Sorry for the thread drift but that is one awesome Bisley.Originally Posted by oregon45
Details please?
Sorry for the thread drift but that is one awesome Bisley.
Details please?
" La rose est sans pourquoi, elle fleurit parce qu’elle fleurit ; Elle n’a souci d’elle-même, ne demande pas si on la voit. » Angelus Silesius
"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." Paul Muad'dib
Im a hobby tinkerer, but ask questions when i can of people that have done it a bit, and go intrepidly into my Smiths.
I do a little basic deburring, cleaning up sharp edges and polishing some surfaces inside. Im not a fan of lighter springs and dont consider springs to be an "action job", though they seem to help for some people. I prefer the springs to be stock on Smiths and just clean up working surfaces. Cleaning up the sides of the hammer and trigger without messing up the color case hardening takes some concentration, but it can be done. A little cleaning up of the machine marks in the frame where the hammer and other parts rub also helps. I do a very light polish of the raised spot on the sideplate that goes against the hammer pin hole. Removing slight high spots, not making it perfectly smooth across the entire surface is usually good.
Leave the DA sear alone unless you are better than average. Its easy to screw up the DA pull with very little polishing of the working surfaces. You clean that up by cycling the action some DA. I sometimes do it with my thumb on the hammer spur to keep it from slapping down full energy. If its right you shouldnt feel the transition from the DA sear in the front hammer face and when the trigger transitions to the hammer sear at the end of the DA pull.
I dont care for smooth triggers, but many grooved triggers can be seriously improved by knocking any actual sharp edges or burrs off the trigger surface and edges, including the back edges. The lower edge is often offensive, and is also well served with a little quality time with a ceramic stone/file or 320-400-600 wet-or-dry paper on a piece of glass, but none of this has ever made me want them to be smooth faced. Obviously YMMV.
Target hammers can easily be cut back to service length and width with a bench or angle head grinder. I also reduce the sharpness of the checkering just lightly and take the sharp edges off the checkering. Thats all I want to do. I use SA sometimes.
The rear center of the cylinder can be very lightly polished on glass with 600 or finer grit paper (implying take it completely apart), and the frame face lightly polished with the common electric bubba tool with felt wheel and polishing compound, Just a touch where the extractor star touches. Light polish, not remove metal.
Whatever you do, do it in small measures and continue to check the results. Its easy to do a little more later. Parts cost money when you screw them up and not always easy to get back as good as it was when you started. If your gun is not loose and sloppy when you start, but is when done tinkering, you did it wrong.
If wishing to work on the trigger pull, wait until you do anything else you may intend to, because it may improve from the other stuff done without messing with sear surfaces. ive rarely done anything to sear surfaces, and very rarely a super light few strokes with ceramic stone file, Smith trigger are usually pretty decent if you can get all the gritty feel out of the rest of the moving parts. They can be cycled a while and slicked up some and you wont ruin any parts. Oil helps them feel smoother, who knew?
Ruger SAs can be cleaned up quite a bit. I can go into details some if anyone is interested.
Last edited by Malamute; 09-06-2019 at 10:35 PM.
GP100 Match Champion in .357 with slicked up, duty-level action. Doesn't sound like you (OP) would be a DIY on that, so pick any of the name gunsmiths recommended in various "Which gunsmith for my GP100?" threads on this site.
Grip that works for you. Also heavily discussed on this site.
Sights dialed in to work for you. Also heavily discussed on this site.
Leather and ammo carrying gear that works for you. Also heavily discussed on this site.
In addition to the above, I did a "brushed" finish that generally matches the rest of the gun but is just a little bit finer and shinier (but just a little) on the slabbed barrel sides. It both replaces the milled finish from the slabbing and eliminates the crusty, rough edges of the laser engraving. It makes me smile.
You can't really beat that today for a "I'm just going to have this one revolver, I swear" formula.
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Not another dime.
Wait, why would anyone say that?
Maybe for a Spartan, one could only have one brand of revolver,...and as i type that I think "wait, why would anyone say that?"
This.
This.
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
I kinda went through this a couple months ago. I had been carrying my blued 4" M19-3 around and spent a couple months brainstorming what I wanted to improve on for a carry gun.
I wound up with a 2.75" m66-8. The biggest things I wanted was stainless steel, night sights, and a shorter barrel. 4" aiwb is doable but I felt an inch less might be better. The other 2 are pretty self-explanatory.
On top of that I plugged the lock, polished some of the internal moving parts, added a c&s fixed rear sight, meprolite front sight, and pachmayer Compact grips. I tried VZ grips but full house magnums were not pleasant with them. The pachymers let me shoot anything without issue and still conceal well.
I really can't think of anything else I want on a fighting revolver.
The Bisley was built by Hamilton Bowen on his "Nimrod" revolver pattern. Oversized, 6-shot, 45 Colt cylinder; heavy barrel with integral front band; Patridge front sight with gold bars inlaid for long-range shooting; action blocked and tuned; Bowen rear sight. The grips are Merino Ram's horn and were made by Cary Chapman. I went with a 6-shot 45 Colt instead of a 5-shot because I found that if I need more power than a 6-shot Ruger in 45 Colt can provide, I'm better off going to a .50 or .475 revolver. With big bore revolvers, I prefer heavy bullets at moderate velocities and I'd rather shoot a 400gr .475 bullet at 1000fps than a 320gr .45 bullet at 1400fps.
Last edited by oregon45; 09-06-2019 at 11:26 PM.
Proper 3 inch you say...
13-3 with nils grips. 3 inch from the factor, pulled off the original hammer and bobbed this one so I could return the gun to its original form
19-3. Started life as a 4 inch, had it cut down, recrowned and DX changeable sight system added
Last edited by rathos; 09-07-2019 at 01:48 AM.
There is no improving a bog stock Manurhin MR73.
Michael@massmeans.com | Zeleny@post.harvard.edu | westcoastguns@gmail.com | larvatus prodeo @ livejournal | +1-323-363-1860 | “If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking till you do succeed.” — Curly Howard, 1936 | “All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” — Samuel Beckett, 1984
Where in the country are revolvers ok and semi-auto handguns with legal capacity magazines (for that state) not?
Last edited by Caballoflaco; 09-07-2019 at 06:30 AM.
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