jlhampton wrote:I was just curious about the details on your conversion especially on the sight. Did you have it made? Did you find one and have it put on? What was the cost?
Here's the quick story on the Bapty conversion. I was very lucky and found this one on GunBroker. Won it for only $369!! The reason it went at such a good price is that the cylinder has been shaven to accept 45 ACP in moonclips like the 1917. Also the front of the original barrel was very pitted and in pretty bad shape. Both these factors made it not very collectable and kept the price low but made the gun the perfect candidate for a Bapty conversion! If the barrel had been in better shape I would have kept the original barrel and found a replacement to shorten. My total cost for this "Bapty" (gun, shipping, parts, gunsmithing) was just over $500.
The front sight I bought from Midway. It's a replacement Ruger Blackhawk sight that I reshaped with a file to match the Bapty sight. Here is a link to that website.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/586962 ... arrel-blue" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Since the sight was only $8.00, I decided to get two of them in case I screwed up on reshaping it. I didn't screw up so I still have the second sight which I'm going to reshape into a Stembridge sight for my 1917 that's still in L.A.. It took a little over an hour working with a coarse and a fine file shaping the sight. It's kind of cool knowing that I actually had a part in recreating this Bapty and not just having it all done by my gunsmith. It also helped keep the cost down and I would be sure the sight came out the way I wanted it. Here is a photo of the stock sight and my reshaped sight.
Like I mentioned the barrel was pretty badly pitted so I really had no reservation in cutting it down to 4 inches. I do suggest that if you have a nice barrel on yours please don't cut it. Find a replacement and cut that one instead. That way you always will have the correct matching barrel if you ever want to change it back to original. Here is a pic that shows the pitted barrel and the newly shaped sight.
And here is a better pic of the original pitted barrel.
After my gunsmith cut the barrel I asked him just to remove the blue in the area of where he had to silver solder on the new sight. I wanted to leave as much of the original finish on the barrel as possible so that it would match the rest of the gun. After the sight was silver soldered on I used cold blue to blue the sight and the area around the sight that had some of the original bluing removed. Came out pretty good matching the rest of the barrel. Cold blue is never as deep and shiney as a good hot blue but I think it matches the original older blue of the barrel better. Just need to get a holster and run it through the holster a few hundred times to get the correct "holster wear".
My gunsmith charged me $80.00 to cut the barrel and silver solder the new sight. I shaped the sight for him and I did the cold blueing. The bottle of cold blue cost $16.00 but I have a lot left over for other projects. Shipping was $30 so total was just over $500.00.
I'm really happy on how it all turned out. I wasn't even looking for a HE2 as I already had the 1917 but I happened to run a GunBroker search for "S&W Hand" and this one popped up at $250.00 with a couple of days left. Put in my bid and was lucky enough to win her! Now she's the centerpiece of my collection along with my newly acquired Inglis. When I get a chance to bring the Webley WG and Colt OP over from L.A., I'll have the Hero foursome!
Thanks again!
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