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Some folks just shouldn't be allowed to own hacksaws...

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Persoanally the shotgun bead sounds like a good idea to me.

For $75.00, I'd have bought that lost puppy home too, but don't be so hard on the guy who hacked the barrel off. It might have been REALLY screwed up before. :D
 
Well, 99.9999% of shooters are not equipped or qualified to swap a S&W barrel at home. Yes, you may get lucky and everything lines up along with an acceptable barrel/cylinder gap. However, quite often, it requires lathe work, setting the barrel back a thread or two and that, my friends, requires expertise. So no, while I am comfortable with a lot of home gunsmith work and own a lathe, I would not have taken that many-times-refinished sixgun home at $75. Or even free for that matter. I'd rather pay $300-$400 for a good one than a $0-$75 headache. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. It would be different if it was in better shape with the original finish or a decent single action.
 
You know it's not THAT hard to solder on a front sight... It's been done for generations. One could be made, or just use a rifle ramp (they don't look good, I don't think, but they work). Of course, the nickel would need to be removed...
 
That was one of my original ideas. I have an old .38 top break in the parts bin. Excise the sight and a portion of the rib as the base. Voila, nickel half moon sight.
 
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If the action is tight and the trigger feels decent then it would be criminal to just stick a bead on it. A 'smith that does lots of handguns would likely have the piloted end cutter and crowning cutter to restore the end of the barrel. From there some careful alignment and solder on a new front sight.

It still won't change the fact that the finish is rather ratty but as a shooter it would still have lots of life in it.

$75 for a project gun like this which has a tight action? I'd take it so fast my wallet would be near to bursting into flames from the friction of being drawn so fast..... :D

Another interesting option for it is to get even more carried away and chop it down into a Fitz conversion or something similar. Someone here did such a thing to an old Model 10 a year or two back. Don't recall who it was. But the results were not bad.
 
BC, that is actually close to where I'm going with it. The Barrel was 3 5/8" and cut at an angle. I cut it square at an even 3", and broke out the 11 degree crown cutter. Somewhere around the shop is an old Stevens shotgun barrel with a small silver bead. I'd like to find a decent set of grips, but I can't locate the ones from my old model 10. Anyway, it should end up as a useful POS.
 
Makes you wonder if the previous owner took the "just file the front sight down" a little to far.:neener:
 
Another crappy photo, showing the now 3" crowned barrel. BTW, took it out with some 158 LSWCs. Not surprisingly, it went bang every time.

I take it back, just checked with the vernier... Barrel is 3.056 :p
 

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Cheapest fix is a front sight from Numrich soldered in place. I was willing to try the swap (and I am no machinist or gunsmith) to have an original looking gun.
 
Well if nothing else works you could make yourself a fitz special. I wouldn't normally advise such butchery but someone else already bubba'd that gun so you can be guilt free.
 
I'd still rather have a blade on it for a variety of reasons. First is that you can make it a little too high in purpose and file it down to match the load you want to shoot from it. Second is that with a soldered on blade the front sight would be more streamlined and not tend to snag on a pocket or holster.
 
Dang, some of the posts on here are funny.

Seems like some of us see a functioning and viable firearm for $75. I'd jump all over it for that price.

Betting you could glue half a nickel on it and make more than your money back on it relatively quickly.

All you guys crying about the shame of it or how horrible it is or that it just needs to be parted out or just is junk now...next time you find one like this lemme know please.

A $75 tight gun that shoots but is fugly? All the makings of a decent little beater gun that works every time. Take that nickel plating off, figure out a front sight (or not if it's just a backup belly gun), and a cold blue kit, Duracoat, cheap parkerizing job, or even black stove spraypaint and this thing would look 10x better and be nothing most folks would sneer at.

[/rant]
 
Well there are some folks who simply won’t shop the bargain basement, and insist that only the finest and most expensive is acceptable. Others will more often then not, substitute ingenuity for cash. I believe what works, works - and over the years in various competitions I’ve out shot a lot of folks that had more expensive guns then I did. What this piece of junk represents is a challenge… ;)
 
I have to say in that Fitz thread someone linked to earlier I groaned when a poster suggested the guy, instead of cutting up a not mint 50ish year old 4" Model 10, go out and buy a BRAND NEW 3" Model 10. Yeah...working on a gun himself that he might have paid $300 if he got screwed on it vs buying a...crap, what do they go for now? Last new S&W Model 10 I saw was over $600 in store!

More money than sense.
 
I'm with Old Fuff. I think that would be a cool project gun. Personally, I'd consider chopping the barrel to 3 inches, put on a front sight, bob the hammer, maybe grind the grip to a round profile, bead blast and parkerize it, and throw on some appropriate stocks.

The DA pull on those guns is amazing, and if it is mechanically sound, you could make it a really neat piece.
 
Well there are some folks who simply won’t shop the bargain basement, and insist that only the finest and most expensive is acceptable.
Click to expand...
Or maybe we've been burned by so-called projects that will never be worth what you put into them. Money that would be better spent on a better gun in the first place. Been there, done that, thank you very much. Or maybe I should've kept that old .38-44HD around just to remind me about "project" guns. Some are worth saving, some are not. :rolleyes:

PS, I really don't care how tight the barrel/cylinder gap is. This is the easiest to fix. What is NOT easy to fix is ragged out lockwork on a vintage S&W.
 
Craig, have you not read? 75 in, no future outlay planned. Amazing how you could discern the condition of the internals from a couple of out of focus cell phone pictures though. Simply amazing. Would it make you happier if I said the timing was all dicked up?
 
I would have been reaching for my wallet as fast as I could if I had been offered this gun at the price the OP paid for it. A number of people on the forum say buy a S&W and then the OP buys one that is mechanically sound but cosmetically challenged they dump on him saying it is a POS. He bought the gun for less than a lot of guns with questionable quality have been sold for. I say he got a great deal for a shooter gun that he doesn't have to worry about getting a scratch on. I would put a front sight on it and shoot the revolver. I wish I could run across a deal like this.
 
.45Guy, you did well. Like you've already posted, $75 plus a little work with tools & parts you already have on hand to get it really running is a deal. I'd have bought a like gun for that price, thrown a shotgun bead on it as Tuner suggests, and called it good.
 
A shotgun bead may not be the best answer, unless some kind of rib is fastened to the barrel. Shotgun beads usually have a threaded stud that goes into a hole in the barrel. the barrel wall here is pretty thin, and there is a good chance the pilot drill might go all of the way through. O.K. in a shotgun but not in a revolver's rifled bore.
 
If it is reliable, and if carry is legal, that would be an OK carry gun or car gun. If you have to use it and it is confiscated, small loss.

Jim
 
Gaucho not quite the same deal, but ye local gonne shoppe has a really nice 15-3 marked for $250...
 
Well, I attempted a video checking all chambers with a range rod at full lock up. Unfortunately the crap camera I dug out to use only records in 30 second increments...:banghead: Anyway, suffice to say everything aligns correctly, and you can hear the cylinder stop engaging before full cock.
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