A friend of mine has a short-barrel S&W .38 Single Action I've long admired, so when I stumbled upon a somewhat sad example at a good price I snapped it up. I lucked out- the mechanism is as good as the cosmetics were rough. Locks up dead-tight, no endplay in the cylinder. The spur-trigger is a bit stiff, but crisp.
I cut and crowned the barrel at 1-5/8", made a new bronze front sight and mounted it. I also made a set of elk-antler grips. I detail-stripped the gun, then carefully removed the remaining nickel with abrasives, and rust-blued the gun. Makes for a handy little pocket-piece, and is quite accurate.