Color case hardening

[rbgfishboy]

Hey folks - every so often, I see a post where someone refers to "real" case colors. I know that Ruger use to have fake case colors, but I want to know who else does the fake case colors. I have two Ubertis, one made for Navy Arms in '95, and the other made in 2010. It's really not a big deal to me, but I'm curious if the case colors on both of these are real or fake. How would I know for certain?

[sack peterson]

The Italians have not been equipped or rather say inclined to do much bone pack case hardening on their sixguns.  They use the cyanide method almost exclusively.  This is not so much fake, as it is a legit hardening method, but it is something quite less than the artisan bone pack method.  And it is a matter of price.   You can reliably assume the ones you have are the cheaper cyanide finish.

When people say "real" CCH, they are no doubt talking about bone pack as done by Turnbull and a few others.

Ruger’s finish on the Vaqueros was fake.