Bare hands or shooting gloves?
Which ,if either would be less damaging to blued or color case hardened finishes?

My favorites are (as is always the case) an Orvis Microfibre glove that showed up and was discontinued. I wish I had 5 pairs.

Hand sweat eats finishes. Wear gloves.

Always gloves. Orvis deerskin, with the trigger finger cutout. Not good in the rain though.

Mizuno batting gloves...

One factor to consider is personal chemistry . Some folks can look at a gun and rust it, others not so much . I only ware them when its cold or in a flurry type situation.

I like and used to sell(before supply got unpredictable) Grip Swell gloves.

I wear gloves most of the upland season if I'm hunting in the thick tangles and thorny thickets. Its mainly to protect my hand from getting torn and also to push branches away from my face and gun. I like very thin goat skin gloves. They are hard wearing and offer pretty good protection while also be extremely thin and maintaining my finger's tactility.

I only wear UnderArmour gloves, actually they're about like a glove liner. They are very thin, and offer no protection from briars, etc., but they do help protect a little from the cold, and they're camo, which helps when shooting doves and ducks. You lose little of your tactile sense with them on, and the gripping surfaces are thin silicone rubber coated.

I buy my guns to use. I don't worry about sweat and dirt harming the gun's finishes. Isn't that what we call "honest wear"?

SRH

https://www.underarmour.com/en-us/mens-ua-camo-coldgear-liner-glove/pid1203060-943

+1 everything Fallshirmjaeger said.

I picked up a pair of HEAD gloves at Costco that work very well. I would love to find a pair of leather gloves that are comfortable. For some reason I am very particular about how the seams rub against my hands.

I use to never wear gloves but my old hands feel a lot better wearing golf gloves when handling my doubles. Bobby

I have a pair similar to what Stan describes that i like a lot. Also, because I used to be in the golf business and had about 500 pair of golf gloves lying around the warehouse, I use them. Nice and thin leather with very good feel. But they wear out fast. Which isn't a problem when you've got 500.

I personally always wear shooting gloves, when hunting and just shooting a couple rounds of clays during the week. Whoever made the old cabelas pittards leather shooting gloves...I wish they still made them and I wish I bought a lifetime supply. Those were outstanding. Haven’t found anything that good since. Scheels at one time used to sell a very nice house brand leather shooting glove. Again, long gone. These days, I’ve been using Black Diamond “pilot” gloves. They’re thin enough, but the trigger finger has multiple seams and they just don’t feel 100% right. They do the job I guess.

I have looked for thin waterproof gloves for duck hunting, and never found anything I liked. No need for much insulation in California, and I would like something thin enough for handling ammo without dropping it. Any suggestions?

https://www.sealskinzusa.com/m/gloves/ultra-grip-gloves-black-grey.htm

http://www.glacierglove.com/aleutian/

Orvis deerskin near 100% of the time on my left hand on both hands when cold

Best I've found are baseball gloves. Thin, flexible, and available. Wouldn't be without them.

On my left hand, I wear a thin goat skin; on the right, a Miller mitt. When it's really cold, a Glacier glove on my left and the Miller mitt on the shooting hand. The goat skin glove gives me some protection in briers where the birds will usually be. Gil

The GripSwell SxS #GS-12 is my favorite. Good reenforcement on the opening lever thumb, Barrel insulation on the left palm, and knukle protection for the middle finger.
Karl

I wear Bob Alan gloves. Ventilated gloves in warm weather, insulated gloves in cold weather and in extremely cold weather I place herbal heat pacs in the insulated gloves, positioned on the back of my hands.

Beretta gloves, when shooting clays or hunting.

Thanks, LeFusil, the Sealskinz look great. But I'm also tempted by the Aleutians, purely because I spent a formative spring/summer in the western Aleutians, where I learned to hunt. I was a lowly USFWS field assistant, taking out introduced Arctic foxes as part of the Aleutian Canada Goose recovery project. Because of the foxes, the geese were nearly extinct in the 1970's, but are now a pest species in NW California, with an extended season.

I never wore gloves for hunting until my best hunting buddy in college told me his dad, who was a surgeon, wore right and left golf gloves to prevent brier scratches which tended to infect when his hands were inside a patients body. I still wear them and find them perfectly satisfactory...Geo

Sometimes they match.

Geo, an old hunting buddy scratched his hands dove hunting retrieving doves in brier patches and ended up nearly dying from staph infection. Gil

I guess that would be better than swimming for a wood duck and dying of a brain eating amoeba...Geo

I've had a few brier scratches but so far, no drain bamage. Gil

My old hands have so many scars from mechanicing on farm equipment all my life until now I get scars on top of scars. But, I've never had a cut, scrape or scratch to get infected in my life. I never had my hands inside a patient's body cavity, either (and don't plan to). I think some people's immune systems and bank of antibodies are just stronger than others.

SRH

I don't wear gloves until it gets below freezing. Then I wear some very thin unknown synthetic gloves that were a light gray color, but I dyed them dark green. They are thin enough to not cause issues with the set trigger on my flintlock. And if they get wet, they dry out within minutes without removing them just from body heat. I wish I knew who made them. I have about 10 pairs left, and they are unbelievably warm considering how thin they are.

Multiflora rose is especially fun to crawl through without gloves, and hawthorne needles will penetrate boot soles... nevermind gloves. I've torn up my hands on many occasions trying to protect my gun stock from getting scratched. I figure my hands will always heal. I'd hope any surgeon who had his hands inside of me was wearing surgical latex gloves whether he had any scratches or not.

I never noticed that wearing gloves did any damage to barrel blue or case colors. But I have heard that the salt in human tears can be corrosive to gun metal when grown men cry.

I own approximately 10 different types/styles of gloves. My preference in general is for Climatec. Several brands use the fabric. The material is durable, will turn a normal briar, breathes, and provides excellent tactile feel. Second favorite is Bob Allen goatskin, unlined, treated with obenauff's.

I'm wondering who the surgeon is that had his hands inside a patients body cavity without gloves on!

Pretty long time ago. I didn't ever assist with the surgery in question so I don't know about the surgical gloves. That's just what the man said...Geo

I always wear a glove of some sort on my L hand. Most of my sxs have a splinter forend. Helps protect the finish. Also helps when shooting targets on a warm day. I look for golf gloves when they're on sale. They seem to work fine. I don't bother as much with my R hand unless it's cold. If it's REALLY cold, one has to be careful with DT guns to make sure the glove isn't too thick.

I'll second the sealskins

I got them at the beginning of last falls duck season here in the NE

Kept my hands dry and warm enough in the worst weather. I continued to use them as my winter clays gloves. No issues with dexterity or with double triggers

Since every thing good gets discontinued. I will be putting a couple more pair aside as insurance

I wear batting gloves. Inexpensive and provide a good grip. I do trim the tip off the end of the trigger finger.

Discontinued, I've found that if I like a product to buy several because they are bound to be "improved" or discontinued!
Karl

PS. For non winter wear, clays or upland hunting- I have used the Orvis deerskin gloves for decades. Although I do wish they would find a water proof dye for them

That's a funny question, or maybe it's the answer that's odd.

I had to think about this for a while. I thought I used gloves for doubles. Then I thought maybe I used gloves for case-colored guns. But finally I realized that I wear gloves when handling guns with long trigger guard tangs. That pretty much covers all the better guns I have, aside from a Perazzi. It is not an conscious thing, but rather just the way it works out.

I use those Bob Allen mesh jobs when it's hot, and throw them in the washer at the end of the day. In cooler weather I wear Bob Allen leather gloves that I bought at the Grand in Vandalia.

Golf gloves. Both hands. Whatever is cheap and on sale in a three-pack. The expense is modest and the life of the gloves is of no concern. Compared to the other costs of shooting it doesn't even get on the scale. I spend more on fuel getting to and from the club than on gloves by several orders of magnitude. I prolly spend more on the sports drink that I consume there and piss away on the same day.

Have had good luck with Footjoy winter golf gloves when using double triggers in cold weather. Footjoy rain gloves work well too.

For dealing with hot SXS barrels while shooting clays, heavy briars or the occasional knife wielding bandit, HWI KLD100 Kevlar Lined Duty gloves from the police suppliers on ebay or amazon work fantastic. Unlike some Kevlar gloves, they are fully lined so your fingers and palms are protected from feeling the heat of hot barrels.

Golf glove work well for me. Easy to find the left hand glove a bit harder to find right hand gloves. Have to be careful in making sure they are dye fast. I keep them for hunting season when they get dirty. Blood looks good on them then but not when they are brand new. Plus they do protect against scrapes and thorns searching for down birds.

There are many days when I hunt in temperatures of 70-80 degrees. To protect the barrels from sweat I wear a thin unlined leather glove on my forward hand only.

I'm a shooting glove junkie of sorts. Anything that keeps the metal of the gun from drawing the heat from your hands is helpful. When I shot damascus guns, having a light glove helped protect the browned barrels from the mild acid in your sweat. I've tried about all of them: Galazan's, Palm-swell, Orvis, Filson, etc. I think I've got a pair in about every weight now.

Truthfully, my favorite is an unlined deerskin for upland if there's briers. I just hate getting scratched by blackberries on the back of my hands.
TIG gloves are thin and supple, but are white.

I wear XL gloves. And I have warm hands, and take no heart medicines to worry about. So, YMMV.

I take a size L unlined deerskin glove, fill it with I-Propyl alcohol, slosh it around, and then dump out the alcohol. I jam my hand in and pull the cuff back to get a skin tight fit. The heat of my hands form fits my upland leather gloves.
But, I still prefer my Orvis Micro fibre, and their wool backed leather gloves.

But name brand thin leather gloves are 60$ or more, and I can form fit a leather glove, while stretching the leather out to a thinner condition for about 20$.

It's easy to try.

Fit is critical. Never tried the alcohol thing. Sounds interesting.

Once again, you won't be able to beat a black pair of baseball gloves. They're perfect, relatively inexpensive, and readily available. And most have good ventilation on the back.