My pops had This box of parts in his safe(ironically in an old cigar box,ha,ha!) and low and behold it was an all matching 1900 eagle! The good news was most of it was in decent shape,grips even matched.The frame had some serious issues. It must have been damaged or rusted bad,on the frame underneath the side plate. He said someone filled it in with a bead of steel weld. At one time,some idiot must have used the front grip strap for a hammer
. there were big dings and it effected the mag insertion, so that had to be dealt with. there were some parts of the frame that need to be reblued also. grips were still nice and the rest of the gun was still pretty nice and original.
Having some gunsmithing skills myself,I decided last weekend to restore it. luckily pops has a mint 1900 that I could use as a guide for specs. the welded section needed to be cut back to spec and ofcourse refininshed, and I had to get the mag well back to spec and do my best to get the heavy dings out. some of the before and after pics did not turn out well, but I got a few that did.
Heres the best before pic, there was a much larger weld but you can see the first step of being milled down
After final depth cut and width cut,mic'd out....side plate is GTG.
View of upper parts,which need very little touching up.
side view after frame was touched up, and dents hammered out of grip strap. mag well is now opperational.
Other side.
Grip strap, about as good as I could get it,without removing too much metal,for my taste. but I wanted it to match wear wise to the rear.
A gathering of eagles!!
Well I was very happy to save the gal, and I wanted her to have some original wear and that certain "original" look or atleast close to it, I did not want to try and refinish everything and make it brand new.
Cheers,
Mike