I've had this on the back burner
for a while. It got put off, then forgotten. Only took a week of
puttering on it once I started.
My neighbor has a single action
revolver in 45 Long Colt. Seeing how it is stamped, Made in West
Germany, it has a few years on it - it also indicates it isn't exactly a
high dollar piece, either. None the less, he likes
it and has fun shooting it. That was, up until a few years ago, when
the cheap injection molded, plastic grips broke. I took it upon myself
to either find a set of grips for it, or make some. Being an obscure and
obsolete manufacturer, I settled on doing it
the hard way - I took a piece of mahogany and fashioned my own.
Not being the master woodsmith
that John Jay is; I made due with a coarse bladed high tension hack saw,
a coping saw, a cordless Dremel, and a 1" wide bench mounted belt
sander. The inletting was done with a mixture of
X-Acto knives and various wood chisels. The countersunk holes for the
grip screws were roughed in with a 3/8 fostner bit, then dressed out to
final size with the X-Acto - I somehow lost my 7/16 bit. I put on a
finish of Teak Oil to round it out with a nice
rubbed oil luster. If it were mine, I would have stripped the fading
chrome finish off, then blued the steel and blackened the alloy pieces.
Otherwise, it doesn't look too bad for a first effort - and I'll know what to watch for next time.
Leigh
Good job Leigh! The grips look great. Out of curiosity, who is the manufacturer? J.P. Sauer & Sons?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jeff.
DeleteTo be perfectly honest, I don't recall who the manufacturer is. I'll check tonight and let you know.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY
It looks like my Sauer & Sohn Chief Marshall. I have the 44mag version with a cracked grip. There is none available and other replacement parts are scarce as well. It is a great shooting gun but there is almost zero support for it.
DeleteI had one just like yours Tony. It was a great gun, but kicked like hell. I don't know why the recoil was so rough (nothing like my 1967 3-screw Ruger Super Blackhawk which seems mild in comparison). As far as your cracked grip goes, you might get Leigh to make you a Mahogany set (LOL).
DeleteA vast improvement over the factory grips. I had one in 22LR for years.
ReplyDeleteNice job Leigh, good fit too.
ReplyDeleteHey Leigh;
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job in that one, a lot of people wouldnt have been able to do what you did so enjoy the warm and fuzzies for fabricating something with your hands.
You gotta luv a good hogleg!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the props guys, it means a lot. You all are too kind. I had initially intended to show it off to a few people I knew, but the Boss thought it would make a decent post.
ReplyDeleteThe barrel, as stamped, tells who the importer was; but I had to dig a little to find the manufacturer.
Hy Hunter Inc Firearms Mfg Co.
Hollywood, California
Made in Western Germany
Frontier Six-Shooter Model.45
Come to find out it was made by JP Saur and Sohn of Eckernforde, Germany. Seems as though they imported a bunch of single action six shooters from the mid 50's, up until around '68. There is no serial number data base, so knowing when it was made is pretty much impossible. They were also a staple in Hollywood, Western movie sets, due to SA Colts being so expensive at the time.
Tony is correct about there being almost no part support for them, although Numrich does have some parts for them.
This has been a fun project, and I learned a few things to boot. I'm grateful it was appreciated.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY