I have a commercial Mauser rifle action that has a hot-tanked bead-blasted matte blue finish. My question is 'can the action and bottom metal surfaces be polished back to a smooth 600 grit finish'? Have you done this? Thanks. CB

Yes, polish away.

Sure; polish away, but why? Matte finish receivers look good and many rifles came from the factory that way; Win M70s for one.

The matte surface serves as camoflage for a lot of surcace blemishes that you might not want to find and polish out.

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Originally posted by custombolt:
I have a commercial Mauser rifle action that has a hot-tanked bead-blasted matte blue finish. My question is 'can the action and bottom metal surfaces be polished back to a smooth 600 grit finish'? Have you done this? Thanks. CB

Depending on just how "matte" the surface is, and how it was matted, you would want to stone all the metal parts to remove tool marks before polishing. As SR4759 said, that matte finish could be hiding a lot of tool marks and other imperfections.

Surfaces are finely matted. The action itself is a BRNO ZG47 that I would like to have engraved and then heat treated and then French Grayed. It doesn't appear to be a cover-up job. If any imperfections show up, they should be minimalized by the engraving. I intend to add a highly polished blued barrel. I really like the contrast. Thanks to all. I relish all your opinions.

high polish used to be very popular, but if you are going to do it, make sure you or who ever does it knows what they are doing. many a fine rifle has been ruined by over buffing and rounding sharp edges

I don't get the part about getting it heat treated; what is wrong with the heat treatment now? Probably best to let the engraver polish it; they know what kind of surface finish is best. If you think it needs annealing to engrave; it; again, let the engraver determine that as well. It possibly is soft enough as is, to engrave. Depends on when and where it was made. If it was a real pre war commercial Mauser sporter; they aren't usually too hard.

Thanks for the opinions thus far. I'm convinced that the engraver will know if the metal needs to be annealed first or not after it is in hand. As for the hardening, the French Grey process I'm considering is a process that heat treatment is but one component unlike other processes that are chemical types. So HT is necessary no matter what the hardness of the metal. The barrel will be a new one without sights so I will farm out the installation, head spacing and polishing on that and at the same time the prep/polishing of the action and bottom. This action is a BRNO commercial rifle made in 1957 based on the Mauser design, not to be confused with any of the military BRNO's. Different animal. Thanks for the new replies.