Modified-Customized - Please share yours

SFIDEC · Aug 19, 2022

I've enjoyed having several modified S&W's over the years but these are my favorites. All but the M13 have had major alterations and precision changes by prior owners as I don't have that ability. I enjoy changing out grips, cylinders, latches, hammers, triggers, and other easy stuff. Most of all, I love how they shoot.
K frame- 13-2 (Cylinder swap and Target Hammer & Trigger)
L frame - 586-1 (Ported, Bobbed DA only, Front Sight, Actin Job)
N frame - Late M28-2 (44 mag, Re-barreled, Front Sight, Action Job, Round Butt)
Please share your Modified-Customized Babes.
Thank you!
Ray

Lou_the_welder · Aug 19, 2022

I wonder who did that porting on the 586!!!!

It looks like a Korth now.
Very nice!

Bet it must be nice to shoot.

CWH44300 · Aug 19, 2022

Those look great
I really go for the two tone look
Most here have seen this one a bunch but here it is again
A mountain revolver , I let Magnaport do it up

two-bit cowboy · Aug 19, 2022

Many might recall this one from several years ago.

Baby Chiefs Special 11920, shipped September '52.

Bobbed hammer, reblued extractor rod and 2nd flat latch thumbpiece, hammer and trigger re-color case hardened, trigger guard relieved on the right side, back strap checkered, $5 gold piece from 2000 -- the year I retired from the Air Force -- inset into Craig Spegel Baby boot grips, USAF Chief Master Sergeant stripes etched into the side plate after the revolver was Cerekoted.

A friend who's a retired US Navy Chief called it the ultimate vanity piece.

SmithNut · Aug 19, 2022

two-bit cowboy said:
Many might recall this one from several years ago.

Baby Chiefs Special 11920, shipped September '52.

Bobbed hammer, reblued extractor rod and 2nd flat latch thumbpiece, hammer and trigger re-color case hardened, trigger guard relieved on the right side, back strap checkered, $5 gold piece from 2000 -- the year I retired from the Air Force -- inset into Craig Spegel Baby boot grips, USAF Chief Master Sergeant stripes etched into the side plate after the revolver was Cerekoted.

A friend who's a retired US Navy Chief called it the ultimate vanity piece.

That is VERY cool, that's only the second set of Cocobolo Spegels I've seen on a Baby Chief...

StrawHat · Aug 19, 2022

Here is one that many will remember, it started as a very poorly converted S&W Model 25-2 with a 3.5" barrel.

strawhat-albums-strawhat-ii-picture25040-d7cc6185-bae7-486f-86f1-110dc2612b9c.jpeg

It ended up as a S&W Model 25-2 with a 4.25" barrel, a round butt, McGivern sight and a trigger pull that might have me consider competing again!

strawhat-albums-strawhat-ii-picture24978-model-25-2-mcgivern-bead.jpeg

The complete tale can be found here,

Opinions wanted on this bubba'd 25-2

Kevin

StrawHat · Aug 19, 2022

Here is another one of mine, (this one, I did all the work except boring and rifling the barrel.) A S&W Model 28-2 that I round butted and converted to 45 ACP.

strawhat-albums-strawhat-picture24769-model-28-2-custom-45-acp.jpeg

This one was built in the 80s, long before the Mountain Guns or any other 45 ACP revolvers except the S&W Model 25-2.

Kevin

two-bit cowboy · Aug 19, 2022

SmithNut said:
... that's only the second set of Cocobolo Spegels I've seen on a Baby Chief...

Yeah, Craig went the extra mile for the Baby. It's not as though he can start with a Model of 1953 or later Chiefs pattern. He pretty much has to create for the Baby size as he goes.

Oh, and, they're ebony.

Green Frog · Aug 19, 2022

I'm out in the boonies on an iPad right now, so pictures don't post well. I'll just mention my Project 616… it started life as a Model 66 ND. I got it as a police trade in some time back in the '80s. It suffered years of use (and abuse) until about 10-15 years ago when I had a Mod 617 barrel rebored to .313 and had Andy Horvath use that and a rechambered 617 cylinder to make a 327 Fed Mag out of it.

Froggie

SmithNut · Aug 19, 2022

two-bit cowboy said:
Yeah, Craig went the extra mile for the Baby. It's not as though he can start with a Model of 1953 or later Chiefs pattern. He pretty much has to create for the Baby size as he goes.

Oh, and, they're ebony.

Yeah, I don't think he has enough customers requesting it for a Baby Chief (other than yours and mine

) to justify making any kind of jig (not sure how he does it for volume models...)
Interesting yours is ebony, is that Macasser Ebony? They look a little dark reddish from the pic. Mine is Cocobolo and he's doing very little with that these days as it's now non-importable wood so he's working from what he has from what I know.
Yours are pretty nice, I especially like the $5 gold piece...

two-bit cowboy · Aug 19, 2022

Thank you.

Yes, Maccaser Ebony.

I'm not a fan of safe queen guns, and I felt the same about that gold coin. A bit over the top, and Craig had me get a jeweler to solder a gold post on the back so he'd have something to ensure it would stay seated.

Here's the holster it rides in along with a shot of the Baby before it went in for a makeover.

Kansasgunner · Aug 19, 2022

Posted this one before, 65-5 by Ted Yost when he was at Heirloom Precision.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Kansasgunner · Aug 19, 2022

This gun was commissioned by bascrambler and built by the late John Gallagher. It started as a transitional .38 Outdoorsman. Cylinder bored to .44 Special, installed a Model of 1950 4" barrel cut to 3.5" with gold bead front sight like a Registered Magnum and a rust blue. Grips were non-relieved smooth Targets custom checkered by ???? I've since changed the grips to transitional magnas numbered just 30 off from the guns serial number.

tennexplorer · Aug 20, 2022

Two of mine:

An ersatz McGivern Heavy Duty Target .38-44. The de-nickeling, the bluing, and the machining of the frame for the adjustable sight were outsourced. I did everything else, including new hammer and trigger. There was a LOT of hand filing to get surfaces that had been badly rounded off when it was nickeled back to being as close as possible to correct.

The closest thing I have to a before picture.

A model 10-6 .38 Special 3" round butt. It was converted from a four inch square butt. The square butt to round butt part took a while. It has since been Parkerized which was outsourced.

80sgyrene · Aug 20, 2022

My two L frames.

581 and 681 picked up when they were cheap.
Bbl chopped and crowned, Tritium front sights dovetailed in,
ejector shroud reprofiled and converted to round butt.

s3dcor · Aug 20, 2022

I purchased this 686-1, 3" at a pawn shop in 2014 for $525. It had already been modified.

After some internet investigation I have determined that this gun was sent to Magna-Port for all the work. The porting is called the "Trapezoidal Mag-Na-Porting" and is supposed to reduce recoil by as much as 20%.

The double detent is also a Magna-Port service.

And a very slick action job and a bead blast finish.

Seems like a bargain now

jcelect · Aug 20, 2022

629?

Here is my 629, well it started out as one! I bought this thru the forum from the original builder. It is now an 8 shot, 38 Super, full moon clip, w/custom ported barrel. When I bought the gun, it had a smoothed trigger and DAO hammer. I change those out to the standard config and lightened the trigger pull for a bowling pin gun! It now has a Fast Fire III on top!

jcelect

Mbrgr1 · Aug 20, 2022

I see some oldies in here, so.....

I'll toss in this just arrived 45 1917 that had Micro target sights added probably in the 50s or so.

A few hours of cleaning and a little cold blue here and there, it is tight and has a buttery smooth action, can't wait to shoot it!

ISCS Yoda · Aug 20, 2022

iscs-yoda-albums-s-and-w-revolvers-picture22252-model-10-transformed-1-a.jpg

You look at that old 2" Model 10 and ask, "How is this customized?". It is solely because that is probably the 4th or 5th set of stocks I've put on it over the course of its lifetime which, for me, started as a new gun at Oshman's in Highland Park Village, Highland Park/Dallas, TX in the very early 1980s. More or less, it's back to its original configuration.

BUT!!!

iscs-yoda-albums-s-and-w-revolvers-picture20604-customized-m-64-after-fire.jpg

That Model 64 is truly customized.

This is how it looked when I acquired it:

iscs-yoda-albums-s-and-w-revolvers-picture12700-m-64-dao-now-modified-see-album-entry-custom-m64-done-theshootist1894.jpg

This custom M 64 has a Model 12 "Airweight" barrel, replacing the original 4" barrel, done by "TheShootist1894" on this Forum, in the
Spring of 2016.

iscs-yoda-albums-s-and-w-revolvers-picture14886-custom-m-64-001-model-12-airweight-barrel-done-theshootist1894-spring-2016-a.jpg

Among the things that he did were a trigger job (the original DAO trigger was so hard to fire I guesstimated it at 16 to 20 pounds) . As you can see, he smoothed out the hammer and what you can't see is how he "flared" or opened up the trigger guard*. The stocks came with the gun but he made them look better and, obviously, he Cerakoted the entire gun in black.

*He did a similar gun for another Forum member which was posted here and that gave me the idea but he did a Flitz trigger guard on that gun and I didn't want that so he simply opened it up.

Modified · Aug 20, 2022

Hmm, I'll play...

Pre war kit gun

"Keith No. 5"...but wait uh:

A Triple Lock with...things done to it:

Heavily modified Springfield Armory 1911 that someone scratched their name in:

King Super Police 1917 with Walrus

A New Service with quite a few King Mods, and some interesting history:

Probably my favorite modified gun of them all for a variety of reasons. So many upgrades, the frame mounted firing pin is just so awesome, and the SWHF really came through:

I scarcely own a gun that isn't modified these days...

Modified-Customized - Please share yours

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