Ok fellas, I just finished up polishing the barrel and a courtesy cleaning and oilin', 600 grit wet sanding job, here's the pics:
Barrel finished. Before starting, it had the ugly black-scuffed finish
Nice poser shot, the barrel (the whole point of this post) slightly visible
Here's the "sanding handle" I made. I can't use my left hand, so this enabled me to use the shoe shine method. I also had a smaller narrower strip I used by thumb to clean up the lower areas of the barrel that weren't getting polished with the larger, wider strip. That was mainly around the "S.A. .45" stamp. The stamp is still nice and defined, though you can't see it in the pics. My camera just plain bites it so I can't get a closeup of how nice it cleaned up.
This is my first attempt at toolin' around with the (any) gun, so I'm happy with it. I might go back to really mirror finish it and completely remove the extra fine marks that remain.
What can I use to do this?