Just like the title says, I have a couple Smith and Wesson revolvers I picked up and want to polish them back to the deep beautiful blue they used to be. I've done stainless before and it's easy but polishing compound on a blued pistol would pull the bluing right off. So, before I mess up my guns give me some tips and tricks.

You wipe with oil .
You can not " add bluing " or "polish" them brighter .

Make sure you wipe / clean the soot from them after shooting ,they look much better .

Basicly leave it alone .

Just like Rocklock says if you use a polishing compound you will damage the blueing.

Best to use a wax designed to polish and preserve.  Some people like car wax.  I use Renaissance Wax on the visible surfaces.  It both protects from rust and fingerprints, but gives a nice deep shine when buffed.

Paste wax?

use nothing abrasive

clean and apply museum quality wax

Here's a process that will being out whatever shine is possible without damaging the blue.

Apply a medium coat of CLP Breakfree to the gun and let soak a couple of days.
After soaking, apply more CLP to a clean patch and GENTLY rub the surface.
This will remove any dirt and the CLP will remove any oxidized bluing that can dull the finish.
Usually the patch will have brown stains, which are dirt or the oxidized old bluing.

Wipe dry and apply a coat of Renaissance Museum Wax or Johnson's Paste Wax, then gently buff with a microfiber cloth.

Don't's.....
Don't use car wax.  Most contain abrasives to polish paint and if you don't get it out of crevices or from around features it turns white.  Car waxes are designed to polish car paint, not gun bluing.

Don't use any metal polish no matter how fine it's supposed to be.  That includes Flitz.
Metal polishes are abrasives, and that will thin or remove the blue.  
Every time you use a metal polish some of the bluing or plating is removed.
Use it too often or rub just a little too hard and you can polish it right down to the bare metal.

If a guns finish is just dull from age and wear the only way to make it shine is a total re-blue.
How shiny a blue is depends on how the metal under the bluing was polished.  You can't make bluing shiner by polishing.
The CLP and wax will make it as shiny as it's going to be.

Thank you for the info. I know I can't make it "deeper", I just wanna "bring it back". I picked these up in a sale and you can tell they've sat for a long long time. The Renaissance wax I did not know about. I'll order some of that and break out the CLP. Thank you again.

What model Smiths are they ?

19-5 Is the dirtiest. But I'll start with the GP100. The stainless ones are easy.

Renaissance Wax is what you seek.

As stated above, you can only make bluing a little shinier.

Here's a matte blue S&W from the early 1950s after a nice application of Renaissance Wax for the photo shoot:



And here's another S&W from the early 60s in the standard polished blue:



Same sunshine, same day.  To get a polished blue you'd have to strip the gun down, have it professionally polished, and then reblued...never really worth the expense and certainly not on an intact factory finish like on the 1st gun.