" is pretty much synonomous with the modern term "nitre-blue". The methods used to apply each of these produces identical results. "Nitre-blue" indicates a solution of mostly "Potassium Nitrate". Neither of these terms has anything to do with "Hot-bluing", aka "Hot-salt bluing" which Mauser invented in 1937. Pre-WWII Colts were heat-blued thru WWI then Charcoal-blued between WWI and WWII. The reason for the switch was that better steels produced from WWI on contained certain alloys which did not heat-blue well. Charcoal-bluing did a better job on the newer alloys. From the percussion period, ending with the introduction or conversion to black-powder cartridge guns and through the fabled career of the Single Action Army, nothing at all changed in the way Colts were finished. Guns went from gateless to gated, and from cap'n'ball to cartridge, but standard commercial (trade) finishes remained the same: extremely well-polished guns with subdued blue/grey color-cased frames, hammers and loading levers (or gates); coupled with an equally-magnificent heat-blue on barrels, cylinders, straps, etc. All this was thoughtfully highlighted by fire-blued screws, triggers and base pins. What a combination! The proof this combination was go good lies in our continuing quest for samples of these guns which still show some amount of the original finish. And for that pleasure, the price will be...? Note: Cavalry revolvers were polished about 2 grades or so less than trade guns, so the slightly rougher polish results in the blued parts being more blue-grey in color. They are distinctively different than the high-polish translucent dark blue given the commercial guns. Rarity is still the number one collector criteria, but couple rarity with finish in the over-90% range, and prices of the old revolvers go into the stratosphere. Exactly at the turn of the century, John Brownings light bulb turned automatic, and we suddenly had a new breed of gun. The model 1900 auto continues the blue-and-case tradition, but only the hammer is color-cased. The rest of the gun follows the heat-bluing of its' predesessors, and fire-blued small parts still accent the effect. The series of early auto's thru the pre-WWI 1911's remains pretty much the same, with minor differences in the color-treatment of small parts. The 1912 model 1911's had fire-blued small parts, but in suceeding years, the color changed to a semi-fire-blue and became darker each year till WWI. Colt long guns follow almost the same pattern of finishes with one notable exception: Colt never rust-blued any handgun part. The only rust-bluing Colt ever did was on the barrels and tubes of their long guns. Receivers and other major parts were heat-blued; hammers were color-cased (as well as the levers on the Burgess), and small parts were fire-blued. Springfield was the only company that rust-blued 1911's. Uh, Oh! Now it hits the fan, and finishes would not be the same for a decade. Thru the 1918-1919 war years, the military (the inventor of olive-drab), decides in a progressive sort of way, that uglier is better. The polishing gets uglier, the finishes of various types get uglier. The guys at Colt forget how to polish and blue. We didn't lose the war, but we lost a whole lot of great-looking guns during it all. Fortunately, the finer brush-blue finishes came back in the 20's and 30's.