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info and DOM on old S&W?
Txs
Member Posts: 18,801
A friend has contacted me about an old S&W revolver he inherited and I'm trying to let him know exactly what type he has, as well as an approximate age. I haven't laid eyes on the gun, but he supplied the following description:
Six round swing out cylinder, ~5in. barrel with fixed rear and 'half dime' front sight, extractor rod locks into small under-barrel lug.
Barrel has a two line stamping, '.38 S&W Special' then '& US CTGS' below. (I didn't realize S&W ever marked their guns as capable of being used with that Colt round)
He didn't state whether it's a round or square butt.
Serial 1157** (bottom of grip frame). Stamped on frame inside of yoke '4188 8' (I assume to be an assembly number).
Six round swing out cylinder, ~5in. barrel with fixed rear and 'half dime' front sight, extractor rod locks into small under-barrel lug.
Barrel has a two line stamping, '.38 S&W Special' then '& US CTGS' below. (I didn't realize S&W ever marked their guns as capable of being used with that Colt round)
He didn't state whether it's a round or square butt.
Serial 1157** (bottom of grip frame). Stamped on frame inside of yoke '4188 8' (I assume to be an assembly number).
Comments
Great caution has to be exercised though. Many inexpensive Spanish made knock-offs, also are similarly marked.
EDIT #1, The "Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson" by Supica & Nahas, has information on the early production M & P's, and their barrel markings.
Are there any sort of reference materials available which indicate the year for S&W's use of this serial range on a gun fitting the basic description I supplied?
Smith & Wesson didn't mark their guns "U.S. Cartridges" but the Belgians and Spaniards often did...I wouldn't doubt the European knockoffs also had this marking, but while researching this gun I've seen pics of several old, genuine S&W revolvers with this two-line barrel stamping.
The way it's explained is that S&W didn't wish to use their competitors name on their product, so they referred to guns able to also use the shorter .38 Long Colt as capable of firing 'U.S. Service Ctg's'. In turn, due to being S&W designed rounds Colt marked their guns simply '.38 Special', '.357 Magnum', etc.
I'm just not sure of the time frame when this two-line barrel marking was used by S&W and included it as a reference for someone to possibly give a span for it's date of manufacture.
Too old to live...too young to die...
I believe the gun is a Military & Police Model 1905 1st change made 1906-1909. A total of 73,648 were manufactured and the serial listed would be right about the middle of the run.
Thanks, Doc.
I've since obtained more details on this gun that back up what you say.
It's a square butt with no extractor alignment pins, 5 screw and has the rebound slide pin visible straight below the thumbpiece screw.
Combined with the characteristics I stated earlier, from what I gather this adds up to a 1905 1st Change.