Won this rusty locked up S&W 1917 snubbie at auction yesterday

[Bill_in_fl]

A friend of mine at the firing line forum was asking me a question about that extra sideplate I bought recently. I didn't have the knowlege to answer his question, so I just took a couple of pics of the sideplate and posted it for him so he could see the answer for himself. Since I was taking pics anyway, I decided to take a few of the snubby today. Here she is as of today.

Now remember, this is not the completed project. Just nicely cleaned up for now. Will be mirror polished buffed refinished and with front sight installed when I'm done.

Right side when I received it very dirty and lots of surface rust....

Same side today, the rust is gone, but she will get looking even better soon. That cold blue is just temporary....

Left side when I received it....

Left side today. The rust is gone.

Definitely all I can do until my new buffing wheel arrives.
Will update after buffing.

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[Kframe66]

I'm having a great time following your project 1917, thanks for sharing.

 

[Bill_in_fl]

I'm having a great time following your project 1917, thanks for sharing.

Glad you're enjoying it Kframe66. I'm having fun with it too.

Latest update for today.

Laid a half sheet of 220 grit, wet/dry sandpaper on the very flat counter top, then flat sanded the sideplate till all the pits were out of it. Then did the same flat sanding using 600 grit. That got all the pits out of the sideplate and got it ready for buffing.

My deburring/polishing scotchbrite wheel came in today. Got it installed on my buffer motor and in about a half hour or so had the frame cylinder, yoke and a few other parts de-pitted and almost buffed out. Then I took the scotchbrite wheel off and went back to my fabric wheel with white rouge for the high polish.

Buffed some more using that. Got everything highly mirror polished until I could see my face and teeth clearly in it. Here's some pics.....

Yep, even buffed/polished out the lanyard ring. Ejector rod too (but not the knurled part) but forgot to include it in the pic. For anyone new reading this without following the rest of this thread, this is NOT a nickel nor stainless revolver but is the "in the white", highly buffed out, polished carbon steel, of the 1917 S&W.....

When I was looking at the below pic, I wondered what the heck was that round thing in my sideplate? Then I realized it was the flush mount ceiling light fixture reflecting in my sideplate! Lol.

In this below pic you can see the bill of my baseball hat and the lens of the camera (that looks like a barrel muzzle) reflecting back from the sideplate as I took the picture.....

It is so mirror finish shiny now it is hard to take pictures of it since everything relects off the highly polished surfaces.....

Only spent about maybe an hour or so tops (sometimes lose track of time working in the shop) using the scotchbrite wheel and fabric wheel to get the surfaces to this condition. Looks pretty good. But I still can turn it in the light and see a few tiny lines in the frame exterior, so I'll be buffing it some more til I'm satisfied with it.

I'd post some more after I am completely finished with the buffing to my satisfaction, but since my camera won't even do justice to what I've buffed so far, it would be fruitless. So the next time I'll post is after I get it hot tank blued and all finished.

All for now.



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[A10]

Nice! Did you have to do something to keep it from flash rusting? Or is that just a Pacific Northwest thing?

 

[Bill_in_fl]

Nice! Did you have to do something to keep it from flash rusting? Or is that just a Pacific Northwest thing?

I have it in a flat pan in the house. It won't rust between now and tomorrow when I will buff on it again til I get it just like I want it. Then when I am satisfied with the buffing, I'll wash it off good with hot soapy water to get all the buffing rouge off it, then dry it with a hair dryer, then immerse it in oil in the pan to prevent the air from hitting it til I can get it to someone to hot tank blue it.



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[Bill_in_fl]

Yesterday I installed a Wolf reduced power spring kit in my other S&W 1917 that's in matte nickel. It gave me a dramatic difference in double action trigger pull. So since I had the factory hammer spring and trigger return spring now as extras from my matte nickel 1917, I felt safe in working on the springs in my highly polished "in the white" S&W 1917 snubby barrel. Figuring if I messed up its springs, I had spares to replace them.

So I took two coils off the factory trigger return spring and with my bench grinder I removed some metal off both sides of the factory hammer spring. Buffed the edges and cold blued the metal where I cut grinded and buffed it, then reinstalled them in the revolver. Worked very well. Not quite as slick and lightened as the Wolf kit on my other 1917 S&W, but very close. I didn't want to take off too much. You have to be careful to not take too many coils off the trigger return spring or remove too much metal from the hammer mainspring else you make them too light and ruin them. It's easy to remove metal but impossible to put metal back on a spring if you remove too much. Very happy with the results of both the Wolf reduced spring kit and my own home modified springs. Double actions are very slick and easy now. But not too easy. Want those primers to always pop when struck.

I gauged the trigger pull of both my matte finish 1917 and my polished snubby 1917, against my blue commercial 1917 and the commercial model was already just as slick and easy to pull as the Wolf springs in my matte nickel one were. I haven't been inside the commercial model yet, but I can tell it either has the Wolf spring kit in it, or else it has had work done on the action, because it is the slickest of all three so I don't need to mess with its springs at all.

I recommend the Wolf reduced power spring kit. And you can do almost the same thing modifying the factory springs....but be careful to not remove too much when modifying the factory springs and make sure you have spares before you try it.


Also this week I received the shot out rifling snubby barrel that member "Jack the Toad" sent me to get the front sight off of to put on my snubby barrel. Heated the barrel and front sight up with my torch and the sight fell right off. Cleaned it up good and will be attaching it to my snubby barrel real soon. Will posts pics when I get it attached.


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[deanodog]

Very enjoyable post. Thanks for sharing. All $$$ aside the fun you are having.....Priceless

 

[Frank46]

Keep us posted on your project. I'm liking your results a lot. Nice work. Frank

 

[Bill_in_fl]

Here's my latest progress.

Member here "Jack the Toad" (George) was kind enough to send me his old shot out rifling cut snubby S&W 1917 nickel barrel so I could get the front sight off it to use on my 1917. Thanks again for sending that George. You saved me having to fabricate/mill out a front sight.

Since his barrel had also been cut, in order to reattach the front sight, a flat had been milled on his barrel just barely big enough for the base of the front sight to fit into and be silver soldered. I heated up the front of the barrel and sight and the sight came right off the barrel. Kept some heat on it and wire brushed off the silver solder both from the sight and barrel. Both came out nice and clean. Here's a few pics of his old barrel with the front sight I took off it.

Note the flat milled in the top of his old barrel that the sight fit down into.
(Sorry guys, I've checked, and there is no closeup setting on my cheapo camera. But you can get the idea good enough)

So what I've got to do now is to get to the store soon and get some silver solder since I'm out of it. Then position my revolver and barrel in my mill, align the front sight to the rear sight, then mill the shallow flat on the barrel. Got to make sure the flat is level across the top of the barrel too and carefully mill it so it is just barely big enough for the front sight base to fit down into. Then heat the barrel and sight and let the silver solder flow into the crack where the heat will pull it under and around the base of the sight.

Since I've decided to keep my revolver unfinished, but highly polished "in the white", I'll just keep the nickel plate that's on his old sight and not remove it through reverse electrolysis nickel plating. That will really simplify things. Since my highly polished "in the white" revolver almost looks like it's nickel plated, the actually nickel plated front sight goes perfect with it. I scotch taped the front sight to my barrel just to get a rough idea of what it would look like. It's a little higher than it will be when finished, but I think it will look real good. Here's a couple of pics of the sight scotch taped to my barrel.....

I'll post some more when I get to the store and get some silver solder and get my milling done for the barrel flat and the front sight soldered on.



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[Armyphotog]

How much did they pay you to take the gun? With the money you are going to have to spend on it, I would think you probably could have bought a fairly decent one for the same money. Assume you enjoy a challenge.

 

[Bill_in_fl]

How much did they pay you to take the gun? With the money you are going to have to spend on it, I would think you probably could have bought a fairly decent one for the same money. Assume you enjoy a challenge.

That's just the thing Armyphotog. I haven't really had to spend any money on it because I have done all the work myself. So far all I've put into it money wise to restore it is $19.99 for a new old stock ejector rod to replace the old bent one and $11.06 for a new old stock lanyard ring, both got off e bay. That's it. I enjoy working on guns anyway and it gives me satisfaction for me to do the work myself and bring a firearm back to beauty and functioning when it was headed towards the firearms grave. I've done this with all kinds of firearms over the past 40 years so this isn't my first firearms fix/restoration project. Just my first one on a 1917 S&W. There's no better way to learn how something works than to take it apart, get familiar with how it all works and figure out how to beautify and fix it yourself.
It's a bit of a challenge, but it isn't rocket science.





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[Hondo44]

Bill_in_fl,

I applaud you efforts so far and envy you having the fun project.

I have had success rounding out the bottom of the sight base and soldering directly to the curved barrel surface. You have already removed the nickel plating and you wouldn't have to mill the barrel.

Actually with the sight taped securely in place I would always shoot it at this point to check for proper sight height. I would hate for the sight to be too low or to have to file thru the nickel plating on the top of the sight blade if it's too high. I always prefer to make my adjustments to the bottom of the sight base.

Just some thoughts and I enjoy following your progress.

 

[Bill_in_fl]

Bill_in_fl,

I applaud you efforts so far and envy you having the fun project.

I have had success rounding out the bottom of the sight base and soldering directly to the curved barrel surface. You have already removed the nickel plating and you wouldn't have to mill the barrel.

Actually with the sight taped securely in place I would always shoot it at this point to check for proper sight height. I would hate for the sight to be too low or to have to file thru the nickel plating on the top of the sight blade if it's too high. I always prefer to make my adjustments to the bottom of the sight base.

Just some thoughts and I enjoy following your progress.

Thanks Hondo. I have previously given what you mentioned consideration. I did not remove the nickel plating off the front sight though. But since the front sight was cut off of its previously nickeled barrel, the very bottom side of the sight isn't nickeled. Just its top and sides.

I also thought about just curving the bottom of the front sight so that its curve matched the curve of the barrel and then soldering it onto the barrel rather than using the option of milling a flat on the barrel as was previously done on JacktheToad's barrel that I got the sight off of. That is an option and I might still do that.

I had also thought about that problem and you're right about not having to file the sight once it is installed and making sure it is the proper height when installed and to take any material off the bottom of the front sight rather than the top.

There are several things I thought about doing to make sure the front sight was properly aligned both for windage and elevation.

My first idea was to place the revolver in a vice and make sure the rear sight groove and barrel were perfectly level by using a bubble level or laser level on it. Then along with that, I thought about placing a wire suspended also perfectly level and horizontally attached tightly between two screws in wood....over the very top of the rear sight groove where the tip of the front sight should be seen.

Then keeping the leveled wire at the top of also leveled rear sight groove, I would see if the tip of the front sight blade would just barely touch the underside of said leveled wire. I theorize that should give me the correct height.

There are several variables to consider.

1. What if the revolver did not shoot to point of aim to begin with? Since it didn't have a sight on it when I received it, I don't know. Then my aligning the sights like I described above wouldn't make any difference.

2. If I milled a flat into the barrel for the sight to sit in and be soldered in, would that make my front sight too low? I could check that with leveling the sights and barrel with the level wire, but again...what if it didn't shoot to point of aim to begin with?

3. If I just curved the bottom of the front sight so that it matched the curve of the barrel, with the thought of then measuring its height using the leveled barrel and leveled rear sight groove and leveled wire as I described above, even if I got the sight the perfect height without milling a flat into the barrel, how do I know it would shoot to point of aim without knowing if it did so before?

Hondo, it would be a good idea for me to temporarily tape/attach/superglue the sight (or a front sight blade proxy and not the actual sight) and try shooting it to see if it shoots to point of aim. If I temporarily attached and used a front sight proxy (instead of the actual half moon sight I would install later), then I could bench rest shoot it and adjust the height of the proxy sight until I hit to point of aim at the yardage I wanted. Then I could measure the height of the proxy sight once I got it to hitting at point of aim, and that way make sure that if I measured how deep the flat would be that I could mill onto the barrel, that the half moon front sight would still sit up high enough to replicate the same point of aim that the proxy sight did. If after measuring and taking into account how deep the flat on the barrel would be, if the half moon sight would not be high enough sitting in that flat, then I'd know that instead of milling a flat, I should just curve the bottom of the sight to contour to the barrel's curve. And hopefully that would be high enough.

I hope I wrote all that so it was clear enough for everyone could understand what I meant.
A bit tricky and a sticky wicket getting this aligned. Any other suggestions that might be a better option of doing it?



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[Hondo44]

Sounds like you have a handle on it! I've used the proxy sight method and it'll certainly work. I'm used to taking a file to the range when I sight-in and adjust a front sight. So I prefer to use the actual sight but that doesn't mean it's better then your method.

On a fixed sight gun I take my half round file and if I have to move the front sight base slightly off center for windage I can cant the round cut under the base slightly to move the sight horizontally but still end up with the blade perfectly vertical. Transferring that angle from a proxy sight would be challenging. I try to make the result look as 'factory' as possible and therefore shy away from the milling cut. Chances are you'll need as much height as possible since a shortened barrel usually requires a higher front sight especially if shooting heavy bullets.

 

[Bill_in_fl]

Sounds like you have a handle on it! I've used the proxy sight method and it'll certainly work. I'm used to taking a file to the range when I sight-in and adjust a front sight. So I prefer to use the actual sight but that doesn't mean it's better then your method.

On a fixed sight gun I take my half round file and if I have to move the front sight base slightly off center for windage I can cant the round cut under the base slightly to move the sight horizontally but still end up with the blade perfectly vertical. Transferring that angle from a proxy sight would be challenging. I try to make the result look as 'factory' as possible and therefore shy away from the milling cut. Chances are you'll need as much height as possible since a shortened barrel usually requires a higher front sight especially if shooting heavy bullets.

Thanks for the great tips Hondo. (tip of the hat) I'll keep every bit of that in mind as I figure out the best way to approach this sight alignment.


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[Bill_in_fl]

I measured the height of my front sight on my full length barrel 1917 and then compared that height to the height of the front sight I'm installing on my snubby barrel 1917. I saw that I could lower the front sight on the snubby. But instead of doing that, so that it would be easier to mount the front sight, I milled a very shallow flat onto the top of the barrel, then J&B weld epoxied it to the barrel. I fired it yesterday to see how it hit at point of aim. It hit at the bottom of a plastic liter bottle low and a few inches to the left of the bottle, tearing a line in the ground where it hit. The blast also blew my sight right off the barrel but I picked it up. For some reason the J&B weld epoxy did not stick very well. That's okay though because it was just temporary to see how it would hit in that position.

But at least it showed me with that one shot where the sight would cause it to hit on point of aim. Since it hit low, I know I need to lower the front sight. But I don't want to file off metal from the bottom of the sight. So I am going to mill a leeetle bit deeper on the barrel flat the sight sits on. That will get it a little bit lower, then I'll stick it back on with J&B weld and see where it hits then. Might have to do this a few times til I get it hitting right at point of aim. But eventually I'll get it hitting to point of aim. No hurry. It's about the last thing I need to do to finish the restoration along with permanently mounting the front sight after I get it hitting where I want.


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[bettis1]

Bill,

You might try temporarily attaching the blade with a low fusing lead solder.

As an aside, I recall that before the days of plastic, toothpaste came in lead tubes (Ipana was one brand). I remember my dad using a soldering iron heated in a blow torch to melt the old toothpaste tubes to make solder joints that would be subjected to low stress. Can you imagine the furor that would be raised today if you tried to sell some product you put in your body in a lead container!!

Bob

 

[Hondo44]

Bill in fl,
Outstanding, sounds like you don't have much work left to finish! I've had no luck gluing on sights either and use the blue masking tape for testing.

Thanks for the update,

 

[revolvergeek]

That is a very cool project! I would love to find a 1917 like that to rebuild. Congrats.

 

[olskool]

has there been anymore progress yet?