I am refinishing an alloy framed Hi-Power...I'd like to get the frame re-anodized instead of a 'kote' . I've used all the spray-ons before- Dura, Cera, Moly, Alumahyde, etc... but for this one I wanted to see about re-anodizing.

Look into alodine MIL-DTL-5541 Type 2. Clear and doesn't change dimensions.

I've done it. Anodizing and hard anodizing are different. If steel parts are sliding on it, you want type 3 hard anodizing which is MUCH harder to do at home.

We had a  refrigerated system in order to do it, and I still don't know if it was "right" but it exhibited all the traits of a proper anodizing job.

The chemistry is a pain, the power supplies expensive, and the only fun part was watching all the crud fall off from the lye after dipping the parts in nitric acid.

You have fume hoods and all that shit, right?

ETA if you've already got the serial numbers on a 4473 somewhere, just send it off. US Plating and Finishing in Kansas City did good work for me, and he's an FFL so can do frames and such.

Yeah it needs hard coat…I’ll look into them, thanks. It seems as if this is out of my league!

What he said.  I do a fair bit of type 2, but type 3 is well beyond what I can do at home - and you really want type 3.

So anodizing is out- it cant have any steel in it; the pressed in barrel cam is steel. Oh well, it gets 'painted' now!

A quick note on Alodine: Not worth the safety and material disposal hazards. Remember the movie Erin Brockovich? That's the same cancer this stuff can cause with improper exposure and handling. Given how this stuff has to be disposed of, stored, and handled, compared to the results it produced, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. To be fair, I only tried it once and I could have improperly applied it, or achieved better results with a different process or more practice. Your results may vary.

Here's the images I found of what it produces (great, right?):

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Here's the results I achieved with media blasted parts: One 7075 upper, and a piece of a 6061 DD RIS II rail (partially blasted to see how it affects factory anodizing). Both parts were media blasted and sterilized in acetone prior to the alodine bath.

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(Shown "wet")

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Shown next to known colors.

After rinsed and dried, I noticed there was a powdery substance on top of the parts that would wear away easily with handling. Unfortunately, that powder was indeed the color, as well. So as you handled it, the color of the part would fade and look thin. The blotchiness of the color doesn't bother me. I didn't like the orange tone it produced. And my only thought to preserve the color before it rubbed off with handling was to immediately Cerakote it in a matte clear.

All in all, the results didn't warrant further review for me. If time wasn't a factor, I might try again and refine the process (I have a whole gallon of the stuff sitting here), but overall it was more work than I could justify for the results achieved.