Here is my latest project. I recently won this on an online auction for two and a half bills. It looked pretty rough in the auction photos, but I didn't care about asthetics, so long as it worked okay.
The red flags to me were the absence of the large sideplate screw, and the wrong yoke screw. That told me that someone, who didn't know what they were doing, had taken it apart at some point in the past 115 years.
I received it and the action seemed pretty rough, but it did carry up on all chambers and there was no push off. So, I figured I could work with it. Removing the sideplate, it was obvious that whoever had been in it before, it had been a long, long time ago. The action was dry, with a gummy, crusty oil film on everything (probably long-dried WD-40). Once cleaned up, the only issue I saw was there was a lot of slop in the cylider lock-up. With the hammer and trigger down, you could rotate the cylinder back and forth a little more than I was comfortable with. A close look revealed that the cylinder nothces were slightly rounded with a raised edge. I gently peened those edges back into the slots, and that seemed to tighten it up a little bit.
Next, it was on to asthetics. I boiled and carded everything and that made a huge difference. Applying some Brownells touch-up bluing, using heat and more carding, followed by a soak in diesel fuel, greatly improved the appearance.
Here are a few before photos:
The red flags to me were the absence of the large sideplate screw, and the wrong yoke screw. That told me that someone, who didn't know what they were doing, had taken it apart at some point in the past 115 years.
I received it and the action seemed pretty rough, but it did carry up on all chambers and there was no push off. So, I figured I could work with it. Removing the sideplate, it was obvious that whoever had been in it before, it had been a long, long time ago. The action was dry, with a gummy, crusty oil film on everything (probably long-dried WD-40). Once cleaned up, the only issue I saw was there was a lot of slop in the cylider lock-up. With the hammer and trigger down, you could rotate the cylinder back and forth a little more than I was comfortable with. A close look revealed that the cylinder nothces were slightly rounded with a raised edge. I gently peened those edges back into the slots, and that seemed to tighten it up a little bit.
Next, it was on to asthetics. I boiled and carded everything and that made a huge difference. Applying some Brownells touch-up bluing, using heat and more carding, followed by a soak in diesel fuel, greatly improved the appearance.
Here are a few before photos:
I'm looking for one similar to yours. The only .32 S&W long revolvers I have are snubbies; a S&W 1972-vintage 31-1 and a H&R Model 733. I want one with at least a 4-inch barrel.
