Polished Nickel or Matt SS finish on a 1911

Question for you folks that owned a polished bright Nickel 1911 and or a SS 1911… I am wanting to buy a nice 1911 with some bling to it. I plan on shooting it a lot at range but will not carry the pistol in a holster very much or not at all. I want to try to keepIt looking as nice as possible. Would I be better off buying the SS model and then I can polish it up every few years if I get a little mark on it or buy the polished Nickel model ? I don’t know if I could do anything with a mark on the polished Nickel because it is a plated material, have no experience with ether one. Thanks. Marty

IMHO, nickel plating is not as durable as stainless and can be degraded by certain cleaning & lubricating oils.

JE

For serious bling…


You could go get it gold plated.  But there are coatings that appear gold like and are durable.  https://www.titaniumgun.com/

Look up Patriot Polishing. He is top notch and just did my new 6" Python. I'm about to have him polish and reblue a S&W 14 with full lug. These will primarily be show revolvers.

Wow that gold pistol looks nice. Will also take a look at patriot polishing. Just don’t know enough about Nickel pistols and SS pistols to make a informed decision. I am thinking I could polish out little handling marks on the SS pistol ? Marty

In my experience, it’s difficult to get SS to a very high polish.  Even with buffing.  Regular steel is better in that regard.  It should be remembered that a bright nickel plate requires a very high buff. Any defect will be glaringly obvious after nickel plating.  Either way it won’t be inexpensive.

its been my experience, trying to polish out handeling marks makes them more obvious as the process is highly dependant on the polishing compound ( type and grit) and process used. you end up repolishing the whole part to make it uniform.