New old revolver

[marlinman93]

So Tuesday is our weekly work day at the gun club, and another member approached me and asked me to look at an old handgun he had that was "broken". It was marked US Revolver Co. which were actually Iver Johnson made as a store brand revolver for stores like Sears and Wards back over 100 years ago.
I looked it over as he told me the issues; a broken automatic extractor, cylinder spins freely, and doesn't lock up inline with the barrel. Poor bore too, and I told him it might not be worth fixing, and likely maybe just a parts gun. He agreed, and said he didn't want to fix it, but wondering if I wanted a wall hanger for $50? I figured why not as I might play with it and get it working, even if it might only go bang and shoot shotgun patterns. So we did the deal.



Got home and went right to work on it by removing the cylinder from the frame and immediately checked the ejector rod to discover it wasn't screwed in tight to the extractor! I screwed it in tight, closed the action and it worked perfectly after that! I checked the timing pawl and these guns allowed the cylinder to spin freely until you cocked the hammer, or pulled the trigger double action. It functioned fine, just not like higher quality handguns like S&W or Colt. So fixed in 5 minutes!
I turned to the ugly bore and started with Leadaway patches on a tight fitting jag to clean it. He mentioned he cut down .38 Special cases and loaded them with a .357" bullet. Well this is a .38 S&W chambered gun, so those cases are .007" too small, and bullets are .002" smaller! Easy to lead up a bore, and very poor accuracy from smaller cases. After over 40 patches pushed firmly through the barrel, I started two more patches by just polishing the bore. Back and forth 10 times each without exiting the bore. Patches just continued to come out black, no matter how many I ran through. I checked the bore finally and it looks excellent! Nice shiny rifling, and only slight darkness at the forcing cone. It will shoot great with the correct .38 S&W cases and .359" bullets!

PS-That's a dog's head engraved into the left side of the receiver!

[Ysabel Kid]

At $50 for this gun, given the risk and that you had to put work into it (and it still may pattern like a shotgun), you gave the guy a fair amount. A labeled Iver Johnson would maybe have been a bit more, and certainly a S&W or Colt would have been. The dog engraved on the side certainly didn't help the value.

Weren't the .38 S&W's of the day using a .361-inch diameter round? I've got a S&W, and the only way I get it to shoot semi-accurately is using HBWC rounds.

[jeepnik]

Dogs head logo. Could it be a take on velodog type revolvers?

[marlinman93]

At $50 for this gun, given the risk and that you had to put work into it (and it still may pattern like a shotgun), you gave the guy a fair amount. A labeled Iver Johnson would maybe have been a bit more, and certainly a S&W or Colt would have been. The dog engraved on the side certainly didn't help the value.

Weren't the .38 S&W's of the day using a .361-inch diameter round? I've got a S&W, and the only way I get it to shoot semi-accurately is using HBWC rounds.

My data says they were .359" bullets, but that doesn't mean some ammo makers might not go a bit larger.
I'll pull a bullet with my kinetic puller and measure bullet and case mouth to see. I contemplated HBWC bullets, but not sure if I could crimp down case mouths enough to hold them in place with the .007" difference between .38 Specials and .38 S&W cases.