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If you are unfamiliar with him, let me introduce you to a notable gentleman. John Fitzgerald. To begin with, he was a bare-knuckles boxer, a New York State Trooper, a police shooting instructor, and a gunsmith. Oh, did I mention that this all took place during the prohibition era? So, now you have a clear picture of the guy who inspired this build.

Fitzgerald was not only a shooting instructor but was also one of the first to teach practical shooting. He even invented the Colt silhouette target we all know and love. Fitzgerald loved Colt big-bore revolvers, particularly the Colt New Service. He extoled their virtues so much that Colt actually paid him as a salesman at one point.

Now, let’s get to why I brought you all here—the “Fitz” special. John became known for creating what was basically the first snub-nosed, concealment-specific revolver. He would take a Colt double-action revolver, usually a New Service in .45 Colt, and cut the barrel down to two inches or less, shorten the ejector rod, bob the hammer, round the grip of the gun, and most famously, cut away the front half of the trigger guard. Fitzgerald was known to carry two of these, one in each pocket.

With this build, I will be sticking to the Fitzgerald ethos, if not the exact letter of his writing. I will be departing from his design in two significant ways. First, I will be “Fitzing” a Colt Police Positive in 38 S&W. Why, because I have one with particularly little collector’s value. Departure number two will consist of a shrouded hammer rather than a bobbed hammer. I’m doing this mainly to practice installing a Colt shroud made by SnubNoir.com, but both modifications achieve the same end: creating a smooth gun that is easily pulled from concealment without snagging. As the build continues, we will discuss the tactical advantages and disadvantages of Fitz’s design.

The donor gun.

Fitz was fond of the big bores, so why, you may ask, am I using a D-frame Colt in the shockingly underpowered .38 S&W? I received this gun in trade from a customer. This gun was brought to me with a 9mm casing stuck in one of the cylinder chambers. I asked the guy why he put a 9mm in a gun clearly marked .38 S&W. The response was, “because it fit.” You meet all kinds in the gunsmithing business. I explained that while the 9mm cartridge and the .38 S&W are very similar in size, the 9mm produces almost three times the pressure of the .38 S&W. The fact that this gun didn’t come flying apart is a testament to how well Colts were built during the turn of the century. To the best of my ability, I could find no significant or lasting damage from firing that 9mm round. The customer, however, was disappointed that his gun was in an obscure caliber, so I offered to trade it. I gave him a Smith Model 10 that I customized and slicked up, and he gave me the Colt and a couple hundred bucks. He got a gun he could use for self-defense and easily find ammo for, and I got a project for a new article.

Cutting steel.

The first order of business was to shorten the barrel. I began by disassembling the gun.

No small task on a Colt, they are much more “fiddly” than a Smith & Wesson, but once you have done it a few times, it comes easily. With the barrel removed, I chucked it up in the lathe. Now Fitz believed in having a super-short barrel, often choosing lengths of less than two inches. In this case, I chose two inches for two reasons. First, a two-inch barrel on this gun ends right at the ejector rod, and while Fitz often shortened the ejector rod, I believe having as much extraction as possible for a reload is a good thing. I’m not going to carry two like Fitz did.

The second reason is that the markings on the side of the barrel had a clean break between the words Colt and Police Positive. It would make the cut look clean. After trimming up the barrel, I crowned it. Now, generally, if I were shortening a barrel for myself, I would install a Novak-style sight. A Novak sight offers some adjustability, even with just a trough rear, like on this gun. In this case, though, I wanted to keep the gun traditional-looking, so I used an angle grinder to cut the half-moon front sight from the original barrel.

This sight was soldered in and could have been removed that way, but I wanted a little extra metal from the barrel to increase the height of the sight. With a bit of extra height, I will be able to file the sight out at the range and regulate the sights for 25 yards, which is my preferred distance. I am also experimenting with the front sight. Generally, I would solder the front sight back onto the barrel, but lately I have been experimenting with using Accraglass to affix sights. I want to see how long this sight is going to stay on the barrel. For the experiment, I took absolutely no steps to increase the chances of success. I glued a smooth, degreased sight onto a smooth, degreased barrel. If it comes off, I will solder it back on. After talking with several other gunsmiths, I have found that they are using Acraglass for things I never thought possible. So, we will see how it goes. If it works, then that saves me a lot of headache. Soldering is not hard, but it is hard to do cleanly, and anytime you can keep heat away from a gun, it’s a good thing.

(Update) Well, to make a long story short, the sight was eventually soldered back on. I have not given up on the Acraglass experiments yet. The experiment could have worked if I had used something to give the Accraglass a mechanical advantage, such as a T-shaped trough or a hole with a pin.

On to the frame. I wanted this gun to look like it was Fitzed back in the old days, so I’m having a little fun with the frame. I began by rounding the back of the grip. It was common for the grips to have both points rounded off, but I prefer having the front point on the gun, so I removed the rear point, giving the gun a slight bird’s-head appearance. I then filed the rear of the frame to improve its traction during recoil. This didn’t turn out quite as well as I had hoped. Even with the use of checkering files, I still managed to get a few wonky lines, but it will function exactly as intended. I chose to leave the front strap alone, knowing that a T grip was probably in this gun’s future. The grip panels were already pretty much worn out from time and use, so I thought, “How would an old-school detective have solved this problem?” I filed a couple of finger grooves in the left side grip panel and reoiled it after hitting it with a torch to give it an aged look.

Traditionally, the Fitz job had a bobbed hammer. I have done bobbed hammers many times, so on this gun, I elected to mount a hammer shroud. This was a common modification, and Colt even sold a kit for putting a shroud on your weapon. Installing the hammer shroud requires drilling and tapping three holes into the gun’s frame. I advise against this, unless you have a real beater. On my third hole, disaster struck. My tap broke off. This is not uncommon with taps this small, but in a blind hole, it can be challenging to remove. Usually, I can use a center punch to shatter the brittle tap and remove the pieces, but on this one, the last little piece refused to break. I chose to go ahead and mount the shroud and glue a screw head into the broken tap hole so I could take pictures and finish this article. Two screws are more than enough to retain the shroud, but in the long run, I will most likely drill out the old tap with a carbide end mill, then weld the hole and retap it. I tell you all this to let you know that custom gunsmithing is an experimental business, and while few mistakes aren’t repairable, they still happen even to the best of us, and I make plenty of them.

Now that the shroud is sorted…mostly – I moved on to the cylinder. Speed loaders, as far as I know, were not a thing back when this gun was produced, but just in case I want to use one, I chamfered the chamber mouths. It’s a simple modification that pays big dividends when reloading your gun. A 45° chamfer tool is used to chamfer the cylinder only, not the extractor star. Chamfering the extractor star can cause the extractor to slip over the shells during extraction, potentially tying up the gun. I choose to chamfer only the cylinder.

I also added a lanyard ring to the gun. This was not a traditional modification included by Fitz, but for a classic gun like this, I think it’s appropriate. Let’s face it, a lanyard ring is just plain cool-looking, if not all that practical. I can just see some detective with this revolver stuffed in his trench coat, the slightest hint of a lanyard hanging out. After all, in that kind of business, your gun is your life, right?

The final modification I made to the gun is the one most closely associated with Fitzgerald himself. It is also the most controversial. Shaving the trigger guard. Fitz was known for cutting away the front half of the trigger guard and leaving the rear half intact. For many gun nuts, this is what makes a Fitz a Fitz. While many people claim this modification was for faster trigger acquisition, which it was, Fitz mentions this in his book; he also mentions that it was for shooting with gloved hands, which makes more sense to me. Remember that this was from an era when police officers still walked their beats, rain or shine. This, however, raises some safety concerns that warrant discussion. First off, exposing your trigger is absolutely a hazard. I don’t recommend that anyone do it, but in the interest of historical accuracy, I did. Two: the potential for dropping the gun, bending the trigger guard, and tying up the gun is a real possibility. That being said, it does free up the trigger; if you were wearing a large set of gloves, this would be a highly practical, if not super safe, modification.

Shooting.

I made the front sight extra tall so I could file it in during shooting. It was completely unnecessary since I had plenty of front sight to work with. As the gun sat, it shot extremely low, so I filed away much of the front sight. It also filled up the rear trough sight more than I liked, so I thinned it out as well.

For this gun, I am using my standard .38 S&W loading: 4.5g of Unique under a self-cast 128g .358-caliber hollow-point bullet. This bullet is cast very soft and expands well in water, even out of short barrels. This cartridge is known for being pretty weak, but with this loading, I am knocking on the door of .38 Special pressures. I sure wouldn’t want to get hit with it.

Groups averaged around three inches at 25 yards—more than satisfactory for the intended use of this gun. Undoubtedly, I could get those groups smaller with some more visible sights. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, and tiny little trough sights are pretty hard to focus on.

As for the most controversial part of the gun, the trigger guard. I liked it. I would never do it on a personal carry piece, but it did clean up the transition from having a safe finger along the side of the frame to being ready to fire. Fitz wasn’t crazy.

The long and short of it.

This gun was a hoot to make. I spend so much time trying to make guns look nice that it was fun for a change to leave one a little grungy. The whole time I was building this gun, I was thinking of the hard-boiled detective that might have carried it. His trust in mankind shattered by the things he had seen, but even though the bathtub bourbon dulled his senses, he knew his ol’ Fitz would be there in an instant. Always by his side, always watching his back. The one thing he could count on when the chips were down.

“The old man reached across, patting the hand-carved stocks of his one true friend. It hung dutifully from a worn shoulder rig over his left ribcage. Right next to his heart…right where it should be. This simple machine wasn’t just a weapon for his job; it was armor for his soul.”