MachIVshooter
Member
This one I've had for about 13 or 14 years, bought it for $60 from a local store. It was a black powder model, and in pretty sorry shape. All those years ago, I had done what I could to tighten it up, and I painted it with black engine enamel. I didn't have the skills & tools then that I do now, though. I shot it a few times, but the IJ .32s have very thin cylinder walls, so using smokeless ammo in it never gave me warm, fuzzy feelings.
Last week, I scored a 3" upper assembly (barrel & cylinder) from a smokeless powder model for $33 shipped on Gunbroker, which showed up yesterday. I'm still basically not working as I recover from hernia surgery, so I had nothing better to do than start fitting it.
Now, the smokeless models don't just have different metallurgy; the cylinder retention is different, the ejector cam has a different profile, and the stop notches are cut for being locked hammer down, trigger released. In the smokeless frames, the cylinder stop is separate from the trigger like more modern designs, where in the old black powder models, it was part of the trigger. So the first order of business was deciding how to deal with that. I don't really care if they lock with trigger forward, but the different stop notch profile precludes being able to use the black powder trigger with a smokeless cylinder, as the stop will run into the cylinder and prevent the trigger from traveling any further. I decided to keep it simple, I would mill a slot in the trigger and make a spring loaded cylinder stop out of some tempered HSS that will pop into the stop notches when they align:
The stop piece is retained by the trigger pin.
The other operations I didn't photograph, but included welding material to the top latch & machining it for cylinder retention, welding & machining material on the ejector cam so the ejector would fall as it's supposed to, welding up the rear of the frame to get rid of cylinder end play, and then just carefully hand fitting all the parts for tight but smooth operation.
Once everything was fitted, I reblued trigger & hammer, and refinished frame, barrel, cylinder & trigger guard in SOCOM black moly resin.
Now she's a nice little shooter that I don't have to sweat running smokeless loads in.
Many people don't realize just how diminutive the small frame Iver-Johnson pistols are, so I decided to give some perspective with my SP101 and J-frame 360PD
Last week, I scored a 3" upper assembly (barrel & cylinder) from a smokeless powder model for $33 shipped on Gunbroker, which showed up yesterday. I'm still basically not working as I recover from hernia surgery, so I had nothing better to do than start fitting it.
Now, the smokeless models don't just have different metallurgy; the cylinder retention is different, the ejector cam has a different profile, and the stop notches are cut for being locked hammer down, trigger released. In the smokeless frames, the cylinder stop is separate from the trigger like more modern designs, where in the old black powder models, it was part of the trigger. So the first order of business was deciding how to deal with that. I don't really care if they lock with trigger forward, but the different stop notch profile precludes being able to use the black powder trigger with a smokeless cylinder, as the stop will run into the cylinder and prevent the trigger from traveling any further. I decided to keep it simple, I would mill a slot in the trigger and make a spring loaded cylinder stop out of some tempered HSS that will pop into the stop notches when they align:
The stop piece is retained by the trigger pin.
The other operations I didn't photograph, but included welding material to the top latch & machining it for cylinder retention, welding & machining material on the ejector cam so the ejector would fall as it's supposed to, welding up the rear of the frame to get rid of cylinder end play, and then just carefully hand fitting all the parts for tight but smooth operation.
Once everything was fitted, I reblued trigger & hammer, and refinished frame, barrel, cylinder & trigger guard in SOCOM black moly resin.
Now she's a nice little shooter that I don't have to sweat running smokeless loads in.
Many people don't realize just how diminutive the small frame Iver-Johnson pistols are, so I decided to give some perspective with my SP101 and J-frame 360PD
