I'm starting a new project, a one-of-a-kind blue L frame 5 shot 44 Spl with square butt starting with a 586 4". I bought the 5 shot cylinder and hand from S&W but of course it's stainless steel from a 696.

I plan to have the original barrel rebored by Bowen or someone. But 1st I'm going to reshape the barrel to a 1950 Target vintage look by milling the rib narrow and shortening the shroud and re-contouring to the slender barrel shape.

Then I'll refinish the entire gun. Ruger uses a black passivate finish on stainless screws when used on a blue gun. It matches the Ruger blue steel parts perfectly. I may do the entire gun in it or just the SS cylinder if it's a good match to the re-blue.

I've been planning it for a couple of years when I 1st bought the cylinder and installed it in my 296. I like the SS cylinder in my 296 but a 586 'host' gun just recently fell in my lap so I'm moving forward.

My 296 w/ SS cylinder from a 696

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Jim
S&WCA #819

One has already been made. While visiting Jim Stroh's shop several years ago he showed me one he had made for himself. L or K-frame with 696 cylinder installed and a 4" bored out mdl.66 barrel installed. A nice piece!

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S&W Accumulator

Hi Mike,
He kust have made it on a K frame. The Mod 66 barrel has a different bore axis to ejector/cylinder axis distance than the L frame. Was it a stainless gun?
Thx,

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Interesting project. As a longtime 44 Special fan, I wish you well. As for finish, as you will have a stainless/blued hybrid, you might look into Black-T. A very nice and durable finish that the FBI HRT uses for their entry weapons.

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-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

Hi Kehmkej,
Thanks for the suggestion and the link. Black-T is definitely black! The black passivate I mentioned that's used by Ruger seems to be blue enough to match a blue finished gun. Can't stand hybrids.

Thanks again,

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Hondo44, your project sounds terrific. Here's a photo of my "M691", a converted M681-3. David Clements did the work for me last year, and I'm still smitten with it. A 4" barrelled .44 Special with fixed sights works so well for me. It's now wearing a set of Crimson Trace "Hoghunter" laser grips, and is scary accurate with my 200gr LRNFP handloads. David beadblasted mine, but a black finish sounds great too.



Post some pictures of yours when it's done!

Ridgeway, I love your gun, what was the turn around time on it?

Mule88, turn around time was almost exactly a year. David doesn't do many of these. It required a new custom-made front sight, plus the barrel had to be sent out to be re-bored and re-rifled. Worth the wait though...

RidgwayCo,

Oh man, how sweet is that!! That 's one fine packin' handgun. A one-of-a- kind or if not, can't be many. I'm still debating about keeping my 4" barrel length or going to a 3"or even a 2". I like my 624 3" and the L frame 696 looks good at 3". I like the full ejector stroke I can maintain with a 3" also.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Jim,
you may alrready know about this place/man, but if not, he may be what you are looking for regarding your re-finish. He blues SS. His work is fully equal to Fords.

Firearm Refinish and Restoration

Hey Gun 4 Fun,

Good to hear from you again. This guy sounds like excatly what I need!! Thanks very much for the reference, you solved my knarliest problem. He sounds perfect!

Thank you,

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Jim
S&WCA #819

I am going to have him blue one of my SS Weatherby Mk V's.

I like SS restance to rust, but I prefer the traditional look of blue. According to his site, he can make the blued SS look about like a stock Colt 1911 does on the side of the slide. that's pretty good if you ask me.

I have been reading this thread with great interest, and am very interested in seeing what you end up with.

Sir,

Although not an 'L' frame...But, a stainless 3 " barrel (624) on this .44Special.

Just a light bead-blast and off the the local black oxide dipper.

And sha-zam black all over.




One of My favorite everyday workin' revolvers

Su Amigo,
Dave

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"IN GOD WE TRUST"

Dave,
That's a cool tough looking gun and a very durable finish. What gun did you start with, a pre model 21 or Model 21?

I've got a little model 36 with 3" full lug barrel like that from Smith, a very limited short prodution run of black guns.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Ridgway............Did your smith use a 696 cylinder and extractor for that conversion? Personally, I'd kinda like to have a 4" Mountain Gun tapered barrel on an L-frame. Visualize a 686 MG with 5-shot cylinder and a .429" bore. Probably not a bad idea to buy the parts from the current Nite-Guard 44Special version while they are available. I suspect it will be discontinued shortly due to lack of sales...........just like the 696.

tdan,
That's a good idea, the cylinder and barrel would already be black and they'd be a drop in. The barrel is only 2 1/2" and it's a 2 piece barrel. But I just looked at the S&W website and it's already no longer listed. If you can still get the cylinder, you could order the 44 Mag barrel liner and a 6 shot 357 nightgurad barrel shroud; it would have the proper L frame spacing between cylinder center axis and bore axis.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

tdan, I got the M696 cylinder assembly (including extractor) and 5-shot hand from S&W. Shipped them along with the M681-3 off to David Clements, and the revolver above is what he sent back. David did relate that the new 5-shot cylinder from S&W was incompletely reamed for .44 Special, but he remedied that...

Omigosh, these are the most gorgeous revolvers I've ever seen!

Yes, it was a stainless gun. Memory fuzzy could have been an L frame barrel. This was several years ago when he showed it to me.

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S&W Accumulator

Who you kiddin'?
You have some outstanding revo's, and the pics of them to prove it.
Nice to see you posting. I haven't seen you here for quite some time.

RidgwayCo,
That's very interesting! I fit the 44 cylinder to my 586 today. It was basically a drop in. I had to do some slight fitting of the new hand I bought with it, and that would have been all. Except, the extractor star was missing the final machining step on the hand notches!

I had to compare to my other newer Smiths to see what was wrong, then, I had to modify one corner of each ratchet notch to match my other guns. Then it worked fine!

Although my cylinder was correctly reamed to chamber 44 Spls. which I already knew, having used it in my 296. But I had used the original star from the 296 cylinder so I didn't discover the 44 ratchet problem until just today.

Thanks for that additional info!

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Jim
S&WCA #819

After about a year I finally found this 586-2 host gun. I've installed cylinder; gap is perfect. Next step unscrew barrel and send out for reboring to 44; would welcome suggestions about where to get that done. When it returns, I'll shorten the shroud mill the rib and re-contour the barrel and shroud to the early '50s 1950 44 Target style.

Pre war thumbrest already added.
Under the hammer spur already re-contoured.
Will add a pre war cylinder 'hold-open' dentent and the larger ejector knob shown.
Thanks to "Gun 4 Fn" in an earlier post, I know where to send barrel for bluing and get the stainless cylinder blued to match.

Then put her all back together. Still thinking about shortening to 3" or leaving as a 4".

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Jim,
I don't know for sure if Bowen uses Labounty Reboring or not, but David Clements told me once in a phone converation, that he used him. I know he's (Labounty) been at it a long time.

Gun 4 Fun, the man with the answers.

Thx buddy!

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Jim,
this is copied directly from Lilja rifle barrels website-

"We know of a couple of good rebore men. They are Randy Redman 509-826-5512 and Cliff LaBounty 360-599-2047."

La Bounty sold out to some folks in Oregon. He taught them the business, and both Clements, and Bowen are using them. Look on their sites, one of them has some info on this.

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dd884
JMHO-YMMV

I had read that here on the forum a while back, but when I last talked to Clements only about two months ago, he still referred to "LaBounty Reboring", so I am now wondering if the new owners kept the name?

I went to both Bowen's and Clements' site, and I could find no mention at all on Clements site, but I saw one place where Bowen mentions having some reboring done by some place called Delta Gun Shop. Maybe that's who bought LaBounty out.

With this gentleman I have had good e-mail contact.
Problem for me was the Europe-USA distance.

Clearwater barrel reboring:
Clearwater Reboring and Barrels - Frequently Asked Questions

By the way: What a super project!

Delta Gun Shop bought Mr. LaBounty's equipment. They explain the connection here: Delta Gun Shop-About Us