This pair of ropers fits my hand perfectly, and I like shooting my $150 .357 mag. So after the missing rear sight replacement ($150 more), and the ropers ($200 more), my $500 finish free pre-war magnum (that apparently went to mexico, then ended up missing finish and its rear sight, hanging on a nail in a shed in central WA state)...is perfect for shooting.
So lipstick on a pig? Yes? Sort of?
It's a pig that can shoot. The gun is boring at less than 200yds. And the ropers make it an absolute dream to handle.
Of course, part of why I got the ropers on the cheap was that they were insanely warped. When I put them on a gun you could put a silver dollar in the gap at the butt and it would have space to spare. I figured they should go on a gun to not warp more, but they were so bad I figured they would never be anything more than pretty. Over the years when that particular gun came out of the safe I would notice the grips were loose, and would snug them up. It never occurred to me that every 6 months or so when the gun came out the grips were loose...again. I just kept snugging them up.
One day I was doing a gun audit. Figuring out what guns can leave the safe to make way (and create a budget) for other guns. I pulled that out. Snugged them up again, and was kind of confused. These ropers were perfect, both in my hand, and how they fit the gun. For the life of me I could not remember buying such a great set. I had to go back through my old pictures to realize that I had inadvertently corrected the problem over the course of a half decade.
So are they lipstick for the pig? Or are they a recovered pig themselves, sharing their life with a gun that may have been rode hard, and put up wet, but who's heart is as shining bright as the day it departed for mexico to face its fate?
