This is my ugly project gun. Most of the parts were there except the breech bolt, grips, and ejector. It was $500. I probably have $800 in it. Nothing matches whatsoever. The slide is a 1920/1921, but the frame is 3000 serial numbers lower, so who knows. It's a century marked Frankenstein with not much rifling left to boot, but I wanted a toy. I just got it together as of right now, so range report will have to wait until tomorrow if I can wake up early enough before night shift. Whatever was supposed to be straw colored got wet sanded and polished, I figure it would look better than cold bluing it. Some of the repop stuff like the ejector I left blued.

Attached File

Just straw the parts yourself. Prep the metal a light sanding one direction de-grease . Heat oven to 450 and bake on a sheet for 15 minutes. Remove and let air cool. Keep in mind the parts will still change color while cooling, so a pale yellow will be a bit darker after cool. Dark yellow could go purple or even a shade of blue.

I've been trying to do this. How did you do it so cheap ?

Lots of patience. People want $40 for every small part and pin hoping someone needs the number to force match, I just stayed on gunbroker and eBay like a vulture waiting on cheap parts

nice job!

I found a couple c96 frames and I thought of trying to do something like. seems way harder to source anything

I made that mistake.  Fortunately only one frame, but I got really lucky on the rest of the parts.

Not going to try my luck a second time with it though!