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"I do have a passion for metallurgy and finishes, but it is strongly biased toward products from Ruger, S&W and Thompson."

LOL! I've fired a lot of small arms on ranges (up to 20-hour rotations on some) but never worked on them. With me, it was making various little tools at work (including hardening, annealing,...), setting feeds and speeds for various alloys, hardness testing, and the like.

I've done various upgrades and customizations on my firearms. All the Ruger MKII pistols have been upgraded with Clark target triggers. My wife and I have multiple MKII pistols between us. My wife wanted a new set of stocks made from deer antler on one of the MKII pistols. It took a while to fit that one. The most laborious upgrade was the compensator added to my Springfield 1911. The comp is a milled replacement for the barrel bushing. I had to fit the bushing to the slide, then fit the bushing to the barrel. It made a huge difference in accuracy. My 25 yard groups with the standard bushing were 2 1/2 inches. The fitted comp/bushing reduced that to under 1" (45auto). It took almost 30 hours of patient effort with emery cloth to get that result.