Chuck, I used the rouge after I nitre blued them. The polishing helped somewhat and did made the triggers look good. The trigger guard and for-end, I believe it was from not having a high enough temperature.
I polished all the parts with emery cloth.

The one funny thing is I made a few screws to replace the buggered ones taking it apart. I had to drill them out to remove them, could not budge them with the drill press method and broke a few bits trying. Anyway I used drill rod as I didn't have any mild steel big enough to make them. The top lever plate screw nitred ok, the front trigger plate screw would not take the bath, stayed shiny even after a repeated cleaning and re-dipping.

David