Tinker Pearce
New member
A while back there was a thing called the Taurus View- an absurdly small and light revolver in .38 Special. It was called 'The View' because of a gimmicky lexan side plate that they eventually replaced with aluminum because it was a bad idea.
It was designed for pocket-carry, and it was definitely small and light, but by most accounts the weight and tiny handle made it brutal to shoot, even with wadcutters. It got me thinking... how small could a J-frame sized revolver be before you his seriously diminished functionality? I cam across a Model 85 in trade and decided to find out.
To start I bobbed the hammer, then took a 1/2" off the barrel and re-crowned it. Then I went after the grip-frame and shortened it significantly, welding new metal onto the bottom.
I tried a couple of grip shapes, and in the end settled on something rather like a smaller, flatter Ergo Delta that I made out of some Bocote wood. It looks like there is nothing to hang onto, but it's really controllable, even with some +P loads.
After a long sweaty summer in a pocket holster in my workshop the finish was suffering. When a buddy that does Cerakoting offerred to finish it in tungsten I was all over it. When I reassembled the gun I installed a modified Model 60 trigger-return spring and smoothed things up inside. Now, while it's no one's idea of a light trigger it is at least lighter and is decently decently smooth.
Since it's my pocket-gun around the house and workshop it's become my most-carried gun. At 19 oz. it's not a lightweight, but the extra mass helps tame the recoil, and it is by no means excessive.
On to the pictures-
It was designed for pocket-carry, and it was definitely small and light, but by most accounts the weight and tiny handle made it brutal to shoot, even with wadcutters. It got me thinking... how small could a J-frame sized revolver be before you his seriously diminished functionality? I cam across a Model 85 in trade and decided to find out.
To start I bobbed the hammer, then took a 1/2" off the barrel and re-crowned it. Then I went after the grip-frame and shortened it significantly, welding new metal onto the bottom.
I tried a couple of grip shapes, and in the end settled on something rather like a smaller, flatter Ergo Delta that I made out of some Bocote wood. It looks like there is nothing to hang onto, but it's really controllable, even with some +P loads.
After a long sweaty summer in a pocket holster in my workshop the finish was suffering. When a buddy that does Cerakoting offerred to finish it in tungsten I was all over it. When I reassembled the gun I installed a modified Model 60 trigger-return spring and smoothed things up inside. Now, while it's no one's idea of a light trigger it is at least lighter and is decently decently smooth.
Since it's my pocket-gun around the house and workshop it's become my most-carried gun. At 19 oz. it's not a lightweight, but the extra mass helps tame the recoil, and it is by no means excessive.
On to the pictures-
