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S&W M&P Restoration Project

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  • Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    No, not that kind of M&P, the good kind.

    I picked this thing up cheap, and I bet you can see why. The nickel finish is there in spirit, but that's about it. The grips are also wrong on it. Those are victory model grips, and this is not a victory model S&W. The good thing is, it is in mechanically great condition. There's very little movement in the cylinder and the timing seems spot on. The trigger (both DA and SA) is a little bit heavier than I'd like from a S&W, but it's not what I would call bad.

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    The reason I was so interested in this thing is because it's chambered in 32-20 WCF.

    Now, the title says restoration, but refinishing would probably be more accurate. This gun is a shooter. There's very little collectors value left in it, so I'm going to make it my own.

    Here's the plan. The first thing I'm going to do is strip it down to bare steel. I've got a chemical stripper from Brownells that should do that pretty fast. Next, I'm going to sand and polish it to make it purdy. From what I can tell, the metal itself is fine. I cannot see any sighs of rust or pitting other than a bit of rust under the grips, so it should be an easy job to get this thing shined up. After that, I'm going to rust blue it. I'm too cheap to send it off to have it replated, and I'm way too cheap to buy all of the equipment I would need to plate it myself. Rust bluing is cheap and easy, and looks fantastic. It's the cheapest/easiest way to get a high quality finish. While I have the gun disassembled, I'm going to replace some of the springs with new ones from Wolff that should improve the trigger a bit. Finally, I'll replace the grips with a set from Altamont.

    When it's all said and done, this thing should hopefully be stunningly beautiful. Or, at least a lot nicer than it is now.
    Capitol Armory ad
     

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    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    I decided to put a few rounds through the gun before I took it apart and started the project. I have the say, it's a really nice little shooter. It's pretty accurate and the 32-20 is a joy to shoot. It's very mild and soft shooting.

    So I took it apart and it's a bit worse than I thought. I think I know why the trigger wasn't as nice as I was expecting...

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    I don't want to sand on some of the internals and risk changing their tolerances, so I ordered some Evaporust. It should be here in a few days. I also discovered that the design is slightly different than your typical Model 10. It looks like most of the parts would interchange, but there are definitely some differences. I was very careful to photo every step of the disassembly so that I can hopefully get this thing back together. I'll have to see if the Wolff stuff will work in it. I think it will. The grips have been ordered, but knowing Altamont it might be a few weeks before they show up.

    The gun is sitting in the stripper right now. This stuff is kinda nasty as you would expect. In a few hours, I'll know if it worked.

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    I'm hoping I can save the color case hardening on the hammer and trigger. I have read that a coat of cold blue can put some life back into it, and I have a bit of Super Blue out in the shop, so I might try that.
     

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    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    Yikes. I bet that trigger pull was a bit crunchy.

    Mainly, it was a little heavy and not silky smooth like you'd expect a S&W trigger to be. It wasn't super gritty.

    I just checked on the gun. I used a dab of cold blue to test it and see if the nickel was coming off. The steel immediately turned black, so it is. There's still a lot of that black stuff which I assume is the copper plating they use to get the nickel to stick to the steel. The stripper says that it will strip everything it's going to within 4 hours. If it doesn't come off, it may be rust. I'll dunk the whole thing in the evaporust when it gets here (hopefully Thursday) and see how that goes. I'd like to be able to sand it over the weekend and start rust bluing it next week when I have time. I'm only going up to 400 grit, so it shouldn't take long to sand it if the surface is pit free. Rust blue doesn't do as well with anything much higher, and from what I understand, it etches the metal a bit anyways. I'm not going to get a mirror finish on the gun, but it should look nice.
     

    Geezer

    Mostly Peaceful
    TGT Supporter
    Jul 23, 2019
    5,221
    96
    Silsbee, Texas
    A 50/50 mixture of white distilled vinegar and water will remove some of the rust. It's especially useful in hard to reach places, such as inside the frame of your revolver. Thanks for the progress update, keep 'em coming. I'm anxious to see the finished product.
     

    Dawico

    Uncoiled
    Lifetime Member
    Oct 15, 2009
    38,007
    96
    Lampasas, Texas
    You might want to consider some light bead blasting. Not enough to change tolerances, just enough to clean some parts.
    Bead blasting works well and won't remove any metal. I used it to clean up some rusty knurling years ago and it came out beautiful.

    It would work great on this project.
     

    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    I don't have the stuff to do bead blasting, though I plan to get it eventually. The Evaporust did exactly what it said it would do. It removed pretty much ever bit of rust in only a few hours.

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    It unfortunately uncovered something I didn't want to see. Pits. Not really in the internals, but all of those black areas on the frame and barrel were hiding pits. Thankfully, almost all of them are extremely shallow and the worst ones should still be removable without causing any issues. I'll just have to be careful around the stamping on the barrel and frame. Some of them are kind of shallow and overzealous sanding could ruin them.

    The Evaporust left behind some grey splotches where the black used to be. They sand off with little effort.

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    I also discovered that the rebound spring was not in good shape. It came out in 4 pieces. Luckily, that's one of the parts I ordered from Wolff.

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    I've got everything oiled up to prevent flash rusting, and I'll start on the sanding tomorrow.
     

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    Geezer

    Mostly Peaceful
    TGT Supporter
    Jul 23, 2019
    5,221
    96
    Silsbee, Texas
    @Maverick44 , check around with an auto repair shop or motorcycle shop and find someone with a bead blaster. Take the frame & barrel, crane, side plate and, cylinder. It will only take them a few minutes and you'll be pleased with the results. Then you can blue it or parkerize it and it will look great.

    I picked up a Model 66 S&W that had been badly neglected. It was discolored with some rust freckles and had some pitting. The bore and cylinder chambers were still good. I disassembled it and took those pieces to a local motorcycle shop and had them bead blasted. It turned out really well. It's the one in this picture.

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    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    There's something about bead blasting a classic revolver that just seems, wrong. There's just something about a polished blue finish that looks right on them. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen with this gun. Some of the pits are worse than I thought, and cannot be removed without removing a substantial amount of metal along with them.

    I am torn between leaving the bad areas of pitting (there are only a few) and polishing/bluing as planned, or bead blasting and settling for a matte blue finish. The areas on the barrel could probably be removed. The ones on the top strap might be too deep to remove though.

    As mush as I hate to say it, I'm leaning towards the bead blasted matte finish.

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    Spcwolf

    Active Member
    Apr 16, 2013
    974
    76
    Conroe tx
    Man I can’t wait to see what it finally looks like. I have a model 10 nickel in 38spc. Perfect condition, early 80s model.
     

    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    Ok, I got a LOT of work done on the revolver. The bead blasting was a good idea, the finish on the metal was absolutely beautiful. I used the finest grain (#10) that I could get off of amazon. There's a lot of pitting that I couldn't get rid of unfortunately. There's nothing that can be done about it, so it's just something I'm going to have to live with.

    The gun is blued, and it turned out pretty nice. I also got my order from Wolff in, so I'm going to try to assemble the gun tonight.
     

    satx78247

    Member, Emeritus
    Emeritus - "Texas Proud"
    Jun 23, 2014
    8,479
    96
    78208
    Maverick44,

    IF it was MY revolver, I would BLACK parkerize it & ENJOY a really classic M&P/ersatz Victory model.
    (During WWII, a LOT of "commercial buy" Colt's & S&W revolvers were refinished with manganese at various depots in CONUS & OCONUS too.)

    YES, there were .32-20 revolvers in the US DoW inventory.

    NICE PROJECT, imVho, too.

    yours, satx
     

    Maverick44

    Youngest old man on TGT.
    I wasn't able to get the gun together last night. The night before last was rough, so I went to bed when I got home from work.

    Here's the gun after beadblasting. You can see that there are some areas that I couldn't sand the pits out of, but for the most part, it cleaned up really nicely.

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    Here's the gun being "scalded". Basically, to rust blue, you wipe a thin even later of a solution on the gun, you put it somewhere humid (steamy bathroom) and you let it rust for at least three hours, but not for so long that the rust causes pits. The first time you do this, you reapply the solution over the rust and let it sit for another three hours. After that, you pour boiling distilled water over the gun and let it sit until cool (this is scalding). This turns the red rust into black rust. You then "card" the black rust off of the gun with some 0000 steel wool and repeat the process. I did the process 4 times on the crane/cylinder parts, and 6 times on the frame, barrel, and side plate (there were a few spots that wouldn't blue evenly).

    The last time you scald the rusted gun, you do so with baking soda and distilled water to stop the chemical reaction causing the rusting. It's suggested you scald one last time after carding with clean distilled water. This is probably to help clean any loose black rust off the gun that you missed when carding. (After scaling, it's like a powder)

    As you can see, this was a labor intensive process, and carding the gun was messy. It produces a nice, durable blue through. Far better than cold blue, and safer/cheaper than hot bluing.

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    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
     

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