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Charlie, thank you for the introduction to Texas grips. I checked out their website and really like their Claro Walnut and Mesquite grips. And I think the holly grips nice and a good substitute to ivory as well…I prefer natural materials.
BW
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So this message is for stumpkiller and anyone else that likes Smith & Wesson K38s. This is one of my displays when you come into my store. Yes the K38 is for sale.
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love the gun porn
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TThought since I talk about them, I would post up a couple of mine.
Some of these are rather unusual examples. So, for instance, the second to last is NOT a pair of Aces but a pair of Ace conversions I happen to have frames for. The lower one is older, with the smaller but adjustable sights, while the upper is the newer version with the nicer sights. Both are real Ace conversiions though.
In the sixgun collection, all of those now wear ivory grips - I took off the stag and replaced them with ivory. That gun is a 2nd gen Colt SAA that I bought new when I returned from Nam. The two center ones on the left are USFA SAA’s with case hardening and ivory. They are both gunfighter barrel lengths (4-5/8") and have serial numbers “DOC 001” and “DOC 002”. My daughter has already declared dibs on them when I am dead. The two above and below are Italian copies that are remarkably close to the originals.3rd pic down you see the Colt with the ivories on it. The gun to its right is a Colt Commanding Officer. It is an Officer slide on a Commander frame. Colt made them only for about 6 months back about '86. I bought this one from a CAS friend who had had it modified with the cut back end, NP3 coated, and originally thin scales. I put the ivories on it. Left of it the small 1911 is one of only two Kimbers I own. It is an Ultra CDP with a S&A magwell added instead of the “usual” strut spring housing. Top pic is my two Navies with the Richards-Mason conversions installed. I had to modify the grips to make them fit as there didn’t seem to be any kool grips made for a Navy 36. And the Luger is a 7.62mm with nujmbers matching, built about 1923 per serial number.
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WOW, some nice pieces, they need to be broken down a bit more, for instance the top two deserve their own thread
Missed that somehow, thank you for your service, what years and where did you serve?
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Went into the Marine Corps in 1968, out of college. I was in Nam ‘69-‘70, then served the rest of my active duty at El Toro in CA. Back home I joined the local Reserve USMC unit, an Air Control Hq, where I was until 1980. Transferred into the ILANG then to be a Flight Surgeon. Uncle Sam paid the airplane gas, so what not to like! In 1987 I trqansferred into the WIANG unit at Mitchell Field, where I was initially head of Flight Medicine, then Clinic Commander. Got called up for Dessert Storm but was sent to Minot AFB while their FS was sent to Egypt to take care of our air crew - which was a bummer. Anyway, retired in 1996 after 29- years. That’s it in a nutshell.
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Nice collection some unique pieces. Envious!
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Very nice collection The Luger is seen less and less often these days.
I want to ask if you will take the first 2 or second set and do a seperate post with that same picture and give us some more details .
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I’ve been buying guns for a LONG time. I almost NEVER sell one. Put up a HK P30 through a friend FFL on Gunbroker, but it hasn’t sold yet. Otherwise last guns I sold were 1st Gen Glock 17 (with the light trigger) and a S&W Model 15 Combat Masterpiece, which I had purchased new back in the 60’s while in college. STILL want to kick myself for selling either of those. 
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Yeah, that in its original tupperware box is a collectors item
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Unfortunately Lugers have become way too expensive to buy these days. Mine is worth a pretty penny because of all the matched numbers. The magazine is not matched; indeed .32 cal Luger mags are very hard to find at all.
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There are certian lugers that are so expensive I would have to save for 20yrs. To buy one
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The pair are Pieta Colt Navy copies, consecutively numbered, and originally rendered as cap. ‘n ball guns. Guy up just over the border into Wisconsin does conversions. His specialty is converting Remington 1856’s (first solid frame handgun) into .45 Colt shooters. Those are prized in the cowboy riding/shooting arena as they reload really easily. If you want to see one in action, watch the Clint Eastwood western where he is a wandering padre who stumbles onto a small independent gold camp. The final gunfight, Clint uses a Remington 1856, One of its characteristics is that you can drop the cylinder merely by pulling the loading lever (which really is a cylinder pin).
But I digress. Way back Remington made the first solid frame revolver off a patent they bought from S&W. That precluded Colt from producing their own solid frame pistol, which they had developed - the ubiquitous SAA - until the patent ran out. In the meanwhile two Colt employees came up with notifications to the old cap ‘n ball guns. One was named Richards and the other Mason. Colt bought the two patents and created the 1872 Open Top revolver, which changed old C ‘n B frames to cartridge use. They added an extractor along the side of the barrel, a la the coming 1873 Colt Single Action Army - SAA for short. There were a lot of C ‘n B guns about, mostly out West (because of the Civil War) and many underwent the R-M modification. Those have more or less disappeared and are collector items if original. Mine were made to mimic the conversion. Note the “extra” piece along the rear wall of the frame opening - that houses the firing pin. It also has a loading gate. The cylinder is shortened to accommodate the added thickness in the frame. The cylinder is made to shoot .38 Long Colt, a predecessor to the ,38 Spl. You guys may know it from the Philippines war where the Army had them as the standard side arm. They could not stop the hopped-up Huks, who may have. been killed but still got to the. shooter and stabbed him with their short spears before they died.
The .38 Long Colt is unique in that it is loaded with the bullet flush with the outside of the case. Think of a .22 LR, where the lead goes to the OUTSIDE edge of the case - sammy, sammy. From a practical POV, the problem with the guns is that .38 Long Colt cases are very hard (and so expensive) to find. The work-around is to load a .38 Spl case with a small bullet, and control the OAL so you don’t exceed the length of the cylinder.
The load I developed for them was 3.2 gr of Trail Boss over a 104 gr semi-wad cutter, insuring the OAL was short enough to load in the cylinder.
The other problem was that a guy did a trigger job on the guns and to make them “go right” he cut the end of the barrels. Cap ‘n Ball six guns lock-up for firing by pushing the cylinder up against the barrel to form a tight (sort of) fit and not lose a lot of gas. This gap is controlled by how much you jam in the wedge. If you cut the barrels you can no longer do that without jamming the wedge way in, in which case you get an upward shooting pistol - that only turns for a few cylinders worth of ammo, then jams. That was solved by welding a small bead on the top part of each barrel, then hand fitting the gun for the right front shake.
Last problem to solve was that the headspace. was too small. Revolvers generally headspace off the rear. of the case to the back wall of the pistol frame, unlike rifles and most other pistols. That distance should be 0.004-0.006” behind each round. That means that the overall spacing will be on the bigger side in order to insure the tightest headspace cartridge gets at least. the minimum. BUT since we were rereaming each cylinder opening for the cartridge, we could adjust the depth of ream to insure proper headspace across the pistol. AND lastly the barrels were sleeved to .357. Navies generally have a measured bore of about .369-.380. This allowed, among other things, to reload them more easily, BUT you can’t fire cartridges with any accuracy with that big a bore discrepancy, unless you specifically cast bullets 0.001-2 over what you slug the barrel at. Putting in a liner was a lot easier, and more cost effective since now I could reload regular .38 Spl bullets.
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I can’t even joke about JB on those beauties
Great post, a lot over my head for any type of quick read, need to book mark
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Second pic.
Those are basically USFA competition versions of their famous SAA copies. So, in dimensions they are identical to my two fancy USFA .45’s in the 4th pic. The differences are that the finish is not fancy but plain black. So they’re cheaper - or were. They’re also in .357 Mag. Since the dimensions are exactly the same, they are heavier than the .45’s since a lot less metal was removed to make them (think .45 holes are significantly larger than .357 Mag. The grips are ebony. I had wanted something different, and ivory was expensive and sort of not meant for this type of pistol, I opted for ebony. I got the crosses from church and had the guy who made grips for me inlet them into the grips. You can wear them outside so they show in your holsters, or inside, so they show in your hand.
The reason they’re .357 Mag is that I bought them to be back-up for my Navies, which were very unreliable at the time. So I had guns I could shoot at a cowboy shoot if the Navies crapped out. I also have an Italian copy of the Winchester 1866 “Yellow Boy” in .38 Spl. It has gone through a complete cowboy tune-up, with shortened throw, lightened loading block, closer tolerances. It’s a hoot to shoot. The lever throw is only maybe 30 or 40 degrees, and the lightened loading block *does * make it a lot quicker to work the lever. My Uberti 1873 also has a lightened loading block, but there’s already so much metal removed just to accommodate the .45 Colt cartridge, it doesn’t make much difference.
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@Devereaux Great Post!!!
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