I've told this story before but it's been a while.
About 13 years ago I bought a Navy contract VM from a local pawn shop. The barrel was bulged and the owner couldn't sell it. I looked at it and said that if I got it cheap enough I might be able to work with it. He said name a price. Without thinking it through enough I blurted out $60 and he happily replied "Sold!" He even covered the sales tax for me. What a guy.
The barrel had to be replaced. My problem was that the gun smiths I asked wanted $150-$200 in labor. The refinished revolver with a replacement barrel wasn't worth that much investment. If I couldn't do it myself it wouldn't get done.
I found a 5" barrel on ebay that I bagged for the starting price of $5. The serial on the barrel suggested a 1939 manufacture date so it was very close to the 1942 date on the gun. I stripped the gun down to the bare frame and barrel and soaked overnight in penetrating oil. Using the large bench vise in my garage, I clamped the barrel between two 1" pieces of soft pine. I had a punch that fit and drove out the retaining pin. It popped right out in 2 seconds. Then I put a hammer handle through the cylinder window up as close to the forcing cone as possible to reduce the twisting force on the frame and gently applied pressure. The barrel unscrewed like the lid off a pickle jar. It just came right off as slick as you please.
The new barrel went in the same way. I screwed it in until I ran out of threads with the sight blade at 12 o'clock. With a feeler gauge I determined the B/C clearance to be .005". Perfect. It was almost as if that barrel was made for that frame...which of course it was. God bless mass produced parts intended for assembly line production.
The pin reinsertion was a bear. It was very hard to get the holes lined up precisely. Everything up until this point took about 5 minutes. Seriously, from clamping the gun in the vise to being ready to install the pin took maybe 5 minutes. I thought about that $200 the smith wanted trying to calculate his hourly rate but I'm not good at math. But then I spent another 25 minutes tweaking the barrel back and forth trying to wiggle that darn pin back in. I finally got it but it wasn't a smooth operation.
I test fired the gun and it shot fine. It was wearing the late 1940s "sharp shoulder" Magnas and I liked them so they stayed where they were. Back on ebay I found an older Bianchi holster for a 5" K frame and got it for $5. Apparently I buy a lot of stuff on ebay for $5. I hated the hole in the butt for the missing lanyard ring so I bought a handful of them from a guy at a gun show for...yup...$5 each (I have used 2 and given away a couple to guys who needed one and still have a couple left just in case). Total investment is $75 for a cool 5" M&P in a nice holster. Plus a half hour of my time.
A few years ago I tested it with 500 rounds of factory +P and 600 rounds of my own +P+ (125 JHP@1150 FPS) to satisfy myself that all this nonsense about +P ammo damaging a pre-model marked S&W was...well, nonsense. It was. Nonsense, I mean.
Someday when I am dead and gone, and my wife has sold all my guns, somebody will be looking at the only 5" U.S. military Victory Model he's ever seen thinking "What the hell?" Too bad he won't know the story behind it.
About 13 years ago I bought a Navy contract VM from a local pawn shop. The barrel was bulged and the owner couldn't sell it. I looked at it and said that if I got it cheap enough I might be able to work with it. He said name a price. Without thinking it through enough I blurted out $60 and he happily replied "Sold!" He even covered the sales tax for me. What a guy.
The barrel had to be replaced. My problem was that the gun smiths I asked wanted $150-$200 in labor. The refinished revolver with a replacement barrel wasn't worth that much investment. If I couldn't do it myself it wouldn't get done.
I found a 5" barrel on ebay that I bagged for the starting price of $5. The serial on the barrel suggested a 1939 manufacture date so it was very close to the 1942 date on the gun. I stripped the gun down to the bare frame and barrel and soaked overnight in penetrating oil. Using the large bench vise in my garage, I clamped the barrel between two 1" pieces of soft pine. I had a punch that fit and drove out the retaining pin. It popped right out in 2 seconds. Then I put a hammer handle through the cylinder window up as close to the forcing cone as possible to reduce the twisting force on the frame and gently applied pressure. The barrel unscrewed like the lid off a pickle jar. It just came right off as slick as you please.
The new barrel went in the same way. I screwed it in until I ran out of threads with the sight blade at 12 o'clock. With a feeler gauge I determined the B/C clearance to be .005". Perfect. It was almost as if that barrel was made for that frame...which of course it was. God bless mass produced parts intended for assembly line production.
The pin reinsertion was a bear. It was very hard to get the holes lined up precisely. Everything up until this point took about 5 minutes. Seriously, from clamping the gun in the vise to being ready to install the pin took maybe 5 minutes. I thought about that $200 the smith wanted trying to calculate his hourly rate but I'm not good at math. But then I spent another 25 minutes tweaking the barrel back and forth trying to wiggle that darn pin back in. I finally got it but it wasn't a smooth operation.
I test fired the gun and it shot fine. It was wearing the late 1940s "sharp shoulder" Magnas and I liked them so they stayed where they were. Back on ebay I found an older Bianchi holster for a 5" K frame and got it for $5. Apparently I buy a lot of stuff on ebay for $5. I hated the hole in the butt for the missing lanyard ring so I bought a handful of them from a guy at a gun show for...yup...$5 each (I have used 2 and given away a couple to guys who needed one and still have a couple left just in case). Total investment is $75 for a cool 5" M&P in a nice holster. Plus a half hour of my time.
A few years ago I tested it with 500 rounds of factory +P and 600 rounds of my own +P+ (125 JHP@1150 FPS) to satisfy myself that all this nonsense about +P ammo damaging a pre-model marked S&W was...well, nonsense. It was. Nonsense, I mean.
Someday when I am dead and gone, and my wife has sold all my guns, somebody will be looking at the only 5" U.S. military Victory Model he's ever seen thinking "What the hell?" Too bad he won't know the story behind it.
