dehorning a pistol

jumpingjackflatch

jumpingjackflatch

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I have heard people talk about owning a Norinco or other less than perfectly machined pistol with sharp edges and "dehorning" it. What is involved? Is this just a matter of disassembling and lightly sanding the offending edges?
After smoothing the edges, wouldn't those areas require surface treatment to protect from rust?
 
Essentially yes and yes......watch a few youtube vids on doing touch ups and get your blue kit...VERY important to PREP properly. I just finished doing a re-blue today...its not rocket science.
 
If it's a blued gun then you'd want to start by de-bluing it first. Then use fine sandpaper or medium stones on the edges that are razor sharp. Or for more aggressive de-horning whatever it takes to shape the metal and restore a surface finish that mimics the original.

But this all means that to do the job right you need to have the gun re-blued. Otherwise it looks... well... like someone sanded down the edges..... :)

If you're not too worried about how the finish looks you COULD just cold blue the bright edges. But they'll wear faster and basically look like hell in no time at all. Some options for cold blue are better than others but none of them are as durable as a proper hot blue done in the proper molten salts.

Or perhaps consider a parkerizing job? Or this would also be a great time to go gonzo and have it done in one of the gun coatings. Perhaps with a pattern of some sort. Of course that would make it unwelcome for some competitions. But if it's just for grins n'giggles who cares....

If you do go ahead with such a treatment keep in mind that you want to take the razor edge off the slide serrations but you don't want to really round them over. The corners at the ends of the grooves yeah, by all means round them a little extra. But the gripping edges should just be slightly broken so a less than perfect grip doesn't shave your finger prints off and leave your DNA filling the grooves.

The rest of the gun can be more liberally shaped but with care and the results can look VERY nice. Especially around the trigger guard and some of the other areas.
 
I use a combination of diamond and standard needle files and die-makers stones. In the case of interference that is often found on Norinco pistols between the slide and the frame, I will use a mini die grinder (pencil grinder) and a tracing agent like Prussian blue or red-lead to identify the highest spots.
51Qs0iPBsVL._SX342_.jpg

kit72stonesL.jpg
 
I just dehorned the interior surfaces to smooth out as well as the safety and slide release lever which I cold blued. Its a cheap pistol so having it hot blued seems to not be cost effective to me. I got the pistol so its pretty smooth to operate and has an excellent trigger which is all I wanted for my efforts.
 
Lol who comes up with these goofy terms? Why does it have to be different just because it involves firearms?

I'm a machinist. Removing burrs and sharp edges is my job, and I've never heard anyone use this term in my 14 years in the trade.
 
Scotty454 said:
Lol who comes up with these goofy terms? Why does it have to be different just because it involves firearms?

I'm a machinist. Removing burrs and sharp edges is my job, and I've never heard anyone use this term in my 14 years in the trade.
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Agreed! Sounds ridiculous.
 
jumpingjackflatch said:
I have heard people talk about owning a Norinco or other less than perfectly machined pistol with sharp edges and "dehorning" it. What is involved? Is this just a matter of disassembling and lightly sanding the offending edges?
After smoothing the edges, wouldn't those areas require surface treatment to protect from rust?
Click to expand...

Any "touch up" product available that would match a parkerized finish after smoothing off the corners?
 
I dehorned mine and could care less and long as it stops drawing my blood. Re- blueing ya right. Pound the sights so you hit what you aim at and enjoy Chinese craftsmanship. I just bought another norinco from SFRC. I call norinco my drop gun, cause its not a STI. So far so good.
 
i went after one of my original two tonne Norcs that i could have easily shaved with had the need ever come up.

was a cold winter night, i sat back in the shop with some good music on and some wet paper (i think it was 1500) and a small piece of wood.
didnt take long.
after i was done i decided to not worry about re-bluing or anything, i oiled it good and shot the heck out of it.
its a Norc after all.

i was going to send it down to Edmonton to Arma-Coat but decided not too..... i have 2 or 3 more Norcs should this one ever rust out on me.
 
Scotty454 said:
Lol who comes up with these goofy terms? Why does it have to be different just because it involves firearms? I'm a machinist. Removing burrs and sharp edges is my job, and I've never heard anyone use this term in my 14 years in the trade.
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It must be an American thing—I've seen it for years in gun magazines.
 
Meroh said:
I use a combination of diamond and standard needle files and die-makers stones. In the case of interference that is often found on Norinco pistols between the slide and the frame, I will use a mini die grinder (pencil grinder) and a tracing agent like Prussian blue or red-lead to identify the highest spots.
51Qs0iPBsVL._SX342_.jpg

kit72stonesL.jpg
Click to expand...

I'd never seen die-makers' stones. Interesting! Another useful addition are the abrasive-embedded rubber polishing wheels from Cratex. They seem hard to find nowadays; the Dremel/Foredom distributors used to have them.
 
As other people said if you want to remove the sharp edges you must be willing to sacrifice the finish (i.e. be ready to refinish your gun). Once you are ok with this, consider using a bench grinder with a 3M's Scotch Brite light deburring wheel. This wheel is simply fantastic when it comes to all sort of smoothing, dehorning, and light polishing of firearms. The wheel is very forgiving and produces a nice smooth polish on your gun without removing too much metal.
Re-finishing your gun is not as bad as it sounds. Here is a pic of my norinco NP29. I have decided to leave most of the slide polished and apply the bluing only to the top and the serrated areas. I have used rust bluing / cold bluing combo method which produces good results.
s!AjpIl4-kS8MUujdjuUg3qKMCSxQh

s!AjpIl4-kS8MUujdjuUg3qKMCSxQh


y4mWXTJJCwrUYCtNic-l-l0NMP1g6BdGDq_vMOB9DSmzeWtXd62ubT3U0N_OFJtD6uAejdA1NVX7h6urwzpv-RIlJNsMzba5DDrAkOTzRYJW8-8eTam-vAH6KY_STNh6JOWug8WraZ8zpFTqKqlactz4XIzfaYEwmjEc0VMf0RHMOg87pt-nXnnpPsokWUzO-kZ850K7RzdHRh8RiEFn2ShKg
 
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So I used a stone kit I bought at princess auto. Only fitting. All the edges where my hands would be had the edges lightly sanded/stoned. It could be reblued but that would be done by the next owner. The edges draw blood so do round them off. Even the grip section of the slide is knife sharp. I do like the pistol after breaking it in with a 1000 rounds though. mine is a M1911A1C 45acp.
 
How about burrs on the chrome finished guns such as the np-29 chrome.? I will have one of these on the way soon and would be interested in smoothing it out. Idk if theres away to touch up chrome ��
 
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ELVIS56 said:
How about burrs on the chrome finished guns such as the np-29 chrome.? I will have one of these on the way soon and would be interested in smoothing it out. Idk if theres away to touch up chrome ��
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Chrome finish is very hard. So dehorning would be a challenge (if you want to preserve the chrome finish). Option 1: leave it as is (if your skin is tough enough and heals quickly)
Option 2: dehorn (if you are willing to live with a gun that doesn't look great as long as it shoots well)
 
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