Howdy to y'all. Before I go any further, I want ya ta know that I did this with the help
of the information provided to me through the instructions developed by another shooter, Bottom Dealin' Mike, in his
article: The Ultimate Remington located within the Society of Remington Revolver Shooters website. The instructions work, if you read them all. If you don't, don't start flamin' Mike or me.
Anyways, here goes.
Click on Image to Enlarge
Picture 1 is a Remington Pietta straight out of the box. Cabela's now sells Piettas with white micarta grips, so this may save you a step or two in the process of customization. I will tell you that the brass hardware (escutcheons) on the grips extends beyond the actual grip and need to be filed down, sanded and polished.
Picture 2 is a strip-down of the Remmie. Get yourself a good set of gunsmith screwdrivers if you don't want to booger up the screw heads. Nothing else will do. Period. As you can see, the disassembly involves only 3 screws to this point and is adequate unless you want to do some internal polishing or replace springs. That's another story, left to someone else or another time.
Picture 3 is measuring and taping. Mike has the methods described for you. Warning : Don’t cut the Barrel to Less Than FOUR and Three-Quarters Inches (4 ¾”) from the front of the frame if you want to be able to remove the cylinder pin completely from the frame for cleaning. A shorter barrel may look better (I think it does) but to pull the cylinder pin, the lever catch will have to be drifted out of the dovetail for assembly/disassembly on a periodic basis. Also, if you cut the barrel to shorter than Three and Seven-Eights Inches (3 7/8”) you will have to cut into the whale on the lever which makes for harder ball seating due to a shorter lever and possible lever deformation over time.
Now comes the moment of truth.
Picture 4 shows the cut. I also put a piece of masking tape on the piece to be cutoff
to help align the saw. Note that I took the sight and lever catch off the scrap barrel piece. I was curious to see whether I could re-use them. They did not come off gently. I used a torch and two pair of pliers to get them loose.
Picture 5 is a close-up of the sight and barrel catch. As you can see, they were press-fit into the barrel and also braised or soldered. Now would be a good time to stop and call Uberti for a set of their dove-tailed sights and catches.
Back to the barrel.
Picture 6 Check the perpendicularity of your cut and file work with a square.
Check all sides of the barrel hex. This is an important step as the
crown of the barrel is the last thing your lead projectile touches. It's not
important to have it absolutely perfect, but if you test-fire the pistol and it is not
grouping, then barrel crown may be the issue. In that case, I'd have your local
gunsmith look it over.
Picture 7 is a dry-fit of the lever. I did this to check lever length, latch placement and lever hole depth. I also used the lever as a drill guide and did not cut it off until I had achieved the correct depth for the lever latch and spring. It's easier this way.
Picture 8 is the exploded (wrong word when talkin' about pistols) lever assembly.
Picture 9 is a close-up of the lever rework. It may be hard to see, but I radiused the front edges of the lever so that I don't slice my fingers when I pull the lever down in my Clint Eastwood Pale Rider imitation.
Picture 10 is a dry-fit of the reworked lever. Remember I said not to cut the barrel down too far? Now you can see why. Startin' ta look like and awesome piece, huh?
Picture 11 are the Uberti replacement sight and catch with part numbers. As you can see, I bought a few of each. Never know when you're gonna lose one. And why pay shipping twice?
Picture 12 Mike gives an excellent description on filing the dove-tails. At this point, I wish Santa had brought me an end-mill. You can also use the scrap barrel piece for practice.
Picture 13 is a dry-fit for alignment of the sight and latch dove-tail cuts. The pistol is starting to really take shape. I can't say enough about the balance of the pistol at this point. It's like handling a Colt SAA.
That is it for now. I'm still working on the dovetailing pictures. I'd like to get some close-ups and that will be ready for the next instalment.
Final advice. Take yer time. This is not a job you can fix with wood putty. Measure. Dry fit. Measure again. Take a little metal off at a time.
Good shootin' Pards.
Boris