rgillis.... that's a nice looking 19 you've got there! Looks like you rezed up the picture which gave it the jaggies, or you saved as a JPG with low quality, or saved and resaved a JPG numerous times (quality degrades with every save of a JPG).
Creating fine quality photos is the result of a heck of a lot more than I could ever put in an online post... but I'll repeat something I've posted several times before on several forums... hope this helps:
I've posted this numerous times, but for those who haven't seen it before... this can help a little:
I've used widely varying set-ups for my gun pics over the last few years. Some outdoors, some in the camera room with soft boxes, but most recently, on places like my desk, gun workbench, dining room table, etc. using available table and floor lamps and window lighting and small reflectors to create highlights on different parts of the gun.
Camera is currently a Canon 20D with 17 to 85 zoom lens. Always on a heavy tripod with electronic cable release. Usually ISO 200, f/11, about 1 sec. exposure or so, custom color balance. I spend a lot of time cleaning the set and the gun and positioning everything (lights, gun, camera) to get the look I want. I do some unsharp mask sharpening in PS and also adjust levels and color balance. What makes it easy for me is that I've been earning my living with a camera for decades.... so over the years I've picked up a few tricks. And I've been working with digital image editing on Macintosh computers (in Photoshop) for about 12 years.
Many of my most recent gun photos were taken on my workbench in my gunroom where there is a torchiere floor lamp in the corner and a north facing window. Some (like the 2.5" Model 19) are done at night,
so they were lit by the torchiere floor lamp and a small desk lamp aimed toward the ceiling... which illuminates the upper walls and ceiling to the left of the gun... others (like the model 27, the 2.5" 686+, 586's, Detective SPls.) were taken during the day, so in addition to the floor and desk lamp light, there is also the additional north window light coming in behind and to the left of the guns - making for a mixed light situation (cool north skylight mixed with warm incandescent light from the torchiere).
Daylight, especially north window skylight (not direct sun) is a much colder color temperature (5000-7000 degrees kelvin) than incandescent lamps (2500 to 3500 degrees kelvin), so when you mix the two, your color balance issues become very complicated to deal with and clearly reveal a mixed lighting situation. The usual approach is to set your color balance close to the main light and let the fill or accent light source reveal it's mismatched color effect in contrast to the mainlight. The most accurate color is achieved with a single color temperature from all sources of light, but that's often a lot less "exciting". You can see the two different colors of light (blue from the window and yellow from the incandescent lamps) reflected in different parts of the gun. I use small white cards and other objects to reflect light into places where I want it. Sometimes I've used small flashlights (typically 2000 to 3000 degrees kelvin, depending on battery strength) to brighten up a selected area as well.
I have enough tips, tricks, techniques, and advice to teach a several semester course in photography, so one post here can't really teach much, but try what I've suggested here, get some training, and shoot, shoot, shoot... no only your guns!
Best thing one can do to improve your pictures is to spend the time studying images you think are good and then spend the time with your camera trying to emulate the look, try a lot of different things... see what results, analyse and study what happened and why, and that will be the best education you can ask for. That's how I learned to do what I do... along with a lot of good (now very old) books on lighting and photography! Visit your local book seller to find curent study guides on photography. Lots of fun to play with all of this stuff.
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