Gentlemen, I have stumbled upon a 3" blue BULL barrel that supposedly is from a 36-3. I have a couple of 60 no dash revolvers, one of which needs a little love anyway.

What are my chances of this being a simple screw in swap. Never mind the blue part. I am willing to either coat the barrel to resemble stainless or hard black chrome the barrel and cylinder for a pinto effect. I will hire a good smith to do the work. No DIY here. I understand the ejector rod change.

If it will change out, great. If not, I may have to search for a 36-3. I think I'm going to buy it anyway.

Thanks,

Jack

Should have the same threads as both are J frames.

It will probably fit just fine. However, since S&W probably has 3" barrels from the 60-1 3", why go to the trouble. The 60-1 barrel with a new ejector rod from S&W does work just fine in a 60 no dash pinned barrel. I did one of those swaps several years ago. S&W had a lot of the barrels in parts and it's doubtful they sold them all by now.

While the barrel will "just screw in", do pick a good S&W gunsmith to set the barrel to cylinder clearance and recut the forcing cone. It is unlikely that clearance will fall into place.

Not going to DIY. I have a factory authorized service smith a couple of hours out. It is not a bad road trip to the country. Trouble is, a few days usually means a few months.

My other thought, does the factory still do barrel changes? We had a round butt 66 fitted with a 4" barrel years ago, when the four was not available on the RB, for one of our plain clothes guys. The folks at the factory were good and they were prompt. Responses #s 2 & 3 infer factory purchase, local install.

Thanks,

Jack

I do believe they have very speedy turn around for law enforcement agencies.

True, but as he said he was going to have a smith do the work I didn't mention that. Where it becomes a real problem is when the frame sizes are mismatched. Then not only are the threads different, but the extractor lug is a different distance from center line.

When I want a different barrel I always start by looking on Ebay and searching for S&W barrel. Usually a lot of them and something I can use will show up sooner or later. Be a lot nicer to start with a stainless barrel.

There is a 3" model 60 barrel on Ebay right now.

Sounds like a cool idea/project gun. You may need to widen the rear sight notch too if the no dash had an early thin front sight.

I asked S&W about swapping barrels last month - when I also foolishly asked them if they had any 3-in M64 barrels in stock. The rep said, yes, they would swap the barrel if I provided a barrel which would fit. I didn't ask about the cost but I'm (strictly) guessing an hour so that would be $90 + shipping. I will find out for sure as soon as my 3-in barrel arrives.

Folks, many thanks for the leads, info, etc. small grand kids were here a couple of weeks ago. I put the candidate revolver away, and I guess old age set in as I can't find the darn thing. It will turn up in a few, and then will proceed. I thought it might have been stolen along with a jacket. Found the jacket stuffed underneath a vehicle seat. It's here somewhere - Not loaded.

Thanks again,

Jack

The factory may do such an install for you since they made model 60's in a 3" at one time, albeit square butts only in early 60's. The one thing you risk is the gun. They do warp frames on occasion when removing the original barrel and when they do, the gun gets scraped and you end up with a current lock frame with MIM parts. I had that happen to me with an S series model 57 4" many years ago. They tried to foist a non pinned frame on me with my original S serial.

Jack - hopefully you nor anyone else will laugh at me about this one – I worry about hiding a HG then not being able to find it later. So, I take a picture of it in its new hiding place with my cell phone – then delete the picture later when I go back to retrieve it. This is assuming, of course, that you're not using a flippy phone and that your phone has a camera!!

Good idea.

I found it, atop the refrigerator, far enough from the edge that I could not see, and did not feel it in a previous search. I happened to look up there from a distance, and saw it. I suppose I have too many, because it's kind of like herding cats.

Your warped frame comments make me think the best avenue is a trade, likely cheaper as well.

Thanks to everyone for the interest.

Jack