What if?

I posed this question on my local gun forums: What if you could get the gun makers to build any gun you wanted, what would you ask for?

Here are my requests:

I am not a huge Smith & Wesson fan, but their revolvers are beautiful and tend to grow on you.  so my 1st request:
S&W N Frame stainless steel 629. Include the "enhanced reliability" lock work, Get rid of the ugly trigger lock on the frame:

 Bring back the old Hand Ejector Triple Lock on the crane

Give it the full under lug barrel (pinned of course) and a unfluted cylinder (like the Classic Hunter below) with recessed chambers:

Then put adjustable front and rear sights like on the silhouette models

UPDATE: Well I doubt the executives at Smith & Wesson read my blog, but they did produce a new version of the 629 that at meets some of my requests. The new 629 PC (PC for Performance Center) features an un-fluted cylinder (1), and extra detent/lock-up on the crane (2) and a very nice 8 3/8" heavy fluted barrel that is drilled and tapped for mounting a scope (3). It also has a built in picatinney rail for lasers or lights. Check out the GUNS.com article

Next I would ask Ruger to build the ultimate 357 revolver:
Take the super strong GP100, extrude hone the internals, hand fit the parts (also polished) and use trigger & hammer shims. Reduce trigger & hammer spring tension and polish the mating surfaces, giving it a baby butt smooth trigger pull.
Next add a match grade, full underlug, vent ribbed barrel with magna porting. Add the front & rear adjustable sights (like the S&W above). Finally give it a finish worthy of royalty (blued & stainless).
What I am asking for is Ruger to build a modern day Python. It might look something like this:

 Or this:

The next gun I would like to have built is the Ruger .44 Mag Deerfield Carbine. For those of you that don't know, Ruger once made a .44 mag carbine built on the Mini-14 design. 

I would add some new features. in addition to the scope mounts in the traditional location, cut another set farther forward, Scout style.
Also provide us with factory 20 & 30 round magazines (instead of the 4 round rotary mags) like the 10-22's BX-25. Finally give us the option of a lightweight synthetic stock with a limbsaver butt pad and storage in the butt stock (for the hi-cap magazines).
This gun could also be made in .50 Action Express (the cartridge rim diameter is the same) and 357 Mag!

Another request for Ruger. How about a blowback operated 9mm pistol built on the Mark Series pistols, make it affordable and lightweight.

My last request is to Glock. For the love of everything that is holy, please provide us with a pistol caliber carbine that uses factory mags! (Yes I know that Kel-Tec and others have done this). Make one in 9mm, .40, .45 but especially in 10mm Auto! Of course Glock would need to begin making 30 round 10mm mags for it!

Here are some of the other requests made by members of SeattleGuns and WAGUNS

* Ruger LCR in 9mm with moon clips
Update, Ruger now offers the LCR in 9mm Luger with full moon clips

* Rossi/Taurus Circuit Judge in 357 Magnum
* STG44 that is chambered in 7.62x39mm and uses AK magazines
* Calico semi-auto 12 gauge that used the helical magazines
* Sig P227 in 10mm Auto
* .460 & .500 Mag Lever gun
* Bring back the Medusa 47 revolver 
* Heavy Barreled Mini-30 that takes AK magazines 
* Ak-47 platform, chambered in .300 Win Mag

Rusty Mossberg

Be sure to see my updates in Polishing Your Gun and  Another Shotgun Followed me home.

A while back I helped this guy reblue this shotgun, the guy didn't want to go through a lot of effort, just clean and reblue. It had some awful pitting, some of which was so deep (and on the thin end of the barrel) that I wasn't comfortable removing metal anyway.

Well the rust returned, when you skip a step, sometimes things like this happen.
He brought it back asked if we could convert it to a home defense shotgun, by removing the vent rib, cutting the barrel down, removing what pitting we can, sandblasting the metal and reblue it.

This is what it looked like before we started

 

We cut the barrel to 20", We wanted to leave a little wiggle room in the event the owner wanted to add a pistol grip later. To properly measure the barrel length, inset the bolt into the locking recess on the barrel, next stick a dowl down the barrel until in rests against the breach face on the bolt. Mark the dowel and then measure the length

After cutting the barrel We removed the vent rib, by prying the rib off of the stanchions, then snapping of the stanchions with a pair of pliers. We then filed the remaining metal.

Here it is after sanding/filing. We will now try sandblasting the barrel and magazine tube with heavy grit abrasive.

I sandblasted them and the magazine tube pitting was deep enough to blow a hole through the metal, I was afraid this would happen. It is a non-critical part and the rest of the metal is solid, so it should be OK

After removal from the bluing tank the parts had a red/orange rusty film, but no worries, this happens some times and is not reflective of what the finish looks like underneath

 Here it is assembled, it doesn't look the best, this one might have been a candidate for a paint or Cerakote job (especially considering what the new intended use is).

Record Keeping

A very important aspect of the gun collecting hobby, but one that is often overlooked, is record keeping.
You should keep detailed records of the guns you own. This will aid Law Enforcement & insurance adjusters in the unlikely event that your guns are stolen, lost or damaged from fire or flood. This can help in their recovery and determine condition/value for when filing a claim.
There are several ways you can do this: you can purchase a gun data base program like My Gun Database or find a free one, there are several out there. You could create your own, using Excel or another database program.

There are other options. Before purchasing My Gun Database I used Microsoft's PowerPoint program to catalog my guns. I would take a picture of the gun, insert it into PowerPoint

Then I would add a text box with the pertinent information (make, model, barrel length, year of mfg and most importantly the serial #)

 Then save the document as a jpeg (.jpg) file, the newer versions of PowerPoint allow you to save in different formats including .pdf.

 Now you will have a picture record of your gun to hand over to the Police or Insurance

 Of course the next step is to save the pictures somewhere other than your home computer. You can burn them to a CD (to put in a safe deposit box, leave in your desk at work, give to a relative), you can add them to a thumb drive or email (or upload) them to an online account that will remain in the "cloud"

Another shotgun followed me home

Be sure to catch my updates on my latest gun bluing projects
http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/2013/09/another-batch-of-guns-to-blue.html

Another shotgun followed me home. This is a Savage/Stevens model 94C single shot .410 gauge shotgun. The barrel could use a re-bluing and the trigger guard is broken, but otherwise it is in great shape.

I'll probably start with a reblue of  the barrel and then refinish the wood. I'll start the search for the trigger guard (which is plastic).

Here is what it looks like now

 

Since I have some guns to reblue, I decided to strip and polish the barrel now, even though I may not get to the rest of the gun for awhile

The metal has been blued, I will work on finding a trigger guard and refinishing the wood

I found an aftermarket trigger guard from Numrich Arms also known as Gun Parts Corp.

 

Before fitting it to the gun I had to remove the existing remnants of the old plastic trigger guard.

The rear screw was easy to remove, but the front one required accessing a screw that is on the inside of the receiver. I removed the stock, the bolt as was expected was rusty and a little stuck

 The entire mechanism was pretty dry. I removed the upper pin (not sure if that was required or not) and cocked the hammer to access the front trigger guard screw through the gap in front of the hammer.

 Once I removed the two broken pieces I could pre-fit the new metal trigger guard.

 I found the new trigger guard didn't quite fit the receiver's contours. I used my padded vice to make minor adjustments to make it line up.

 Once I got the bends right, the trigger was just touching the trigger guard, a bit of a tap with a brass punch made enough clearance.

 Finished! I haven't decided yet if I will refinish the wood yet.

 I think I will test fire the gun next, before making up my mind.