I have made some headway on the 1917 project with a lot of help from some great folks. A special thanks to Burt, George Roghaar and others.
Heres where it is. 1917 Brazilian in poor shape. I've replaced the cylinder with a new 625 cylinder, all the internal high wear parts came from Numrich; springs, rebound slide, cylinder block and more.
Burt did a great job on a late model ejector rod with a replacement knurled end (left hand threads)for the 625 cylinder. George did the case color hardening on the hammer and trigger and they look like new or better!
Now the decision. Chop or not. The original barrel is bulged behind the front sight. Since the barrel is totally screwed anyway, why not chop it and refinish the whole thing? I probably made up my mind on it, I just hate to think about polishing out the original patent rollmarks, what would you do? I did a photo edit to see what it would look like chopped. What do ya think? The photo really makes the metal look worse than it is, it is pitted but not too bad to buff out. Thanks again for the contributors to the project. Best Regards, Chef
