One of the members (Jack the toad) from another site (the S&W forum) sent me a shot out rifling snubby barrel from a 1917 he had, and I heated up the front sight and removed it from its silver solder to go onto my snubby barrel. Of course I had to file a flat onto my barrel for it to go on to, just like it had been on the shot out rifling barrel. Here's that front sight removed from the old shot out barrel....
I had tried attaching the front sight to my barrel with J&B weld epoxy, but trust me, that doesn't work and it came off the first time I fired the revolver. That brings us up to date on my previous work. Below is my latest progress on the project.
Finally got the front sight tig WELDED (not silver soldered) on. I wanted it to be as strong as possibly held to the barrel so instead of silver soldering it on, it was tig welded on with a nickel steel rod. And yes I did remove the ejector rod's front lug's spring before welding and replaced it afterwards. In fact I removed the ejector rod and cylinder too when it was welded. Here's a few pics of that before I ground down, filed, sanded and polished the welds....
Now for the major accident I had in the mill. The end of the barrel was jest a leetle off and not square from where it had been cut, so I was doing a leetle trim on the end of the barrel. Everything else was about done and this accident was right at the end of the project. Isn't that always the way? The revolver slipped in the vice and before I could shut the mill down, the mill bit danced all down the right side of the barrel putting deep multiple cuts in it and took out a chunk of the receiver where the barrel screws in too! Needless to say I was sickened to see that happen.
Continued next post.
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