I was out haunting some of our local pawn shops yesterday and found this Smith & Wesson model 29-3 rat holed in the back corner of the handgun display case in the last shop I visited.
I asked to take a look at it and the shop manager immediately pointed out that there was something wrong with the grips (it was wearing its factory hogue's in the shop) and they were flopping around on the grip frame like the broken handle on an outhouse door.
I was eyeballing the gun pretty hard when the manger blurted out that reference the problem with the grips he was willing to "deal" on the gun.
Smelling blood in the water (and seeing how the gun was marked near $700.00) I started tearing the gun apart condition wise (pointing out every little scratch, muzzle wear and spot of scale) and by the time the game was done I walked out the door with it for $550.00.
I got the gun home and determined that the factory Hogues retaining clip had been installed incorrectly and damaged to a point that they could not be used and replaced them with a set of pachmeyers I found out in the garage.
The gun is extremely tight and appears to have been carried a bit and shot some but not abusively so.
The single action trigger pull is a crisp 2 pounds and the adjustable front sight works as it should.
Accuracy wise it shoots extremely well and with my standard plinking load of 7.5 grains of unique and 240 grain SWC's it grouped right at 2 inches at 20 yards.
I also ran some hunting loads through it using 240 grain JSP's and a top end charge of winchester 296 through it and it acquitted itself quite well with that load.
The grip problem notwithstanding, I feel I didn't get stung too bad on the price.
My personal feelings are that any day you can get a serviceable pre lock N frame in the 500 dollar range is a pretty good day.
Coworker dropping the hammer on a magnum handload:
I asked to take a look at it and the shop manager immediately pointed out that there was something wrong with the grips (it was wearing its factory hogue's in the shop) and they were flopping around on the grip frame like the broken handle on an outhouse door.
I was eyeballing the gun pretty hard when the manger blurted out that reference the problem with the grips he was willing to "deal" on the gun.
Smelling blood in the water (and seeing how the gun was marked near $700.00) I started tearing the gun apart condition wise (pointing out every little scratch, muzzle wear and spot of scale) and by the time the game was done I walked out the door with it for $550.00.
I got the gun home and determined that the factory Hogues retaining clip had been installed incorrectly and damaged to a point that they could not be used and replaced them with a set of pachmeyers I found out in the garage.
The gun is extremely tight and appears to have been carried a bit and shot some but not abusively so.
The single action trigger pull is a crisp 2 pounds and the adjustable front sight works as it should.
Accuracy wise it shoots extremely well and with my standard plinking load of 7.5 grains of unique and 240 grain SWC's it grouped right at 2 inches at 20 yards.
I also ran some hunting loads through it using 240 grain JSP's and a top end charge of winchester 296 through it and it acquitted itself quite well with that load.
The grip problem notwithstanding, I feel I didn't get stung too bad on the price.
My personal feelings are that any day you can get a serviceable pre lock N frame in the 500 dollar range is a pretty good day.
Coworker dropping the hammer on a magnum handload: