You asked, I'll answer.
It involves my closest friend, now long since gone from this classroom to that great faculty-lounge in the sky. In the late fifties, early sixties, he was a student at one of the colleges that now make up the Penn State system, here in the Commonwealth. He was born a couple of counties away from here and wound up pursuing a degree in Chemistry after I finished up my tour in the USAF and was starting my family. He was a sort of happy-go-lucky son of a German post-WWII immigrant, and smart enough to gain for himself a scholarship and a work-aid program which left a lot of his disposable income to be - well, disposed of! First off, he bought this particular ill-fated Ruger and spent the summer after his freshman year (to quote him) , . . . " using up huge quantities of five-dollar-a-box 357 ammo on carp, catfish, and empty beer cans in the Codorus creek."
After his Sophomore year, he met this truly fetching, brown-eyed girl and she thereafter consumed most of his free time and money. The Ruger was consigned to be cleaned and oiled and left in the bottom of his sock drawer for the next ten years. He graduated with honors and began teaching in a high school near Harrisburg, while she found a job with the Commonwealth in one of its innumerable offices.
I made his acquaintance just before the birth of their third child (there were two more, after that) while we were both in the process of shunning alcohol and tobacco. (Tough chore, but we both made it).
Anyway, after the birth of child #5, she found the position to promotions and advancement among the bureaucracy was on her back, and thus ended their marriage. My pal sued for divorce but she fought him a year or more and in a fit of petulance she told him (and this in the presence of unimpeachable witnesses) that the only way she would consent to divorce was if they split everything half-and-half. He was so exhausted by this time that he agreed to it as such, right there on the spot, in front of those same witnesses.
Being a man of his word, he watched while she removed the grip-panels, grip-frame and hammer from this Ruger and gave him the frame, cylinder, base-pin, and barrel.
I traded him a like-new Star BM-9 with 3 mags and 200 rounds of reloads for the pieces. I have purchased a grip-frame and have grip-panels on order. Now I need Ruger to install the safety-kit which includes a new hammer.
