Silvers,

Does the action need to be polished at all? I think John Mann and Ken Hurst are on point on this. By annealing the action first, you have the opportunity to easily remove pits, dings, etc. If the action requires any prep work, I don't think you'd go without annealing it first.

Even if you don't, i think you need to ensure a controlled hardening (feel free to insert viagra joke here....) and to do that, you likely need a controlled and homogeneous softening....

Just my opinion.

FYI. John recently annealed, colored/ hardened my beretta action on my Ken Hurst sporting gun. It didn't warp........