I recently inherited this .38 S&W Double Action Perfected revolver that belonged to my grandfather. He was a farmer, and I'm told he used it to kill the hogs he raised for bacon, ham, chittlin's, and such.
Unfortunately, one of my well-meaning uncles (may God rest his soul) had it reblued some years ago.
From searching posts here that reported serial # and year shipped info for this model, I found one with S/N 43602 that shipped in January 1913. Also one with S/N 8153 had "papers" from S&W showing ship date in October 1911. The S/N of mine is 287xx; so I'm thinking it was probably made and shipped in 1912. Cool!
All the numbers are matching on frame, cylinder, barrel, latch and right grip. The action seems tight and everything works as it should. It has some light "frosting" on the cylinder and frame that wasn't polished out during the reblue. The "gunsmith" (hack) who reblued it did polish enough to virtually erase the S&W logo and caliber markings.
Also, he blued over the case coloring on the hammer and trigger.
The grips are original, but one has a chip out of the bottom.
I would love to have it properly restored; but from what I've read here, it seems that service is in short supply:
- S&W factory no longer repairs/refinishes pre-1960 guns
- Turnbulls Restorations doesn't do S&W's
- Old Western Gunsmithing is defunct
- Ford's Guns no longer does "top break" revolvers due to "age and fragility"
- Fogles Gunsmithing only does modern blueing (not sure if that qualifies as restoration)
Anybody have any other recommendations???