I bought this early pre-18 serial# K88139 about a year ago. It's in nice shooter condition, not a safe queen. Everything is numbered to the gun including the grips.







Somewhere in its' past some *%#$%&* decided to customize the original front and rear sight. I was able to change the rear sight blade back to an original one (thanks vm!), but I'd need a gunsmith to change the front sight back to the correct original Baughman quick draw front sight.





I shot the gun with the customized front sight and had a hard time picking it up. I'm also somewhat of a purist and I really hate not having the sight be original (I know, I should have never bought the gun in the first place, but it just kind of followed me home and I wanted to rescue it).

After searching for an original front sight with no luck, I bought a complete 4" pre-18 replacement barrel with the correct sight on it. It's a slightly newer barrel serial #K173??? and the front sight mounting pins stick out slightly. They aren't polished flat like the earlier front sights like on my gun.

I'd really like to put the correct front sight back onto the gun, and I'm not opposed to spending a reasonable amount of money to do so. I don't know of any local gunsmiths that can or will do a good job. I'm not even sure if it is possible to install the sight and polish the sight pins flat without damaging the bluing around the sight. I'd probably have to settle for having the sight pins stick out like on the newer pre-18's, but I could live with that.

Any thoughts, ideas, help, or gunsmith recommendations???

.... or should I just sell or trade the gun and cut my loses???

thanks!

I'd want to keep the original numbered barrel on the gun. Your best option is to have the ramp and blade from your replacement barrel installed on the original barrel. The flush pins were installed and polished before finishing, so I think it's much wiser to keep the original finish and live with the proud pins. A good gunsmith should be able to do it without too much trouble.

__________________
"I also cook."

I'm planning on keeping the original barrel on the gun and robbing the sight off of the replacement barrel.
I just need to find a good smith to do it.

I don't know if S&W would be willing to do it, but I'd ask them first.

__________________
"I also cook."

Hamilton Bowen did a first class job for me. He actually made a ramp front sight base and blade from a blank (which, by the way, he sells on his web site). We agreed to leave the pins proud and they turned out great.




If you go with taking the sight off the replacement barrel you might check that the front blade is the same width as your rear sight notch. I think the 22 CM started out 1/8" but you have a very early one at K88139. (learning moment for some: the 6" K22 Masterpiece started with a 1/10" wide Patridge sight and changed to 1/8" in 1952 around K130XXX and K140XXX.)

Good luck . . . that is a mighty fine (early) example and well worth the effort correcting that front sight.

Russ

"I'd probably have to settle for having the sight pins stick out like on the newer pre-18's, but I could live with that."......


Just wanted to add that while the proud front site pins are usually found on older models it appears that both proud front site pins and flush ones appear both ways without any real order on the 5 screw guns evidenced by your guns flush pins.

Dont know if its true but someone once commented that the front site pins were finished either polished smooth or proud depending on the employee working on the line that day.

BTW like Linde said your pre 18 has a VERY low serial number for a K22 CM.
Book says 1949 to 1985 production run, I dont track serial numbers but your 1950 is one of the lowest serialed K22 CM's I have seen.
Definately worth a quality repair.

Someone once posted a link to this company called "Alpha Precision"
I cannot vouche for them personally but they do the work according to their website.
Services & Prices

Good Luck and remember to keep us posted on your progress with lots of good pictures.

Keep the gun...fix the front sight. Worst case is a couple of proud pins. That looks like a very nice Combat Masterpiece indeed.

My early (K136153) 22 CM has proud front sight pins...

That's a very nice, very early example. If it's anything like mine, it's a shootin' dude--mine is the best shooter I've got.

1blindref,

My very early .22 CM has an original patridge sight. I'm not at home and forget its serial number & year. Your pre-18 might be old enough for a partridge to be period correct even though that's not what it shipped with, so you could consider one for a clearer sight picture. Yours has less wear and tear than mine but as you wrote, it's a shooter. High pins wouldn't bother me at all. I don't even recall if mine has them or not and I've shot it a lot. If you went with a patridge you could always switch to a Baughman at a later date.

The most logical answer I have heard as to why some are left proud and some polished flat, is that some models were offered with choice of front sights. These models had the sights left proud. IF an order came in for a patridge sight and a gun in inventory had a ramp sight, the sights were changed out without refinishing. Don't know if this is correct, but best I have heard.

Charlie

Thank you all very much for your input.
You've given me some good leads to follow up on and also helped validate me keeping the gun and making it right.

Roy Jinks has commenetd on the flush vs proud sight pins. According to him, they could be either way depending on whether the front sight was installed before or after bluing. And they were done both ways at the same time.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Thanks.
That's great to know. Now I just need to find the right smith to do the job.

This is a K22 CM from 1953, s/n K171435, and you will note the proud pins under the sight. So it wouldn't be unusual if left proud.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I sent Hamilton Bowen an email with pictures and this was their response:

"... Yours is probably one of those problems that doesn't have an easy solution. It is inconceivable to me that the original sight retaining pin holes and the ones off the barrel you bought would match up. They are drilled somewhat at random. Further, the base, once pinned to the rib, is then blended/tapered to match the rib. There is simply no way I can see that you do do anything about the front sight that did not, at a bear minimum, entail rebluing the barrel.

The simplest way to repair the sight would be to remove the blade, mill a pocket in the base and pin in a new blade. You still have the problem of blending in this pin and then matte finishing the top and sides of the blade, all of which require bluing.

Another way is to use your new barrel, micro weld in the serial number and have an engraver restamp or recut a matching number. But, again, this will require rebluing of the barrel.

At the end of the day, the costs (several hundred dollars) to do any of this in good style will start to approach the value of the gun. If it were mine, I would pin in a new blade to the barrel on the gun and do whatever finishing was indicated.

Not sure this helps much but having done a fair amount of this sort of work, I don't see much alternative."


It's not what I was hoping to hear. After seeing the work on their website, it looks like they know what they are doing.

Looks like I'll be shaking some more trees to get some other opinions. I'm going to try calling S&W again to see what they say.
I really don't want to refinish the gun and I hope there are some other alternatives but I'm not too optimistic

There is one s/n lower then K87210 in the database - it shipped 08/1950. The next s/n in the database is K908xx and it shipped 09/1959.

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Dennis
SWCA #2409, SWHF #353

You've certainly explored all the alternatives.

My standards would be;
Not change the barrel,
not reblue the original,
not add an extra pin to attach a new blade.

Therefore if it were my gun I would:
Use the base and blade from the extra barrel,
Remove your base/blade,
Assemble the replacement base/blade to the original barrel and see how well it fits.
If the pin holes do not match up, carefully drill thru the existing holes in the rib with new base in place with correct size drill so as not to enlarge the holes in the rib and only deep enough to go thru the new base but not out the other side of the rib.
You can check the width of the new base and your existing rib with a caliper to see how they compare before doing anything. If the base doesn't blend with your barrel rib and is too wide, you can carefully sand down the sides to match and just have the new sight professionally reblued.
If you decide to proceed, install the new sight with proud pins. My early Combat Mast. also has proud pins on the front sight.

Hope that helps,

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Thanks Hondo.
I'm not going to have the complete gun refinished. I'm hoping the sight swap can be done with minimal finish destruction. I'm not giving up on this one!!