My dad offered to send me an N-frame he said was his 2nd service weapon (he transitioned to a Sig P226 in the early-mid 80s, this was his service revolver from the mid-70s until that time). It was sitting in his safe doing nothing, so he offered to send it my way. Got it in today!
But as I was picking it up...the guy behind the counter said "I popped the grips off to get the serial for the book; um, you need to look under the grips..." Uh oh. That's never a good thing to hear. And...
There's a mark on the cylinder where it's been resting against the wax paper for the last 30+ years, and under the grips...all I can guess is the frame front/back/bottom wasn't really wiped down before the Pachmayrs were put on, and/or it was out in the rain at some point and not detail cleaned? Or, simply the rubber grips wouldn't let any moisture/sweat from practicing in the summer escape, and 30 years did a job...either way.
Not a big deal...some 0000 steel wool and some oil, and it was more-or-less resolved, give or take:
It's pretty clear that it wasn't as detail cleaned as it could have been before storage...guessing no one was sure this whole 9mm thing would ever take off back then. A good chamber and barrel scrubbing and she should be ready to run again in no time...
I'm probably going to spend some more quality time with 0000 and a brush to get into the serrations a bit better, but otherwise..
Now to figure out grips and holsters, I guess? Not that the Pachs are bad or anything, but after looking at what happened underneath...just a little less sanguine about them.