Bobbing a Belly Gun part 3

Well I went and didn't get a picture of the cold bluing process. I use Gun Scrubber to remove any residue from the hammer and then Birchwood Casey Super blue to color the bare metal. After each coat of bluing I use a bit of 0000 steel wool to lightly rub the finish. This gives you a deeper blacker color than just straight cold blue. I put about four coats of cold blue on this hammer.

We put the gun back together and swapped out the grips for a nice pair of smooth stocks. For concealed carry you can't beat smooth wood grips (my opinion). They wont rub you raw or catch on your shirt. For pocket carry, this guns intended purpose, smooth grips just make sense.

The next few shots are here simply because I couldn't stand not to include them. This is a mighty good looking gun that I really enjoyed photographing. I have to admit that I am biased toward Smith's. The classic look of a wheel gun mixed with modern technology and mechanical simplicity of a good fighting handgun appeals to me a great deal.

More gratuitous artsy gun photography.

Now this is the best part. This gun has been worked over by the fine folks in the Smith & Wesson custom shop. They give it a trigger job and a chamfer of the cylinder holes to help those giant moon clips of eight rounds of .357 goodness drop in a little easier. The trigger is long but very, very smooth. You can see the shiny metal where the chamfer cut. Surprisingly the chamfer is not concentric but is limited to the inside and outside edge of each chamber.

Hopefully we have enhanced the function of this already very good design for our intended purpose without damaging the value of the gun and making it it a monstrosity that no one else would want. I have done about four of these hammers jobs now and they all have turned out good.