A little long winded I suppose but here goes.

The top gun I bought new when I was 16 in 1978, originally an 8 3/8" piece. My first handgun, a kid caught up in Dirty Harry, and actually bought at retail which was near impossible to find then in the Bay Area of California due to the DH "craze". Some years later I had the barrel cut to 5". Some years after that (1994?) while cleaning it I noted what looked like a "chunk" of metal missing from the bore about halfway down the barrel. I called the factory and was advised to send it in. A couple of weeks later I received a call from the "assigned technician" advising that, in fact, the barrel was defective. The problem is, his words, the only 5" barrel we have is for the Classic with the interchangeable front sight. Would that be OK? Uh, yep. A few weeks later I received the gun and it was as new, fully re-nickeled, three different front sights and dead tight in every way, at no cost. I remember him explicitly saying that he was fully authorized to determine and agree with the customer the extent of the repair. He seemed excited about the conversion. What service. I assume those days are long gone.

The scond gun was purchased when I was living in Alberta (2004 - 2009) as a beater for $400. The Cokes did it for me. I imported it when I returned to the State's and thought it was the perfect piece to make into a replica of the 500 5" guns made back in '56 (?) or so. I replaced and fitted some of the internals then sent the gun with a Stroh front sight assembly (less grips) to Alan Harton in Houston requesting the 5" cut, mount of the Stroh sight, polish and blue. I sent the grips to a gent here on the forum for restoration. Bingo. Here's the original gun.