Does anyone here have any experience with this company and, specifically, with this finish?  I've been getting their e-mails and/or catalogs for years, but I've never done any business with them.

Thanks!

Are you sure you're not confusing it with "french white"?

if it's the French Grey I'm thinking of, it's stainless steel abrasive blasted with super-fine aluminum oxide at 40psi.  Produces a very nice, non-reflective matte surface.  I did my ParaOrd, and I think it came out pretty good.....well, better than this blurry-ass pic shows

Yep, that's the process/finish I'm curious about.  Thanks for the pic, Colt45guy!  Are you happy with the finish (look, feel, durability)?  I'm a big fan of the Robar NP3 finish (have a couple of Berettas with that finish), but it is twice and then some the price of this "French Grey."

well....it's not the most durable finish I've ever used, as the matte gets flat and shiney spots pretty easily.  Another problem is that it only works on stainless steel as the abrasive etches off any bluing or rust preventative treatment.  The nice thing is that I have a compressor, a sandblasting gun and a 16 lb can of the aluminum oxide----I can touch up the gun about a hundred times before I'll have to buy more of the alum oxide--I could also reuse the stuff over and over if I ever put my blasting tank together, but that's a project for another day.

Oh....the grit used is so fine, it won't obscure even the faintest of roll marks or stampings.  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself, but after the blasting, the marks on mine actually looked sharper than before....go figure?

Because the finish is simply a bare, ultra-fine abrasive blast, it provides a VERY positive grip---you're not going to lose your grip when charging the slide after doing this treatment.  The down side is that it makes it a cast iron BITCH to clean.  The carbon that just wipes off a polished slide requires gunscrubber or carb cleaner to get out of the microscopic nooks and crannies.  If you look close on the pic, you'll see that the safety lever and beavertail are a lot brighter than the rest of the gun.  I was going for a pseudo 2 tone look and left them bright ss.

It cost me exactly $32 to do the Para....I already had the sandblasting equipment.  I like the way it looks, hate the way it cleans up, ambiguous about the lack of durability.  If you're going to pay somebody else to do it, go with the NP3 or hard chrome.  If you're talking about DIY, the french grey is easy to do and easy to touch up when it needs it.

Not a big fan of the finishing using oxide.  I use 200 glass bead and end up with a little more sheen than the oxide flat finish.  400 gives a shiny silver finish and you start to get grey toning when you get into the 320 larger range.

Colt, have you tried to two step the blasting?  Oxide to remove any tooling marks, then peened with 200-300 glass bead to soften the tone?  The downfall to oxide is it does not peen, but cuts.

I've also used the term "French Grey" when referring to fine glassbeading parts but in this case it looks like this Co is actually applying a finish...


See this.

French ghey

Isn't French grey the color their rifles get after sitting abandoned on the ground for a few days.. You know the Frenchy saying "It's easier to run, without your gun.."