Stembridge Sight Analysis

[Indiana Bond]

I just had the oportunity to discuss with my gunsmith the Stembridge modification I want to do on a spare S&W 1917 barrel that I have. I brought him the picture below to examine. I told him that it looks like the barrel was cut down to 4 inches and that the bluing was sanded away from the nose of the barrel leaving the bare metal area. The new sight was then soldered on and then never reblued. This has been pretty much the consenus here on COW on how the Stembridge was made.

However, my gunsmith does not think that that is what was done and he points out some very interesting observations that I point out below:




1) At point "1" we can see that the sight has been "pinned" on to the barrel. It may have also been soldered but we can't really tell.

2) This is the most revealing point. The unfinished part of the barrel is NOT part of the rest of the barrel. IT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PIECE!! We can see in the photo that at point "2" the "W" in Wesson is cut in half. We see the back half of the "W" on the main part of the barrel but we don't see the front half of the "W" on the nose! If the bluing was simply sanded away or otherwise removed it still would have left the front half of the stamped "W". These are 2 different parts connected together!

3) At point "3" we can see a bit of a gap and uneveness between the two parts.

4) We can see the horizontal serrations in the nose of the barrel that should also be seen in the main part of the barrel even through the bluing. Also if the nose was sanded or filed to remove the bluing the serations should run vertical around the barrel and not horizontal as we see here. The two parts just look too different to be the same barrel.

My gunsmith thinks that this is either the barrel nose of some other gun attached to the front of the S&W with a sleeve or dowel. Or it could be some sort of "band" that slips over a machined off front section of the S&W. He feels stronger about the "band" idea as we do know the gun was fired so some type of internal sleeve or dowel would make it difficult or impossible to fire. We also see that pin at the base of the front sight which could be actually holding the band onto the machined S&W nose.

I bring this up so that we can start a discussion on these newly discovered facts. I know that the "band" idea has been out there but was discarded for the sanded nose theory. With this new perspective we may need to bring back the "band" theory once again!

Let the analysis begin!

[Oildale Jones]

That is very interesting indeed. My first thought when I saw that second picture was, "Hey, that piece has been added on!"

My next thought was, "How would they line up the lands and grooves?" Followed closely by, "It's a blank-firing gun. Doesn't matter."

Try this theory on for size: the revolver has a threaded barrel and they added a sight blade to the cap!



Excellent catch there, sir! Now, the question is, in what movie(s) did this particular revolver appear with a silencer?

[Indiana Bond]

I just found the thread in the Archives that confirms the "band" theory. Here it is:

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=22024&hilit=stembridge+band" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


In this 2007 thread Lee Keppler says:

When I had the Stembridge revolver in my hand at the Phoenix gunshow(Little John's tables were right across from me), I took it to Jack DeVore for measuring. The light area is a band sweated over a turned down barrel. The band is not the reamed out section of the front of the cut off barrel as there is no taper to the band. The front sight is re-shaped and silver soldered to a flattened area on the band. Jack has the exact measurements so he can re-produce them.

The entire thread is very informative to read. However it is interesting to note that in a 2004 Lee said:

Check the photo in Indygear(I took it on my coffee table in 1985) for the proper shape. Also the "band" is just where they never re-blued it after silver soldiering on the sight. No band was added.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7419&p=82318&hilit= ... and#p82318" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


And in 2002 Lee said:

The "band" on the Stembridge gun is where the tip of the barrel was masked off for cleaning, which includes removing the bluing, so the silver solder would hold the reshaped front sight securely. They just didn't bother to reblue the barrel. The standard front sight was removed from the cut off 1 1/2"of barrel below the curved base, reshaped, a small extention soldered on, and attached to the slight flat that was machined on the top of the barrel.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=804&p=8810&hilit=st ... band#p8810" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


It's quite easy to see how the confusion on the barrel came about over the years. It seems that Lee didn't realize that the nose was actually a seperate piece the first time he had a chance to examine it but later in 2007 he did realize that it was an attached band with sight.

From discussing with my gunsmith we have decided that doing the modification the same way as was done on the Stembridge would be quite difficult. Thus we plan on simply shortening the barrel to 4 inches and soldering on a correctly SA shapped replacement sight. Then I will tape and dip the nose to remove the bluing as M1917 did in this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=633315#p633315" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Overall that will be far simpler and will provide a similar result to the Stembridge.

Thanks again!

[Oildale Jones]

Pinned and soldered? Because there's no doubt it's pinned.

It also occurred to me that, depending on the order in which scenes were shot, Stembridge re-barreled their revolver to match the Bapty, but all they had was a threaded barrel from a similar model. (Or was it more like, "Hey, we have to cut this thing down to 4 inches to match the other gun. What are our options?")

As usual, just retreading well-trod ground.

[Indiana Bond]

Try this theory on for size: the revolver has a threaded barrel and they added a sight blade to the cap!

Could be a threaded barrel but not likely as the barrel walls on these .45 caliber revolvers are already very thin with very little "meat" to put threads on. Even miiling it down as a turned down barrel would hardly leave any of the barrel wall left. See how thin the barrel wall is in the picture below:

It also occurred to me that, depending on the order in which scenes were shot, Stembridge re-barreled their revolver to match the Bapty, but all they had was a threaded barrel from a similar model. (Or was it more like, "Hey, we have to cut this thing down to 4 inches to match the other gun. What are our options?")

Most likely Stembridge already had this 4 inch cut down S&W in their inventory. If they actually had to copy the Bapty they would have done it the easy way by just cutting the barrel and soldering on a new sight and they would have probably tried to match the Bapty front sight better also. We may never know the answer to this question though.

[Oildale Jones]

Why go to all that trouble when you could just cut the barrel and re-crown the muzzle, and add the sight? I'm not sure I even understand what you mean by "band." Why the band? Chop it. Re-crown it. Put a sight on. Done.

I agree on the thinness of the barrel at the muzzle, but isn't the barrel thicker near the lug, before it starts to taper?

I'm not trying to be argumentative; I'm just using this razor I borrowed from that Occam guy.

[Indiana Bond]

I'm not sure I even understand what you mean by "band." Why the band?

The "band" is what you are calling a "cap" except it isn't threaded. It just slips over the front machined part of the main barrel.

I agree on the thinness of the barrel at the muzzle, but isn't the barrel thicker near the lug, before it starts to taper?

The thickness you see in the picture is at the 4 inch point along the barrel. The picture is the Bapty which you know is also cut at 4 inches.

Chop it. Re-crown it. Put a sight on. Done.

Yes, that is exactly my point if you were Stembridge trying to copy the Bapty or if you are doing your own personal conversion like I will be doing.

[Lee Keppler]

Hi Bond. Call me when I'm back in town in a couple of weeks. I have the exact specs. Lee 619-647-6744

[Oildale Jones]

I'm still not getting why they had to turn down the barrel and cap (band) it, unless the guy assigned the task was the one guy who always makes everything more complicated than it needs to be.

Ah, well. Mysteries abound.

[Indiana Bond]

Hi Bond. Call me when I'm back in town in a couple of weeks. I have the exact specs. Lee 619-647-6744

Hey Lee!

Great to hear from you again! I'm not sure if you remember me from L.A. a few years back. We had dinner together after the Costa Mesa gunshow one night. Also bought both a brown and a grey fedora from you at the QM summit.

I'll call you in a few weeks to get those specs. Thanks again my long lost friend!!

[Lee Keppler]

Hi Bond. Call me when I'm back in town in a couple of weeks. I have the exact specs. Lee 619-647-6744

Hey Lee!

Great to hear from you again! I'm not sure if you remember me from L.A. a few years back. We had dinner together after the Costa Mesa gunshow one night. Also bought both a brown and a grey fedora from you at the QM summit.

I'll call you in a few weeks to get those specs. Thanks again my long lost friend!!

I sure do remember you. Talk with with you soon. I also have to remember where my notes are.

[RX-79G]

Putting bands on barrels for sights or to mount slings is a common and robust practice. The Stembridge smith may have used an existing sight from a .22 rifle,



or machined a blade out of sling band:




What I think people are forgetting is how difficult it is to solder a front sight in place to a fraction of an inch, and that solder didn't use to be as strong in the old days when it was mostly lead. Solder is a desirable method for attaching sights because the temps are low enough to control where the solder ends up and is easy to clean up. Silver solder/brazing is a much higher temp process that isn't nearly as easy to control because it doesn't require flux to bond to the steel.

In all likelihood, the Stembridge sight was put on by a machinist without any soldering. They found an appropriate donor sight, lathe turned the barrel so it could be pressed on, machined or filed down the outside of the band to match the outer diameter and then test fired. Once the correct windage was found, the band was turned the appropriate distance and then secured with a cross pin. This is something that would be relatively easy with the right tools for a non-gunsmith to accomplish, and very controllable at each step.

[RX-79G]

And if you want to fake it, solder on a front sight. Then mask the whole end of the barrel and sand, sandblast or acid etch it to look different than the rest of the barrel and reblue.

If the Stembridge smith had wanted to, he could have polished the band to very closely match the barrel finish to where you would only see the line between them and nothing else. But both the Bapty and Stembridge appear to be low cost modifications of cheap surplus guns in the years after both world wars. I don't think either gun was modified for the film, but that both represent very common modifications performed on surplus was pistols at the time. And I think Jones would have stumbled into examples like this or had someone do them for him because it was a useful and common thing to do in the '30s.

Old 1911s were treated similarly, but most of those modifications were internal for accuracy.