Had some fun with one of those Brazilian pistols a while back when they were cheap. Ordered three and got three examples of scrap iron. Sent them back and said try again. This time we received two not so bad and one with a really bad barrel.
A couple gun shows later came home with a new looking 1955 TGT barrel. That started “The Project". I did learn a lot. Like why that barrel was at the gunshow.
Tore the pistol down to basics and removed the barrel. Using a Chiefs Special as a pattern I copied the round butt “K” profile to the “N” frame. Welded in filler metal where needed and slowly reshaped the grip to the smaller size. Next was the barrel. I centered the barrel in the four jaw chuck and fit the cylinder gap with no problem. Never having done it before I was really nervous but all went well and was actually kinda fun. But then the real fun started. I screwed the barrel into the frame hand tight then went for the vice and blocks with the frame wrench. Pulled it into the twelve o'clock and it snugged up. Removed it from the vice and lo and behold the ejector shroud did not line up. I quickly backed it off and lined it up. Then the rib was crooked. What is going on?
Took it to my local smith and showed him. He chuckled and put it in the vice only to get the same results which left us both in wonderland. He figured I just did not screw it in far enough because it was getting really tight. Nope, not even close.
Putting it on the layout plate we applied the parallels. It soon became obvious. The barrel's top rib was about eight degrees out of square. That barrel made it all the way through S&W's manufacturing procedures, was polished, buffed and blued before being caught and sent to the guns show to be available to some unknowing dipstick (like me).
I cut the front sight off and crowned it at five inches which was part of the plan anyway. Made a jig to rigidly hold it and machined the rib flat. Using a 3/8” ball end mill contoured the sides into the now much lower rib. Then soldered on a newly made front sight with a McGivern gold bead, my favorite.
The last project was to mill the slots for an adjustable S&W rear sight. I could not find a cutter to make the undercut for the sight base and no tool grinder in my area would even try to make one. So I laboriously cut that slot with a modified needle file. What a chore.
Then the action was tuned and because it was going to be a working gun I parkerized it. What a cutie. And quite a good shooter too. I must say I know that gun is much happier now in it's new configuration. A whole lot like a S&W M625.
