Bubba'd 1917 Army: WARNING!

Even with that custom milling job, for $240 it is a solid shooter grade revolver.


I wonder if the milling and hammer modification was intended for mounting some sort of adjustable sight?
 
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Another entry in the speculation derby:

The high rear hole does not look threaded and the upper forestrap hole looks like it is for a half-round pin. If those are just for receiving locator studs, then the spring tension screw becomes the only locking mechanism for the supposed shoulder stock. The original screw would not have been long enough to anchor the rifle stock and tension the spring, so I suspect a replacement screw was installed. The screw seen in the photo looks like a more recent replacement for whatever was used in the original modification, since that screw would have been too long after the shoulder stock was discarded..

I agree that the work, however ugly, is far better executed than the usual bubba-grade manglement.
 
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What's being shown in picture five?
It's an untapped hole drilled through the bottom of the grip strap right behind the trigger guard. The hole at the rear of the receiver on the filed flat is tapped. It would be fascinating to see what contraption this was all done for.
 
I tried (but mostly failed) to keep one thing in mind while looking at the photos.

This: We don't know how long ago these mods were performed on the gun. I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking that when these guns first began showing up on the market...early 20th Century?...gun folks didn't look at them as collectors items, or even potential collectors items. They were just surplus guns that could be had at a decent price.

And people did lots of stuff to old guns to modify them to suit their own purposes. Seriously, just look at some of the stuff Keith did. And to a greater degree, John Fitzgerald.

I'd prefer the owner hadn't done this to the old gun. I can't totally fault whoever did this, though, simply because I don't know who it was and I don't know why he did it.

I'd be really interested in knowing the story as to why he did it. Gotta be a reason.

I do know one thing, though. If that gun belonged to me, those grips would be consigned to the junk drawer or the garbage can, one of the two.
 
I do know one thing, though. If that gun belonged to me, those grips would be consigned to the junk drawer or the garbage can, one of the two.

They are ugly, but trust me, they look better than any other grips I've put on it so far. It looks hideous with Magnas or factory Targets. At least these cover up the missing chunk of the backstrap. Plus they actually are pretty comfortable, which is why they are so common.
 
OO7hrew.jpg

5cQa33Q.jpg


Without knowing about the mods, it looks good in the above two pics. The grips don't look all that bad, football relief on the left and high round shoulder on the right.
 
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It may not be too hard to fashion some sort of spacer to fit in there. I was just cutting up an old tire with tin snips today ...
 
Does it have any additional movement in the rubber grips due to the removed material from the gun?

Just curious,

Dale
Nope. The grips fit very tightly. They are located by the grip frame and barely make contact with the missing part of the backstrap even on normal guns.
 
It may not be too hard to fashion some sort of spacer to fit in there. I was just cutting up an old tire with tin snips today ...
This might be as ghetto as the original modification, but I was thinking JB Weld might be just the ticket. :D
 
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