You stated a while back that you may be having some tarnish issues with your Optima. Well guess what, so am I now! I checked with my local gunsmith and he said that Hoppe's or similar solvent products will tarnish nickel based finishes. He even showed me a disclaimer on a bottle of Hoppe's #9. "Do not soak nickel-plated firearms in No.9. Wipe nickel surfaces dry after cleaning." He said he does not know what in Hoppe's or similar solvents like Outer's Tri-Care or similar products does the tarnishing but he said it will do it every time. He gave me a product from Pro-Shot Products that he said would minimize the tarnishing. It's a "metal care cloth" soaked in who knows what that will in fact reduce the amount of tarnish on the metal. It ran me about $4. The cloth is re-use able as long as you put it back in it's bag. I tried it yesterday and like I said it seems to works fairly well. Just thought I'd pass it along. He said the tarnish will not hurt anything or get worse like pits or actual rust, more a cosmetic issue than anything.
