What you need to understand before having a firearm refinished.

If there is visible rust there will be pitting. Rust always makes pits because rust specks ALWAYS
eat down into the metal before spreading wider. Nicks and scratches are usually easier to remove
than rust pitting. As a general rule, any gun that shows rust cannot be refinished to a new appearance
without extensive and expensive metal work.

Even light rust speckles may make pits several thousandths deep. Those will always be visible under
bright Nickel plating, but usually those shallow pits are not so obvious in a reblued gun.

When there is pitting which cannot be removed by removing a thin surface layer of metal, which is
the usual case, I usually advise a matte finish instead of a polished finish. The non reflective finish
does not show the surface irregularities and pits as much as a shiny finish..

The shiny reflective finish requires the metal to be in the same condition as a new gun. Even though
the old blue may show holster wear, if there is no rust speckles it may be fine. For bright reflective
plating to look like a new gun, the metal must be almost perfect. The best candidate for bright plating
is a new blued gun or one with absolutely no rust specks..

Personally, I like a matte/satin finish, on a blued gun it looks like black parkerizing. On a plated
gun it always looks clean and doesn't show greasy fingerprints. Matte/satin finish is the most
practical for daily use or CCW.

The decision of how to refinish an older gun must be made on two points. First, on the purpose for
the gun, and second on whether the gun is suitable for a polished or a matte/satin finish..

If the firearm is plated, painted, powdercoated or parkerized it must be stripped to bare metal before
it can be replated. This is an extra process and it will increase the cost of refinishing.