well... my Sidewinder showed up yesterday ( I bought it on Gun Broker ) it was supposed to be in good mechanical shape, but rougher cosmetic shape, & was a "work in progress" ... I didn't pay too much for it, & it came out of Florida... I assume ( I don't have any Iver books yet ), that these were made between 1950 & the introduction of the model 55 target model... mine has a loading gate... any eye deer if that had a small spring to keep it closed, or relyed on friction of the screw to keep it closed, mine works if the screw is tight, but loosens the screw from opening & closing, & once it gets to a point, the gate can fall open??? I could use Lock Tite on the screw if there wasn't ever a spring there... it has a very nice wide hammer & serrated wide trigger, & looks to be very nice to shoot, the trigger pull is very good as well... if a screw were added to contact the sear mechanism behind the trigger, to lessen the travel, it could almost be of modern target grade... if anyone could point in the direction of more info, that would be great... even better if you've handled or shot one... it does have the distinction of being only one of two that I know of, double action revolvers, with single action loading gates & ejector rods & housings... the other being a Colt Lightning
... it must have been a beach / light house gun, because as someone who doesn't live anywhere near the ocean, I've never seen a gun in this condition... someone had manually removed all the surface rust on the gun, that they could easily do with sandpaper
all the nooks & crannys still had a good coating of it... inside the tip of the barrel / bore that I could see looked red with rust... however, all the springs ( the ejector rod spring, & main spring ) don't look to have a pit on them...
I immeadiately started stripping it down... the grip is in very good shape, & mechanically is seems to function very good... the screws to the ejector rod & loading gate removed pretty easily, but ( & I can see where the previous owner quit cleaning... at removing any parts ) ... the cylinder pin is rust welded to the cylinder, & is not removing... I got the spring loaded pin catch freed up but the pin rotates with the cylinder, even after a couple hours of being saturated with penitrating oil...
if after work today, it's not freed up, I think I'm going to dunk the whole thing ( less the grips ) into a bucket of diesel fuel & let it soak over the weekend...
I am able to see a little of the bore ( through the hammer slot, with the hammer back & to a light ), & the bore looks suprisingly good, after a soaking with Kroil... my local smith had never seen one, so I dropped it by there last night on my way home... & he offered to swap out the barrel if I wanted, since it is round, & has no markings on the barrel... 1st thing I have to do, is get that cylinder pin freed up... then try shooting it with the existing barrel...
then i'm in the same boat as WEOH... in trying to figure out how to finish it...