Smith & Wesson HELP!!!!

Dairyland man

I have a S&W Revolver. 357 Cal,6"bbl, Highway Patrolman

I know from ALL the S&W's I've seen over the years, this should be stamped Model 28-2

BUT, after showing this gun to experienced Gun people they all agree:

It's stamped" 29-2!! No! it's not a badly stamped figure 8 it is clearly number 9 (Model 29 is .44Mag cal)

The Serial number is N505XX

So what have I got here?? Is this a mistake from the factory??

I would appreciate any and all info about this gun.

Thanks in advance, Dairland man

givette

Factory numerical stamping dies..sometimes the "cameo" ridges break off..and guns are sent to retail before the error is discovered..so you could have an intaglio (impression mark) that was made with a faulty stamp. If the lower right curve of the "8" is missing, it will appear as a "9" when the mirror-image stamp is struck.

Not that common, but firearm stampings are known to have been struck with mutilated impressions.

We can most likely determine if it's a broken-stamp "8" if you would be so kind as to post a closeup of the area in question. Hope I helped. Joe

EDIT:
Dfletcher..I just read your post below. During my visits to S&W I/we were able to drive around to the rear of the main building, to the service window..fill out a work order and leave the gun for adjustment/repair etc. Do you know if S&W still has "walk-in" service? Thanks, Joe

laytonj1

Although they may be different calibers and have different barrels, etc. many models share the same frame. When a batch of N frames are made they do not know what model gun they will be (27,28,29,etc) so the frames do not receive a model number stamp until they are ready for assembly. At that time if they are assembling a group of frames in into say, model 28's, the technician will stamp the frames with the appropriate punches. In your case the tech more than likely grabbed the wrong punch. Though not real common I have heard and seen pictures of several examples of this and restamped numbers on the S&W forums.

The other possibility is the gun was a model 29 and an owner down the line had it rebarreled, recylindered and refinished.

Jim

dfletcher

Visit here:
http://smith-wessonforum.com/groupee

From my many visits to the Smith site I've learned my frugal fellow New England Yankees seldom wasted anything, including a mismarked frame. Or could it be a correctly marked frame frame with the wrong barrel & cylinder attached - I suppose it depends on how you look at it, right?

Of course we're assuming this is all factory, correct?

As an aside, I bought a nickel 8" Python Target model around 1980 or so, brand new from the factory to Kittery Trading Post to me. The barrel was marked "38 Special" but the gun chambered 357 Magnums. It was listed as a 38 Special, to this day I have no idea if it's a 38 Special barrel accidentally on a 357 Magnum frame or vice versa. Called Colt when I bought it, they wanted it back to correct. I still have it, shoot only 38 Specials through it. So although Smith is sort of known for these anomolies, they probably happen more often than people think.

beantownshootah

+1 to Dfletcher. With literally millions of Smith guns made over the last 100+ years, there are a good number of non-standard ones floating around.

One of the gun dealers from MA (located near the Smith factory in Springfield) told me he sees non-catalog Smith guns walk through his shop all the time.

Some are simply mislabeled (eg bad quality control) or cobbled together from parts that ordinarily don't go together (eg a frame from one model with a barrel and cylinder from another). Some may be prototypes. Some may be "lunchbox specials" (eg guns taken out in part form by workers then finished/assembled at home), etc.

He even showed me a Smith model 10 in .357 magnum. I saw it, and yup. . .that's how it was marked, both model 10 and .357 magnum.

Dealer said he tried it and the gun would actually chamber .357, so this wasn't just a wrongly labeled "ordinary" model 10. He never shot it, but said he thought it would probably handle .357s.

I don't know the exact "answer" as to how this particular gun came to be mislabeled (the above explanations are all plausible), but I do have an additional suggestion.

If you contact Smith and give them the serial number of the gun, they can check their records and tell you how the gun was supposed to come out of the factory (ie date of manufacture, where it shipped to, caliber and configuration). They charge a little bit for a formal factory letter documenting this, but I've heard that sometimes they'll just give you the info "off the record" on the phone (or they used to).