Smithing Call-out Post

Welp. A problem I caused just got a lot more expensive unfortunately it's because I gave it to a smith to fix that may not be any better than me.

So I have a model 58 (yep the holy grail gun). Picked it up for ~$700 which is a steal compared to what people want for them now. Thanks to poor photo's on gunbroker curbing people's interest (and a lot of luck) I ended up with a very pristine example of this rare gun. Which through the years I proceeded to drop at least once on concrete (dinged up the front sit AND a rear corner). I swaged the sight and corner back into shape with polished and greased brass punches but those cosmetic issues always bothered me. Then I had a little deformation around one area of the side plate and decided to just have it refinished. (Don't boo me... yet.)

SO I check with S&W and they have a 7 month wait time... that's a long time. I check around and see Ford's name come up and a few others and their prices are out of this world compared to the manufacturer! (I know the rule of balancing of fast, good, and cheap but still!)

So I went with a local guy. He makes his own barrels and is highly sought after for Contender conversions, wildcats, and weird projects. These days he's getting on in age and just got out of the hospital and maybe those projects are behind him or maybe he let his assistants do the work. But long story short, I leave my gun with him and after a month I go pick it up. It looks pretty ok at first glance so I hand over three bills and take it home where strip it down to individual components to inspect it and find just how bad of a hack job they did: oil weeping from the barrel pin and front site (which they did not remove before dipping) ruined the finish. You'd think that'd be bad enough right? But no. The worst thing these guys did is they didn’t swab out the barrel and protect it with oil after dipping, I look down the muzzle and am greeted by a big bubble of red rust in the rifling. No matter how frantically I scrubbed in delusional belief that maybe it wouldn't affect anything the gun now has a streak of pitting in the rifling near the muzzle in the 12 o’clock position. Is it horrible? No, I've seen a WWII 1911 with a much worse barrel shoot straight and relatively cleanly but... it's all just insult to injury.

David Van Horn of Gilbert, AZ... when I get something simple like a rifle or a contender I might let your crew touch it but till then: nope.

Anyone have a pristine Mod. 58 barrel they'd be willing to sell me so I can send this thing to S&W, wait a year, and hopefully get back a gun that looks as good as the day I got it?


Update 6/28/2021
Just to let you guys know: Ford's Custom Guns and Frank Glenn of Glenn Custom Guns took really great care of me. I sent in the gun to get on Ford's 6 month wait list. I asked for factory or better blue and that I would look for a new barrel to send them. I foudn a barrel a few month later on the-bay. Though it didn't look clean (dust and such in the bore with bad pictures) I took a chance on the $40 price tag and bought it: it came and was absolutely pristine in the bore though the breech end was a little lopsided. I sent it on to Ford's to reblue and install; turning back a thread or two. I get it back and they do a spectacular job of refinishing the piece. Unfortunately, they didn't turn back the barrel and the cylinder gap of .019 on the low side isn't acceptable. Off to Mr. Glenn. A quick drive north and I meet with him and say, I want it better than new and will pay for it to be done. A few weeks go by and I get it back: and the feeler gauge marked .008-.010 is the new gap. No marks on the blue from the operation.
I couldn't be happier!

Did they hide those mistakes with cold blue so you'd accept it? The boo boos (other than the inside of the barrel) seem pretty obvious. Maybe they presented it to you in a dark room?

I don't think I would have paid the man for such obvious errors. Have you asked them to fix their mistakes yet? I think I would try that first, at least in an effort to get a refund submited.

I'm truly sorry about what they did to your grail gun. How bad was it before they got it?

The gun repair industry has been bought out by the new car dealers. They don't want to fix anything right or reasonable so that you will buy only new at greater cost.

I gave a buddy my (1925/28) grandfather's 16ga double as a gift many years ago. He decided he wanted to have it disassembled, cleaned up and the trigger pulls lightened. I wasn't able to remove one main screw despite trying all the 'tricks'. So, we brought it to a prestigious (read: super high-end / expensive clientele) shotgun dealer within an hour's drive. After a few months we called and was told 'a little while longer'. Called again months later and told to come and get'er. When we got there, the proprietor told us that they 'cleaned her out' but weren't able to lighten the triggers because....get this one: "the springs were old". On the way home, I told my buddy that I was POSITIVE that they couldn't get that same screw out. So, they charged us $85 for a cleaning that they didn't do. When we got to my house, I showed him that the screw still would not budge (obviously, if they had taken the gun apart, it would be easily removed by us at this point. Oh, and they broke off the front (ivory) bead sight, but didn't mention it to us. Sorry for the hijack.
J.

pantannojack said:

The gun repair industry has been bought out by the new car dealers. They don't want to fix anything right or reasonable so that you will buy only new at greater cost.

Click to expand...

That may or may not be true in general, but how does it relate to OP's incident? He didn't go to someone who had anything to sell him if the reblue botched...

OP, sorry for your experience -- most of us have had something like it happen once or twice. No fun. If rebarreling is ultimately in order, placing a listing here in the Want to Buy subforum and watching eBay are your best bets.

Personally, I wouldn't use S&W for rebluing or gunsmithing on anything other than warranty repair for modern MIM and lock era guns.

You're in Arizona. I'd give Frank Glenn at Accuracy Unlimited a call -- he's one of the few old revolver masters still working and he's (more or less) in your neck of the woods. See what he advises. Might be that bore damage is negligible and all you need is a proper refinish; I went down the rabbit hole on a rebarrel once because of light pitting in the bore that had no effect on function but bothered me on principle and when all was said and done I'd very much wished I left it be and just shot the thing and enjoyed it as-is.

As for that refinish, I'd pay for Ford's or Glenrock (my choice, based on reviews) or one of the other shops that know how to blue right (run a search here on the forum, lists are compiled).

Hapworth said:

Personally, I wouldn't use S&W for rebluing or gunsmithing on anything other than warranty repair for modern MIM and lock era guns.

You're in Arizona. I'd give Frank Glenn at Accuracy Unlimited a call -- he's one of the few old revolver masters still working and he's (more or less) in your neck of the woods.

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I've seen a lot of posts saying the performance center still to this day provides excellent refinishing services with full and complete disassembly to the smallest bit and pin with further inspection and replacement of any small parts that need it. What have you heard to advise against them?

foxfyre841 said:

I've seen a lot of posts saying the performance center still to this day provides excellent refinishing services with full and complete disassembly to the smallest bit and pin with further inspection and replacement of any small parts that need it. What have you heard to advise against them?

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I've seen those posts, too; some of the re-blues look nice in pictures. Nickel seems to be something they still do well; stainless, too, though bead blast or high polish isn't too difficult.

What isn't clear is if the Performance Center is doing its own bluing using traditional methods, or the inferior method now used on all current S&W blued revolvers. Run a search here to read more about S&W's new bluing and relative inferiority in both appearance and hardiness, particularly in relation to common gun cleaning solvents.

It is unlikely PC gets to do its own bluing method distinct form the rest of the shop. Personally, I'd rather go with a guaranteed good outfit for traditional bluing and S&W is not that anymore.

As to the PC inspecting and correcting spec issues with a revolver in their care, some good reports that way, and it's a nice sometimes feature; mind you, it isn't a promised service and doesn't always happen.

I sent (within the last five years) a revolver in for a warranty issue and they corrected some incidental endshake, gratis; I appreciated that. But they also sent the revolver back failing to index properly, which had not been an issue when sent in. I'd have rather corrected the endshake myself with a shim than had to pay a qualified gunsmith to determine and correct why my just returned from the Performance Center revolver was suddenly shaving jackets unto locking the cylinder up after just a few rounds at the range, which it had never done before.

Sure, I could've called S&W, let them know, maybe gotten it squared away on their dime (and timeframe, whatever that may have been), but honestly I didn't want them monkeying with it any more than they already had when I knew I could get it done right going to a trusted shop.

I can understand wanting to with the factory, in general and given your recent experience, and perhaps you will and perhaps it'll go well -- I'd be happy, if so. But the S&W that is today is not the S&W from when your Model 58 was built, and I'd take it to folks who know how things were done when that 58 was new.

Whatever you do, good luck and let us know how goes.

I think I'd be demanding a refund.

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk

I’d have demanded they fix it before I paid them!

Gary Reeder Custom Guns in Flagstaff does great work. Im sure he cost but all the best ones do.

Forgive me if I speak out of turn here, but would there be any sense in selling the gun and then be on the hunt for another grail gun that rings all the bells? This one may always nag at you for what has happened to it and what may happen if you go the barrel swap route. My grail gun wouldn’t be one with a swapped barrel. I don’t know what another gun would end up costing you, but sometimes it’s wise to stop throwing good money after bad.
Just my two cents, sorry about the aggravation this situation has caused you.
Sometimes the hunt is just as fun as owning one.

Would not send any classic revolver to S&W for anything period.
The guys who built them and the pride in quality no longer lives there.

Trying to find a "good" gunsmith in anyone's area is a challenge. We currently have no in business gunsmiths. (City of 40,000 and service area of 150,000). There are a couple of hobbyist gunsmiths but none do any bluing. Any custom work you have to find someone out of the area to ship the guns to.

Thank you everyone. I've shipped off to Ford's and am awaiting their assessment. They hope that the barrel can be saved but I have my eye on several listed on ebay or other sellers for when they call me back. If they can't make that bore spotless like it used to be then I'll make a decision.

The neat thing is that there is a 4" hooded barrel from a mod.57 on ebay right now and that would also look interesting. There have been a number of conversions using hooded barrels on this frame that look amazing (see picture).

Unfortunately, selling this and using the funds to purchase a different one is a no-go: except for a short run in 2008 (with that horrid frame-lock) it's been out of production since 1977 and much worse condition guns are commanding serious prices (~$1500).

Wont beat you up for over paying at a respected gunsmith that let the scrubs in the back do the work under his name... but I do have a model 58 barrel I would sell but it is not pristine and has been mag-an-ported. PM if you like.

FYI
See the edits to the original post: Mr. Frank Glenn of Glenn Custom Guns and Ford's Custom Guns took care of me. Everything looks great!

Your report on the work done by Frank Glenn doesn’t surprise me. If I’d been able to recommend someone, he’d be on the short list.

The reason the really really great Gun Smiths charge so much and their wait times are so long is that the really great GS's are few and far between these days. From what I have seen from Club members, most GS's these days are only fair to poor with some being "butchers"!

I try and do all my own GSing and about the only thing I really can't or won't do is Hot Bluing.

I have given this advise out for many years - never buy a
"bargain" gun and think you will save money by changing a barrel, sights, caliber, etc. Get what you want in the condition you want from the very start. In the long run it is the best and least expensive way.

If you damage a gun by accident, get it fixed right the first time. For GS's who have very short wait times and seem cheap - there might be a good reason for that. Not saying you should purposely try to spend as much as possible but unfortunately, many times price and lead times reflect abilities and skill. Just saying.......