1) Hard chrome vs. Electroless Nickel.....what are the gives and takes?


2) How do you color black the markings and serrations of a slide to contrast its electroless nickel off-white? Reblue these areas?

Go for Hard chrome for durability and lubricity. There are many ways to present chrome - polished, brushed or matte.

You wont go wrong with hard chrome.

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I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning...

I have had some experience with hard chrome; one of my IPSC guns has over 125,000 round through it with very little wear.Also, I had a long slide built for me over twenty years ago. It took the gunsmith so long to build it that when I took delivery it was obsolete as compensators had come to dominate IPSC competition. I took the long slide off and had a local gunsmith (one who quoted delivery times in months, rather than years) fit a new slide and comped barrel. The receiver (hard chromed, by the way) then did about 60,000 rounds with the new slide and barrel. The gun was eventually retired from IPSC competition (38 Supers took over) and the long slide re-installed. When IPSC introduced Limited 10, I thought the long slide would be the perfect gun and entered a local match with it. What a mistake! The gun still needed to be broken in, and failed miserably at the match. Sixty thousand rounds didn't wear the receiver at all and it took over a thousand round to break in the receiver/long slide combination. This experience made me a believer in hard chrome.