Doesn't Tom Selleck carry a Fitz Special on his current tv series?
I believe I recall an article by Bill Jordan from back in the early 70s where he advocated bobbing the hammer and narrowing the trigger guard rather than removing the front of it completely. I believe the revolver pictured in the article was a Model 19 4" barrel. He had narrowed the right side of the trigger guard on the front part of it. I guess if one had hands and fingers the size of Bill's, and was capable of the speed he was capable of, it wasn't such a bad idea to remove a possible impediment. Certainly better than the butcher jobs the guns pictured in the linked article endured.