Well, my friend Michael sent me three of his images he took today. Yeah, they're better than my photos, but nowhere near the quality some of the guys get on this website. It's embarrassing to admit, but photogs we're not.



As you can see, Phil's gun shows the wear and tear of having been literally through the war. Mechanically, she's fine. Also, being hidden for two years from potential problems from the Mexican Army checking houses hasn't caused any additional wear or tear; it was in a safe place.



In the third photo, you can see some of the 207 grain Saeco mould bullets that loaded to a LOA (in a .38 Special Case) of 1.595 ahead of 7.8 grains of Blue Dot give one a nice 1,050 fps and a positive "thump" on firing. I had worked up this load before moving the revolver out of the house to have a full power load around that was instantly identifiable -- so as not to accidently be put into a normal .38 -- but was in a .38 Special casing. Remember; .357 is Verbotten here.



Also, one of the S.L. Variant Speedloaders for the 6-shot N-frames that I got in 2003 when Dillon was selling them. Right now, Bobby Mac is selling the S.L. Variants again, and he now has the 6-shot N-frame Model. I have purchases a couple more as I sort of like them, although they are somewhat modern to be used with Phil's gun. Since I rarely can take the chance to go anywhere with Phil's gun to shoot it, I suppose it doesn't matter so much if I get more or not. It would be so stupid to lose the gun at some Police or Military road block...which, here in Central Mexico, are far less common than they were even a few months ago. (For all the good they ever did anyway.)

The lettering of "Guadalcanal, Koromokina, Cape Torokina, and Piva Forks" is just engraved into the steel and not blued or painted. The lettering of "Smith & Wesson" and the engraved bit about the presentation and the caliber designation had been filled with white paint which has peeled or fallen off to leave the blueing underneath. The presentation engraving WAS blued, as I believe that was done by S&W before Phil got the gun. The place names from Guadalcanal and Bouganville would have been done after the war, probably by Phil using some jewelry engraver or something like that. A friend of mine who has seen the gun several times and does hand engraving says that the presentation engraving was done by hand, and I suppose he would know.

Phil's homemade cut-down grip adapter is in place in these shots.

Anyway, I hope these photos are helpful. It's taken me long enough to get them done. Excuse the wait.