I picked up this no dash 39 slide some time ago, it has been chopped to a 3 1/4" barrel length at some time in its life. Sadly it is an early slide with the rear slide serrations, however it does have some pitting that appears to have been there before it was reblued. I also have the original chopped barrel and have installed this assembly on one of my range dash 2s, and it functions perfectly, with decent accuracy. Has anyone ever seen one of these before? The original front sight was whittled out and cut for a dovetail in the slide (goes in from the front and is retained by the barrel bushing), has a chopped barrel bushing, and whoever did these mods even cut a new barrel bushing cam slot inside the slide. I have been giving some thought to refinishing it and building a 39 series pistol around it. Any thoughts on that? Or should I just leave it alone, as a curiosity of the days of the pre compact customs? Anyhow, here are some pics of it next to a 669 slide and barrel for comparison....

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Interesting. It looks like somebody tried to create a poor man's ASP. Too bad they didn't complete the job by chopping the butt a bit. Why not make a pair of Lexan grips? That way you could have a great conversation piece to take to the range.

Charlie

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SWCA # 2294

This appears to go back to the time when chopping and channeling was the rage. I seem to recall that lots of these altered guns were not reliable. It took some time for gunsmiths to figure out how to shorten a slide and maintain reliability.

If your gun works every time, that's great. If it doesn't, best to enjoy it as a range gun and not use it for carry.

I would never carry it regardless, even though it has functioned perfectly every time the trigger was pulled, I just really would like to refinish it and occasionally take it out for some fun, I think it would make a really nice looking pistol refinished, kinda like the way it probably once looked a long time ago.....

Raider, the frame was definately chopped, I have the mainspring housing and the handmade wood grips as well, and they are slightly more than a quarter inch shorter than a stock 39.....there is even a roll pin used to retain the mainspring housing (backstrap) still in it....a new hole was drilled through the housing, that must have corresponded to a new hole in the frame, that retained it, after the frame was chopped.....I think a rebuild is in order for sure, it's just too cool....like a dinosaur amongst the 3914s.....

I agree. With the frame chopped, you have what is probably a one-off, one of a kind model 39. I would definitely give it a quality refinish and display it proudly.

Charlie

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SWCA # 2294

Sounds great; if you finish the project you'll have a very ineresting gun. Wish it were mine to play with.

I picked up a period correct, well used frame, in the correct serial number range, to rebuild this seventies era chopped no dash. Time to rebuild it. Partially assembled and marked using all the original parts (everything but frame) and it's off to the races.....i'll keep you posted on the rebuild....still undecided on the finish, but i'm leaning heavily in the hard chrome direction.....what do you guys think?

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Update.....here are some pics of the rebuild starting with the donor gun, a pretty beat up 39 mutt with a much later dash 2 slide and barrel, it was functional and cheap, and I only needed the frame anyway (sorry about the ****** pic), then a couple more during construction...

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I completely assembled it before stripping the remaining finish and cleaning up the pits and dings, took it to the range and put a couple hundred rounds through it (functioned perfecly), then gave it a complete bead blast, here are the pics as of now (the slide sides have been polished since these pics), ready to go off for hard chrome.....

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Looking good...can't wait to see it with the hard chrome.

Nice ! Bobbed hammer, and concealed trigger too !

Yeah it took a long time to find that rare invisible trigger, even longer for the barrel.......wish I could've found the hammer, settled for bobbing it instead....

Nice, thanks for the story and for sure let us see how it turns out.