DarkswordDX
Member
Hello again gentlemen and ladies. Imagine my shock to see that my old forum account still works, and I still remembered my password after half a decade. Good to see THR is still kicking and hasn't been deplatformed as one of those ebil rightwing hate sites. 
I have a neat resurrection story for you. Since I'm sure nobody remembers me, I run a Class III gun shop and am also the gunsmith (10 years at the latter).
So about six months back I had a guy bring me an early Winchester 94 in .32-20 for some custom work. He had special ordered a custom rear peep sight that he wanted installed, and wanted me to drill and tap his antique receiver.
A dicey proposition, and one that I wasn't about to take a risk messing up! So I special ordered some new cobalt bits and some damned 6-48 taps. I hate 6-48 and generally do all my stuff with 8-48s, but this was a particular job and the customer was prepared to pay well. So why am I posting this in the revolver forum? Keep reading.
I decided I was going to use my drill press to guide the tap, because I wanted to make sure this rifle came out perfect in one take. But to test it, I needed a guinea pig. And right as I'm looking, in walks a little old lady into the gun shop. Her husband had come down with dementia and she was selling his guns. It's a sad story that I get more and more these days, and I always try to give fair money, especially in situations like that. She opens up an old rubber tote and inside are three pistols: The first is an absolutely gorgeous S&W model 38, early version in nickel. Then out comes a pretty nice little Colt Cobra. It had some slightly nasty finish wear, but Colts are high demand around here. And lastly comes a Smith model 16-4, .32H&R, in the rare and desirable 4" barrel! Except this one looked like she had dragged it here behind her car with a section of log chain... The rear sight was broken and its channel was peened up like it had been used to hammer concrete. About the only place that wasn't dusted with rust speckles was the bore. The cylinder was scratched up and "crunchy" and the action worked like a butter churn full of wet cat litter. Original grips missing, scratches all over the frame, especially around the screws. This gun was ROUGH. She was thrilled with what I gave her for the other two guns, but I offered her just $300 for this train wreck of a .32mag and explained why. She and I had a long talk and finally shook hands. I immediately claimed the little 16 for myself and dropped it in the solvent tank to soak for a day.
When I took it out and dried it off I realized I could buff out maybe 40% of the pitting. I tossed some old Pachy wood grips on it. Apart from the wrecked rear sight it looked..... not *too* horrible. A real good cleaning and buffing and new grips took it from a 3/10 appearance to maybe a 5.5. But that was when I noticed what was happening every time I opened the crane. There was, for lack of a better term, "brown mud" oozing out from around the crane pin. Oh, no.... So I went ahead and busted her open, and believe me getting the side plate off was hell. I don't think it had EVER been removed before. And what do I see, but the entire lockwork covered in red rust crust and pitted up so bad, it looked like a cat had crapped in the action. So began a three week odyssey of completely stripping the frame, scrubbing and cleaning and oiling and replacing and polishing and testing and polishing and hand fitting and polishing some more, all topped off with a real nice trigger job and painstaking reassembly. Now she still wasn't much to look at, but the action felt like ice skating on bacon grease so I was gettin somewhere. Now what to do about that rear sight? The sight was smashed and the end channel for the retaining nut and spring was messed up pretty bad and I agonized a bit over my options. Finally I decided that this was gonna be a target revolver anyway, and shoot, I've never had a scoped revolver before. Why not? I hunted around for mounting options for these non-drilled K frames, which is what led me back to discussions in this old place. Finally realizing I was gonna have to drill it, I ordered up one of Jack Weigland's custom mounts, and now I had a guinea pig for those 6-48 taps! And wouldn't you know, I twisted one of the little SOBs off right in the first hole... Better my gun than that old Winchester, I reckon. But I was still mad. I luckily managed to get the broken tap out with a day of cussing and fiddling and then finished it all up. The mount worked perfectly, and I took a dead-stock Burris 2X pistol scope that's been layin around so long the box has yellowed and mounted her all up together. Total investment has been $400 and three weeks of cussing and elbow grease. I'm presently waiting for my backorder of powder to arrive so I can load me up some ammo. I got a couple hundred Starline cases from Brownells already waiting. She still looks like she got ran over by a tank, but mechanically she is about perfect. Timing, cylinder gap, end shake are all 99.9% and her action job is one of the best I've ever done. With the barrel being the only part that was still in great shape, I'll bet she can shoot the fleas off a cat's ass at 50 yards without disturbing his nap. But we shall see.
I have a neat resurrection story for you. Since I'm sure nobody remembers me, I run a Class III gun shop and am also the gunsmith (10 years at the latter). So about six months back I had a guy bring me an early Winchester 94 in .32-20 for some custom work. He had special ordered a custom rear peep sight that he wanted installed, and wanted me to drill and tap his antique receiver.
A dicey proposition, and one that I wasn't about to take a risk messing up! So I special ordered some new cobalt bits and some damned 6-48 taps. I hate 6-48 and generally do all my stuff with 8-48s, but this was a particular job and the customer was prepared to pay well. So why am I posting this in the revolver forum? Keep reading.I decided I was going to use my drill press to guide the tap, because I wanted to make sure this rifle came out perfect in one take. But to test it, I needed a guinea pig. And right as I'm looking, in walks a little old lady into the gun shop. Her husband had come down with dementia and she was selling his guns. It's a sad story that I get more and more these days, and I always try to give fair money, especially in situations like that. She opens up an old rubber tote and inside are three pistols: The first is an absolutely gorgeous S&W model 38, early version in nickel. Then out comes a pretty nice little Colt Cobra. It had some slightly nasty finish wear, but Colts are high demand around here. And lastly comes a Smith model 16-4, .32H&R, in the rare and desirable 4" barrel! Except this one looked like she had dragged it here behind her car with a section of log chain... The rear sight was broken and its channel was peened up like it had been used to hammer concrete. About the only place that wasn't dusted with rust speckles was the bore. The cylinder was scratched up and "crunchy" and the action worked like a butter churn full of wet cat litter. Original grips missing, scratches all over the frame, especially around the screws. This gun was ROUGH. She was thrilled with what I gave her for the other two guns, but I offered her just $300 for this train wreck of a .32mag and explained why. She and I had a long talk and finally shook hands. I immediately claimed the little 16 for myself and dropped it in the solvent tank to soak for a day.
When I took it out and dried it off I realized I could buff out maybe 40% of the pitting. I tossed some old Pachy wood grips on it. Apart from the wrecked rear sight it looked..... not *too* horrible. A real good cleaning and buffing and new grips took it from a 3/10 appearance to maybe a 5.5. But that was when I noticed what was happening every time I opened the crane. There was, for lack of a better term, "brown mud" oozing out from around the crane pin. Oh, no.... So I went ahead and busted her open, and believe me getting the side plate off was hell. I don't think it had EVER been removed before. And what do I see, but the entire lockwork covered in red rust crust and pitted up so bad, it looked like a cat had crapped in the action. So began a three week odyssey of completely stripping the frame, scrubbing and cleaning and oiling and replacing and polishing and testing and polishing and hand fitting and polishing some more, all topped off with a real nice trigger job and painstaking reassembly. Now she still wasn't much to look at, but the action felt like ice skating on bacon grease so I was gettin somewhere. Now what to do about that rear sight? The sight was smashed and the end channel for the retaining nut and spring was messed up pretty bad and I agonized a bit over my options. Finally I decided that this was gonna be a target revolver anyway, and shoot, I've never had a scoped revolver before. Why not? I hunted around for mounting options for these non-drilled K frames, which is what led me back to discussions in this old place. Finally realizing I was gonna have to drill it, I ordered up one of Jack Weigland's custom mounts, and now I had a guinea pig for those 6-48 taps! And wouldn't you know, I twisted one of the little SOBs off right in the first hole... Better my gun than that old Winchester, I reckon. But I was still mad. I luckily managed to get the broken tap out with a day of cussing and fiddling and then finished it all up. The mount worked perfectly, and I took a dead-stock Burris 2X pistol scope that's been layin around so long the box has yellowed and mounted her all up together. Total investment has been $400 and three weeks of cussing and elbow grease. I'm presently waiting for my backorder of powder to arrive so I can load me up some ammo. I got a couple hundred Starline cases from Brownells already waiting. She still looks like she got ran over by a tank, but mechanically she is about perfect. Timing, cylinder gap, end shake are all 99.9% and her action job is one of the best I've ever done. With the barrel being the only part that was still in great shape, I'll bet she can shoot the fleas off a cat's ass at 50 yards without disturbing his nap. But we shall see.
