A friend has a M/28-2 that has been made into a "Mountain Gun" by swapping a M/29 cylinder and M/24 4" barrel. How much should I pay for something like this ?

How good of a friend? What is he asking for it? Any working N frame is worth at least $500 around me.

Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

It's difficult to establish a fair market price for such a thing. Things to consider would be the quality of the build and the overall condition of the revolver.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

Blueing all match? timing & lockup good? Bbl gap, endshake? I assume bbl is still marked 44spl? How’s it shoot?

Tough without pics, 500 may or may not be a good price.

Who did the work and what do the receipts show that he is into it for? Tough for him to sell something that cost him $750 for $500. Too many times people think they should not loose money on their decisions. In todays market, I would have a tough time seeing an N frame shooter in good condition not worth $500-$600.

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Front sight and squeeze

How bad do you want it? It would make a big difference who did the work! S&W would be worth a lot more than if it was a DIY project by your friend himself. I wouldn't go over $600-$700 at the absolute highest.

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Gunsmithing since 1961

No clue on value, but do have an honest question...would the thinner Mountain Gun barrel hold up to .44 Magnum?? I wouldn't try to find out. Bubba should have installed a Model 24 Cylinder.

"Value" aside, bear in mind that the M28 frame is a not a 44 mag frame. You should treat that gun as a 44 Special. While the cylinder will chamber 44 mags, stick to 44 Special pressures because the frame will loosen up over time with magnum pressures.
Lots of old Highway Patrolmans were converted to 44 Specials and they are sweet shooters assuming the gunsmithing was done well.
Just don't play Elmer Keith. The frame will thank you in the long run.

in addition to the frame of a .357 vs .44mag, was a 44spl bbl vs a 44mag bbl heat treated the same?

I was not aware barrels and frames were heat treated. Cylinders yes, since 1917 on some revolvers.

Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

if you are fron N.W.indiana and it came from a PAWN SHOP IT IS NOT WORTH THAT MUCH ttHE 1 I SAW WAS PITTED AND COLD BLUED OVER PITS

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age is just a number

I don't know that the 29-8 Mountain Gun barrel is any different from the M24 barrel, but maybe. I'd probably use 44 Specials as others have suggested but that's about all I use in my 29s anyway.

As to value, $500 doesn't buy all that much these days. For $500 I'd grab it in a heart beat. The last modified 28 I saw locally was for 45acp and the asking price was $900 and that was several years ago. I would be surprised to find one nicely done and mechanically tight in 44 or 45 for less than that and likely tagged for more. Pictures?

Jeff
SWCA #1457

Workmanship appears professional, frame is M/28 brushed finish and barrel & cylinder are polished. Bluing is 98% shows little firing since conversion. Asking price is $900., I've offered $850. I intend to shoot .44 Special loads (7.5gr. Unique) in Magnum brass out of consideration of frame strength.

I would not hesitate to shoot 44 mags out of it. Barrels are actually pretty soft, what ever caliber. Frames are the same. The cylinder is what lets go on revolvers not the frame. It does sound like a handy dandy gun, but I would not go $850 myself. But, I already made up plenty of off beat S&W revolvers.

Steelslaver,
With all due respect, all frames are not the same-at least in carbon steel frames. Carbon barrels and cylinders are both heat treated the same way with S&W's famous austemper molten salt bath process.

Frames however are not all heat treated the same way in carbon steel. Only 41/44 Magnum frames get the austemper process. 357s, 45 Colt and ACP frames historically didn't get austempered and are not as hard.

You are correct that it's the cylinder that lets go when you overload a revolver. A softer frame will not "let go" if the cylinder is containing the pressure- but it will stretch minutely shot after shot and will begin to develop end shake, DCU's, ovaled out center pin holes, and all the other bad things that happen as a frame wears out.

This isn't the cylinders weren't heat treated until 1917 data point, but a statement on modern era carbon steel revolvers. I'd consider that era as since the 1950's when the first frames were austempered.

Please state the source of this information. I have a hardness tester and have tested 38, 357 44 mag and 45 acp frames and they are all the same. There is a slight variation between stainless frames and carbon frames, but that is to be expected.

Why do we see mis stamped frames?? Because S&W does not keep that good of track of them. IF a special temper was needed for 44 mag frames and a 357 frame ended up in that pile it would cause more problems that skipping the step of dunking a some of the frames in molten salt. Austempering is not difficult or time consuming, in fact it is quicker than normal tempering. Been there done that. Best part about it is no surface decarb during the heat treatment.

I have never made a 44 mag out of another frame, but I have made several 1917s and model 28s into 45 colts and fired lots of 255 gr 1100fps loads from them. No frame stretch even though the recoil impulses are higher than any 41 mag and approach 44 mag territory.

Think about an alloy 329. Go look up the tensile and yield strengths of the very best scandium alloys and compare them to mill run 4140-4160 and then explain to me how a steel frame won't take it, when a scandium frame does. BTW the scandium N frames are dimensionally the same as the steel ones. I have 2 of them and checked.

By the way HARD does not equal tough or higher tensile strength HARD if often more brittle and prone to catastrophic failure even when the steel has the optimal amount of martensite.

I am trying to imagine what that might bring at auction on GB. My guess is that it would not bring 600 unless done by some well known smith. The concept sounds great, but it probably has no collector value and a limited resale audience.

I would pass

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

Personally, I would grab it at $500 or $600. But, I would swap barrels and cylinders to make it a 45 ACP!

Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

For me it would not rate much of a glance and certainly no monetary interest. I would spend a little more and get the real deal.

I would look for a deal too. I have a 4" 629-1 in excellent shape and I paid 1K delivered for that. To me that represents more of a bargain

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

Depends on the quality of the conversion and who did it. If done proper, could be worth much more than $500.

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213th FBINA

I won't increase my offer, I have a 4" M/629 no dash that I bought for $1K too.

I watched a S&W 28 sell on gunbroker last month for about $600 (after figuring the fees/shipping/transfer), and it didn't have a cylinder, barrel, or sideplate screws. I passed on a 25-2 for $500 at Tulsa last week that had a cut down barrel and no front sight. So what is a completed frankensmith actually worth... very hard to say. I'll say this, if the 25-2 had a replaced Mountain Gun 45acp barrel on it (with a front sight ), it would be sitting in the safe right now.

Values are regional. In the PNW, a shop would probably put 800 plus on the gun. I'd probably go that much if it was nicely done and in good shape if the bluing matched. With the mismatch I might go 650, that being an indicator of the care taken in assembling the gun. YMMV...

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Even older, even crankier....

A 45 ACP, Model 28-2,



A Model 25-2 similar to what you describe.



Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

Here's a 28-2 that I had made up quite a few years ago into a Pinto 45 Colt. As long as I'm alive, it will never go up for sale.

Gorgeous! I can see why you like it.

The Model 25-2 as it is today.



Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

You have to be VERY careful with frankensmiths. I once had a 28 in my shop that had been turned into a .45 ACP allegedly by a famous name gunsmith. I no longer recall why it was there and don't want to go down several flights of stairs to excavate the paperwork, but.............

One of the things I noticed was that the endplay was excessive. So, I cleaned things up and started dropping shims into the cylinder yoke bore. After I used a whole pack of shims with no change I started taking measurements. I ended up making a 0.0555 in spacer out of tool steel that I hardened to correct the endshake. IIRC, carryup issues too.

Obviously, that particular one has stuck in my memory.

Holy cow! Makes you wonder if the owner hadn’t lost a similar spacer made by the original gunsmith when he cleaned the revolver, or something along those lines.

I have worked over more than a few N frames. I do not have a machine shop at my disposal so all the work is done with hacksaws, files and elbow grease.

Is this austemper process something I would notice with simple hand tools?

Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

Sometimes, I’m an emotional gun buyer. If I want it and happen to have enough to get it, I buy it. I pay too much sometimes, but so what? I bought this five-screw Highway Patrolman that had been ‘upgraded’ with a barrel and cylinder from a 29-2. It did happen to have been done by a top-tier smith, but it was more of a cylinder/barrel swap than a custom job. Still, I paid more than most level-headed gun buyers would have ever paid. It’s had a lot of 44 mag run through it. Still runs fine. It’s one of my favorite guns. I say buy that gun if you want it

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No, it is a variation of heat treatment where instead of going fro the critical temperature to the quench and then do the temper cycles you go from the critical temperature to a molten salt solution that is at the temper temp you want and hold it there.

Lets say I was doing a knife made of 1095, instead of going to 1500f then quenching to room temperature then running it through 2 2 hour tempering cycles at 400, I would simply take it to 1500 f then plunge it into a molten salt solution at 400f.

The temperatures vary by the steel used and what you want for an end result. But the reason for it is to achieve a Martensite and Bainite structure instead of a mainly Martensite structure. The Banite structure being somewhat "tougher" (not harder) that straight up Martensite. Fine sword guys mess with it some now days. I was taught how to do it by a guy who used salts both to take the steel to critical and to austemper

While a piece done as I described above would have an RC hardness of around 60-62. Revolver frames are closer to 25RC or about 103 RB so the solution to achieve that would need to be considerably higher.

Do I believe a frame so quenched would be stronger yes. But, I don't care what you do you could never achieve the same strength in a new J frame as an N frame with a normal heat treat. A J frame top strap only has about 50% of the cross section of an N frame. Yet they now make J frame 357s.

But as far as machining, filing bending or punching, I doubt you would notice much without some good instrumentation. Maybe in bend testing beyond the elastic limit

It does not mater how you heat treat steel alloy you can not changes it elastic modulus, IE how much it bends under a given load, That is a CONSTANT across the board, in fact it can only be change in very small amounts by changing up the alloy itself.

What you can change is the elastic limit. IE the point at which it fails, either by becoming permanently deformed or where it fails in a catastrophic manner (snaps).

Point is I do not believe a modern N frame will fail when used as a 44 mag with a 44 mag cylinder. You just do not see frames fail without the cylinder letting go.

Look at a Walker Colt firing a 220 gr slug at 1000fps, ya its black powder, but still it is a lot of energy and done with absolutely no back strap what so ever and basically just a wedge holding the barrel to the frame. LMAO

I would tell him "after some research, I do not feel that it is worth more than $600". If he does not take it, then go out and find the real deal Mountain Gun. Or wait until it does not sell and reoffer the $600.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

The spacer was inside the cylinder assembly. One doesn't-OK, shouldn't- disassemble the cylinder while cleaning.

At the time, there were several gunsmithing books by "authoritative authors" that claimed S&W located the cylinder with the gas ring. Over the decades there have been some questionable, if not not down right dangerous, things done by "gunsmiths". Brownell's even had a cartoon showing a guy who looked......other than normal..... and the caption "Two weeks ago I couldn't spell gunsmidt, now I are one."

I was thinking along these lines myself ~~ i.e., are 4" .44 Magnums that hard to find that you need to pay close to a grand for something that (lacking believable documentation) must be assumed to have been cobbled together by a wannabe gunsmith with minimal skills.

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You're shy a few manners.

Would you be willing to post a thread on that pistol? Its absolutely gorgeous and the grip frame looks shorter than normal for some reason.

Sure... when I get around to it lol. No changes were made to the grip, I think the photo angle and the service style sheep horn grips make it look altered. Basically I had a stainless 625 cylinder and barrel fit to a Mod 28 by Frank Smith @ LSG in Commanche TX (now closed). He did an action job as well.

And the sheep horn just tops the package off !