Thank you all.
This is one of the finest websites I’ve ever seen in knowledge and a willingness to share.
Thank you all.
This is one of the finest websites I’ve ever seen in knowledge and a willingness to share.
Looks like a pre-war gun with a 5” barrel, although could be 1946-1950 vintage. If you can give me the serial, at least the first 4 digits like C123xx, I can look it up in my references and likely tell you what year it was made. If grips are original, they will have same serial number stamped inside. Wear on those grips and the grip adapter would lead me be to believe it is an old cop gun.
The first indication a bad guy should have that I'm dangerous is when his
disembodied soul is looking down at his own corpse wondering what happened.
Nice old Smith with proper wear for a working gun. Shoot and enjoy. It’s probably very accurate and zeroed dead on with any standard 158-grain load.
Merry Christmas and welcome to P-F.
Okie John
“The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
"Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's
If you note the wear pattern on the grips, odds are it was carried in a flap holster, which was pretty common for LE from that time period.
Here is an old .38 Special Colt Official Police from 1939. You can see how the grips are worn down in a similar fashion. Mine is stamped "J.P.D" on the butt of the gun, as was the norm for many police agencies to mark their service revolvers.
Your step daughter not only has a nice piece of family history, she has a nice piece of Americana, as well as a still quite serviceable and practical little .38 there. Some standard velocity 158 grain Lead Semi Wadcutters, available from the better manufacturers would likely shoot quite well in that gun.
147grn wadcutters are another nice, comfortable, and accurate load to shoot through these.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
Serial number on the bottom of the butt would let us tie it down to a year or two if postwar. If late prewar, it's going to be fuzzy.
NOTE Assembly numbers under the cylinder yoke mean zilch.
Code Name: JET STREAM
Standard Catalog only says 1945-1948.
I'm thinking 1946 as they revved up commercial production after the war.
Code Name: JET STREAM