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
402-721-4277
