The Traveling Gunsmith

Part of what we gunsmiths do is hands-on skill and a great part is improved knowledge of firearms. We know how guns should perform and what they should look like. Working for gun shops and pawn shops and inspecting firearms can be an important part of our job. Since I work at home it is important to get out and away from the desk and bench at times. I do not have walk-in customers, so taking it on the road is ideal for me.

I am sometimes called to identify firearms, to provide insight if they are safe to shoot, and for appraisals. 38 S&W Enfield, above, could not possibly accommodate the .38 Special cartridge. The Victory Model .38, below, was originally chambered in .38 S&W although the chambering step can be reamed long enough to accommodate a .38 Special. It is a big mistake to rechamber such a revolver. 38 S&W, and .38 Special cartridges. The two .38s are NOT interchangeable. Some decisions made by shops are inexplicable.

You must know how to deal with these, with the different personalities, and when to walk away. I am going to go over a few examples of what I have dealt with. I wish I could give you a crash course on dealing with personalities but it is pretty difficult. You simply have to go with what you know as you can’t educate folks on the hoof. Some of the things that happen are almost humorous, others are examples of when it makes sense to cut a customer loose and simply not work with him anymore.

You cannot please everyone and sometimes an individual expects us to fix his mess on the cheap. It can’t be done! You wouldn’t think a shop would have a cavalier attitude toward safety, yet some do. While gun shops are often run by gun people, pawn shops might not be. Thankfully, my friends Arnold and Wade run their shop with integrity, though I’ve had dealings with others that did not. Let’s look at some hard-won practical experience.

Not long ago, I was asked to appraise the safety and history of a Springfield 1903 rifle. I had both good and bad news. The serial number range was among those with an unsafe receiver and it should never be fired—even though it had obviously been fired as haze cracks are sometimes microscopic. Despite the shooter having successfully pushed his luck here, these rifles were deemed unsafe because they might blow up with first shot, though sometimes it takes time.

Whenever these rifles finally give, the results are equally dangerous. That was the bad news. The good news these rifles are desirable non-firing collector pieces. At the same time, I was shown a Colt 10mm with a blown out barrel feed ramp. The shop had bought the gun from someone that had throated the barrel and it appeared they did so because of reading too many gun magazines and none of them were American Gunsmith. It was the first 10mm Colt I’ve seen that would not feed. Thank-

This one has many good parts. fully, the frame had not been assaulted. I scoured the world for a used 10mm barrel and found one for $80. It turned out that both the gun and my replacement barrel would sit on the shelf because the shop thought it was too much to put a $800 Colt back in action, despite having purchased the pistol with such a mishap evident. That shop was eventually sold and under new (but not necessarily better) management.

The new owner asked me to look at a very nice Smith & Wesson Model 30 that had a cylinder refusing to lock in place. My first thought was grit inside was impeding the bolt stop and that a simple cleaning would do as I’ve done this before. However, the shop’s new gun guy picked the revolver up and proclaimed there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with it because .38s locked up while .32s don’t Suffice to say, our professional relationship did not prosper.

At another shop ran by a good friend, I inspected a Smith & Wesson Military & Police revolver chambered in .32-20, a nice 1915-era specimen. The action was very rough and I was afraid I would break something if I kept trying the action. He admitted that some of his help had fitted and installed some new, short lockwork parts and a few other bits. When asked, I said I could fix it but it would be pretty expensive, save for one thing.

The hammer and trigger of that .32-30 S&W was ruined but the small parts were unusable and I had a proper set of parts in a similar revolver with a blown barrel. Good fortune helped me combine two broken revolvers into a working one for a fair price. Yet, the customer thought this good luck was something I did all the time. As you know, such luck isn’t always so generous. We do not have needed spare parts on the cheap often.

This same shop recently purchased a Smith & Wesson .38 with the barrel shortened to 2.5 inches, a missing ejector rod locking mechanism, a tinny finish job, and cylinders that had been reamed from .38 S&W to .38 Special. I knew firing standard pressure .38 Special would bulge the cases and +P cartridges would split the case or worse.

I carefully showed the owner howa .38 S&W cartridge would chamber in this cylinder, that it would not do so in a proper .38 Special revolver, and that this modified revolver would not only accept the longer .38 Specials it wasn’t rated for, it would also fit 110 grain .357 Magnums! The owner was a bit sick over this monstrosity but it was an example of the fact that guns have always been screwed up by some rascal and then sold to the unknowing.

Amazingly, this type of modification was commonly done in the 1950s on war surplus revolvers. While it would technically be safe to fire only .38 S&W, how could you risk letting such a revolver out of

What happened so long ago to warrant a barrel change? We will never know. the shop? There was no conceivable means of fixing this revolver, making it a parts gun. Another shop wisely keeps on hand a set of Go/No Go gauges in various calibers for older rifles such as 8mm Mauser and 7.62x54mm. I was called in to inspect a Mauser rifle that appeared in excellent condition, though some of the appearance was "off." It was nice looking, but the Nazi eagle and other original proof marks of the era had been ground off.

Yugoslavian and Israelis handling these rifles as surplus were known to remove such proof marks and others may have as well. The stock was marked "7.62" in a deep engraving. My first thought was that the piece was an Israeli rifle converted from its original state to 7.62x51mm NATO. Most would have deduced that and stopped there, but a professional cannot do that without being certain. Cartridge chamber gauges told the truth: The rifle wasn’t a .308/7.62 but still chambered in 8mm Mauser!

You may scratch your head at why an otherwise unmodified and originallychambered German Mauser action would have the proof marks ground off and the stock stamped "7.62" but it was a potentially dangerous combination and I am glad we found it. It took some doing but we managed to feel good about offering this rifle for sale, with a different stock! On another occasion I inspected and test fired a rather decent Argentine Modelo 1927 .45 automatic. The owner had obtained it at an estate auction.

I decided to run a magazine of Black Hills 230 grain ball through the pistol as the final step of my inspection. I fired five cartridges before the extractor literally separated at the hook. I had never seen an extractor do this. The extractor had appeared fine, however, further inspection revealed it was beat out of an old nail or something similar. Surprisingly, the dimensions were all correct, though the hardening proved otherwise. Turns out the deceased was a gunsmith of some repute and I suppose this was some

sort of experiment or perhaps an expedient. I do not believe he would have let this or his other treasures out to the public in such a state. On another occasion I was called in to inspect a gallery rifle a friend wished to purchase. The price was right and the owner of the shop, an honest man, knew little about the rifle. The old Winchester had the company named scrolled on the receiver as it should for a gallery rifle. It would feed and fire only .22 Short ammunition.

The magazine tube was proper for a gallery rifle. Function was good. However, the owner of the shop had purchased the rifle as a Winchester gallery rifle—but it was and it wasn’t. The barrel was marked "H&R Pioneer" and was not original. The front and rear sight and their arrangement and fitting were perfect. The rifle fed, chambered, fired, and ejected normally. The rifle was even very accurate.

Someone had fitted and headspaced the barrel perfectly, as well as chambered it for .22 Long Rifle, but the Winchester feeding mechanism would only feed Shorts. Despite this, the gunsmith work could not have been accomplished better. While the collector passed on this rifle, I purchased it as a curiosity. I imagine the original barrel is out there somewhere but I’ll never know because the rifle is used as is.

I wonder why a H&R rifle was so used for this job and the barrel replaced at all, given how seldom .22 barrels are shot out even with high round counts seen in gallery guns, Perhaps it could have been fired with semi-smokeless powder and corrosion could have claimed the original barrel? Or was this an attempt to convert the rifle to .22 LR that didn’t quite work out? Technically, it is nowa .22 LR but feeding the long cartridge isn’t possible. Despite that, it is a fine shooter.

A common handgun that comes across my desk is the 1911 pistol in many variations. It isn’t a lack of a basic integrity in the handgun, far from it, but it is because those that have no business working on a firearm tend to butcher good pistols. I examined a 1911 the owner had purchased as a used Colt. The slide, barrel, and grips were Colt but the frame was Essex. The Series 70 slide featured a scalloped ejection port. The frame and slide were reblued and the job was well done. There were signs of muzzle wear.

The pistol was a parts gun in the sense it was not an original Colt. While far from worthless, it was a shooter and simply not worth what the owner thought. I examined the pistol and it seemed well done enough. On another occasion I examined a similar pistol but this time the owner hit the jackpot. The slide and frame fit were good and this Colt/Essex hybrid was fitted with a Colt barrel. At first it beat itself up because there was a too-light recoil spring installed but that was a simple fix.

A safety check was sound. This handgun was a good example of old school. Another 1911 I examined was built on a Crown City frame, which typically give good service. The pistol showed signs of the barrel being welded and fitted and the trigger action was smooth but heavy. Under magnification the rear sight, a Bomar, yielded some welcome markings. The sights were marked "USMC" and the gun was determined to be a first class, Marinebuilt, Bullseye gun.

On another occasion I was standing in a shop picking up a barrel when a customer roughly handled a Mini 14 and allowed the magazine to hit the floor hard enough to no longer fit the magazine well. The owner of the shop told him, "You may not have bought that rifle but you have bought a magazine." The culprit muttered something and fled the shop. I picked up the magazine and borrowed a straight screwdriver from behind the counter, worked with it a minute, and then locked it in place. The owner smiled.

Sometimes the stars do shine for us! AG