By Frank James
More
than a few of us have demonstrated a propensity
to modify or customize gadgets to our particular
needs or individual tastes. Whether or not the
idea of customizing a personal handgun started
with automobiles would prove debatable, I
suppose, but the fact remains many of the terms
often used to describe a customized handgun
trace their origins to custom cars "Chopped
and Channeled:' "full-race and
"street-legal" are all terms that were
first used to describe the custom hotrods often
found parked in select parking spots at the
drive-in 40 years ago. However, now these same
terms are used to describe the latest iron
"teddy-bear."
When I was much
younger I noticed this trend to change things in
our cars. Obviously, many of these modifications
were performance related. The installation of a
¾ cam with solid lifters and a four barrel
carburetor with a high rise manifold did nothing
to improve the gas mileage of the 283-cubic-inch
V-8 in a '57 Chevy coupe, but it sure shortened
its elapsed time in the quarter mile.
The
same thing is often seen in custom autopistols
with the 1911 pistol being the most common
vehicle for such work. Yet, what many forget are
the little things frequently needed to make a
revolver work better or shoot more accurately.
A
few of you who are recent arrivals to the world
of handgunning will probably voice the thought
revolvers are a waste of time today because of
their relatively low ammunition capacity and
dated desiqn. Being something of an old-timer, I
can honestly say I remember when revolvers were
chosen for serious social purposes first above
all others simply because the average revolver
was more reliable than the standard grade
autopistol.
No,
that's no longer true-and that's what's called
progress. Things have improved. At least with
respect to autopistols, their reliability and
the ammunition we put in them.
However,
it's still hard to teach an old dog new tricks
and, when it comes to revolvers, that's
certainly true in my case. I like wheelguns and
I'm certainly partial to Smith & Wesson .41
Magnums because I've owned a slew of 'em over
the years. About a year or so ago, Smith &
Wesson came out with yet another Mountain Gun,
only this one was in my favorite flavor.
Click
on images to see larger size.
Gun
Details
That's right, it was the Model 657-4.41
Magnum Mountain Gun. It was a
revolver I had long thought would prove just
about ideal in this caliber. It came
with the old style 1950-ish thin barrel that was four
inches in length. (I would have
preferred five inches, but we can't get everything we want in life, can
we?) The
cylinder was radiused and rounded at the front and
generally the entire revolver
followed the established format for a lightweight, heavy caliber
revolver from
Smith & Wesson.
The stainless
steel frame featured a round butt, which is
another design
aspect I've never been too crazy about. Smith
& Wesson N-frame revolvers have
always been large pistols. They're not the largest around by any means,
but
they are large enough in my view that rounding the
butt achieves little in terms
of increased concealability while at the same time losing some essential
grip
dimension needed for increased control during
rapid-fire strings.
Additionally, this was the first Smith
& Wesson N-frame revolver I've ever
owned that had the firing pin located in the frame
and not on the hammer. The
hammer and trigger on this model are M-I-M
parts, which means they're produced by injecting
liquid metal at high temperature and high
pressure into a mold. Some experts have
questioned the resulting quality, but engineers
at Smith
& Wesson assured me these guns would be every bit
as good as anything I'd seen in the past.
Regardless of my concerns, as it came in the box
it didn't take long for me to decide the
revolver needed a trigger job and some new
grips. I needed a shape that would better
accommodate my grasp, as well as correct the
afore mentioned deficiency of the round butt
design. The trigger pull was heavy and stacked
more than I liked at the end of the pull on
double-action, and the single-action pull was
over six pounds.
With all of these concerns in the back of
my mind I had a preplanned agenda when I struck
up a conversation with Bill Laughridge at the
IDPA Nationals. Laughridge is the head guru at
Cylinder & Slide, and I've known him for
years. During the summer competition season
Laughridge can be found at many of the big
matches rescuing shooters who have their guns go
down. I've never been to his home base in
Fremont, Nebraska, but his traveling shop isn't
too shabby and his attitude toward shooters in
distress has always been one of courtesy mixed
with humor and helpfulness. In short, I like
Bill Laughridge and always wanted to send him
some work, but up until this revolver arrived I
could never find the right gun for a project.
Actually,
I sent him two revolvers, but I'll get to the
second gun in a moment. Before I sent Bill my
.41 Mountain Gun I had visited Raj Singh at
Eagle Grips and requested a pair of his
"Classic Grips." A do-it-yourselfer, I
had custom shaped a pair of grips and wanted to
show Raj my work to see if he would produce a
similar product. Well, imagine my surprise (and
his!) when upon examination of his Classic Grips
for a large frame doubleaction revolver we
discovered they were extremely similar to the
pair I had handshaped. There were small
differences, but they were minor.
The
Classic Eagle Grips corrected my round butt
problem with the shape and profile of a gun on a
square butt frame. Perfect, that's just what I
wanted.
My
instructions to Laughridge were pretty simple
because the things that need to be attended to
on a revolver are usually not as extensive as
those found on the average autopistol. The first
thing was a trigger job. This was pretty much
standard stuff a couple of decades back, but the
truth is the world has become so autopistol
oriented there aren't that many gun-plumbers out
there anymore who can do a decent trigger job on
a revolver.
Added
to this was my need for a better front sight.
There's nothing wrong with the factory front
sight if you are 23 years old and have 20/20
vision. I still have close to 20/20 vision, but
I’ve reached that point in my life where
reading glasses are no longer a luxury, but a
necessity, and it is sometimes hard for my eyes
to find a front sight quickly.
A
McGivern-style gold bead installed on the
backside of a black Partridge front sight works
for me. I asked him to sight it for 50 yards and
sent him a 20-round box of my favorite ammo for
the .41 Magnum, the Winchester 175-grain
Silvertip round, for testing and sight-in. The
only other extras Laughridge performed on this
gun was to chamfer the cylinder chambers for
easier reloading and to remove all the sharp
edges on the frame.
Click
on images to see larger size.
The
result is a delight and to top it all Greg
Kramer provided what I have found to be an
extremely good I-W-B carry holster for this
four-inch N-frame revolver. It's called the
"Thomas Perfectionist" and it's a
little unusual in that it positions the gun
higher than most and has a more radical
butt-forward tilt or rake. It is comfortable and
the whole thing came together during harvest
here on our farm as I carried this Mountain Gun
everyday without a trace of discomfort.
When
I was working in my soybean field that allowed
me to take a coyote at 75 paces. In order to
shoot something you have to have a gun that will
hit. The Kramer holster guaranteed the Mountain
Gun was where it needed to be and Cylinder &
Slide's trigger job and custom gold bead front
sight delivered the accuracy necessary to take
out one yodel dog at an extended distance.
The
second gun I sent to Bill Laughridge was the
Colt Magnum Carry Essentially, the now
discontinued Colt Magnum Carry was a redesigned
and beefed up version of the Colt Detective
Special.
I
especially liked the Colt Magnum Carry because
of its excellent grip, first of all, and my gun
proved to be one of the best shooting examples
I've found for any .357 Magnum snubnose
revolver. All is not perfect, however, because
whoever designed the front sight must have f
figured it really wasn't needed because it is a
smooth stainless steel blade offering little or
no contrast. Additionally, for some reason the
ejector rod on my example had a tendency to
stick and if you worked the double-action fast
it was possible to bind up the trigger. Not one
of these shortcomings was cause for endearment,
but the gun itself was a solid design, so the
gun was packaged and sent to Fremont, Nebraska.
Included in the written instructions was a
request for Laughridge to sight the gun in at 50
yards with 185-grain .357 Magnum ammo after installing a Partridge front
sight, complete with the McGivern gold bead.
Perhaps
some of you may be wondering, 50 yards? A
straight back Partridge front sight on a
snubnose? This is a belly-gun! Yeah, it is, but
I figured the Colt Magnum Carry had the
intrinsic accuracy to hit targets at that
distance if I could just sight the gun properly.
Well,
the result after treatment at Cylinder &
Slide was nothing less than magic. Laughridge
corrected the ejector rod sticking problem. The
double-action feels like silk-no matter how fast
I work the trigger, and there's -absolutely no
binding. It works like a charm.
But
the best thing is the front sight. What
Laughridge did was machine off the original.
Then he machined a dovetail and fitted a tall
Partridge blade. After this he took the gun to
the range and sighted it at 50 yards with
158-grain JHP .357 Magnum ammo. Once he had the
correct sight height, he installed the McGivern
gold bead.
Click
on images to see larger size.
Other
items he attended to on the Colt Magnum Carry
included removing all the sharp edges at the
front of the frame and cylinder. (There were
several.) He also chamfered the rear of the
chambers for increased reloading ease.
Tony
Kanaley at Milt Sparks Holsters provided an
extremely easy riding IWI3 holster for the Colt
Magnum Carry with two belt loops, retained by
snaps, that will not collapse when the gun is
out of the holster. It makes it far easier to
carry this six-shot .357 Magnum than any other
I've carried over the years.
Final
Notes
Colt
Manufacturing no longer offers the Colt Magnum
Carry, but if you already own one and want to
turn it into the best gun available for its
size, weight and power range I heartily
recommend you send it to Bill Laughridge at
Cylinder & Slide and ask him to do his magic
on it. It's worth it. The basic Colt Magnum
Carry is good, the Cylinder & Slide
treatment makes it better, far better, but then
the same could be said for what he did to the
Smith & Wesson Model 657-4 Mountain Gun.
Cylinder
& Slide takes the good, and makes it better.
It's just that simple.
Originally
published in
Combat Handguns ©2000
For more information, contact:
Cylinder
and Slide, Inc.
P.O. Box 937 Dept CH
245 E. 4th St.
Fremont, NE 68025
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