Curious as to what you are using for bead blast finishing on firearms.

What equipment do you have?
Did you build or buy a box for the parts to be blasted in?
Lite's, in side the box to see?
Nozzel's and compressor's?
Bead Material?
Information will be used!

I have a commercial made unit, 48" wide, so it takes barreled actions if needed. Bought it from McMaster Carr some 10 years ago, it has been flawless.

Using very fine glass beads called "Potters Beads", if you need the info I will take a look at the bag for the specs.

This unit has interior lighting, a external vacuum & filter unit, a full width front door, and works very well.

A note, it takes a lot of air to run a decent bead blaster. My compressor is 20 CFM and works great, giving me a constant 90 plus psi to the booth. Check your compressor for CFM at 90 or more psi, a lot of compressors are rated at 40 psi and will not work.

I did a couple of changes: Nozzle that came with the gun was rated at 40 CFM, I purchased a smaller gun & nozzle. Saves air, plus gives better visibility inside the booth. And I installed an air bleed valve on the medium intake pipe for fine tuning of the media flow.

Another note, if you are bluing guns after bead blasting, you need to pull the barrels anyway, cause it is almost impossible to get all the glass beads out of the action/barrel thread area if you blast a barreled action. I blue with the barrel out of the receiver. Also avoids the latent caustic blossom problem. With proper barrel vise and action wrench, I can install the barrel without damaging the bluing.

You gotta have dry air also, and clean parts, other wise you will make clumps of glass beads in the bottom hopper. Only cure is to ditch the bleads and start over. Nothing goes in my blast cabinet but clean gun parts. I have two dryers in the air line upstream of the blast unit, plus my compressor tank's moisture trap is drained daily .

John thanks, Just the kind of info I was looking for.

Were would I obtain most of the supplys at a good price?

I am setting up a small shop for personal use,
lathe, mill , etc.
I have a friend thats been building rifles for 25 + years for himself and a few friends and bought most of his equipment so he can up grade to new machines.
I do want most of my hunting rifles matte finish.
My friend also has hot bluing tanks if I choose to go that route.