Leave the barrel as is, and just have it round-butted

Unless it's a NIB gun, well-done and good looking work done on it won't hurt the value much. I have seen some rare guns like 520's totally hacked up,because they USED to be cheap when they were sold as "overruns" and those are very sought after now.

Just my opinion, I always think cut-down S&W's never look right, and having off-center lettering on the barrel makes it look like a hack job.

It won't be worth a mint anytime soon, and actually making it unique and more useable with the RB might add value to it if you decide to use it as trading stock in the future.......you would put that one up for sale and I could see a few guys who HAD to have it trying to buy it.