I am trying to identify and date this revolver I inherited as few years ago. I have been told it is a "J" frame
It is 38sp 5 shot 1-7/8" bbl round butt.
Butt serial#35274
Barrel # same
Yoke number is kind of strange but is laid out like this:
N
99368
8
On the swing out frame is the number 99368
I read through all the other posts and could not find an answer so maybe one of you experts can enlighten me.
The barrel is not heavy by my estimation, it is pinned, and it is a hand eject. It has three screws on the right side of the frame and one on the front of the trigger guard.
Any help would be appreciated
Hello Blacksmith
What you have is
a Chief's Special. This revolver was introduced at the
1950 annual Chief of Police Meeting in Denver, Colorado. Before this all S&W had to offer in a small frame revolver was a model called
a Terrier which was an
I-Frame being a small frame revolver chambered in .
38 S&W caliber in the 38-32 Frame series, and prior to those they Offered a
regulation Police model chambered in .
32 S&W Long which later was offered in a
Model 30 in the same caliber being
a round butt frame and
the model 31 that was a square butt frame both chambered in the More mild
.32 S&W Long caliber. Many Police agencies had asked S&W for a small frame gun chambered
in the .38 Special caliber, so detectives as well as uniform officers could have a back up carry weapon or one for off duty protection purposes so the Factory President Carl Helstrom asked
the engineers to develop a small frame gun to handle the
Much Hotter .38 Special round and the previous Terrier frame was increased in size to
the J-Frame and the Chief Special model was born as a
five shot Model chambered in .38 Special caliber.
This brand new Proto-Type revolver was passed around at the 1950 Chief of Police meeting and then they asked all of the Chief's present at that meeting to pick out a name for this model and after the votes were cast on a sheet of paper used for voting Purposes and handed in, the name of this gun by Popular vote was
"The Chief's Special" and the name stuck from there on after. The very early ones being 1950 time span had
Four side Plate screw's and
one in front of the trigger guard making them a
Five screw version. In or around
1952 time span the
upper side plate screw was dropped and the ones like yours are called the
Four screw versions. In or around
1953-1954 the
Trigger guard screw was dropped and all guns made after that were called
Three screw versions. The very early ones had
a round trigger guard and later on they became more of
an oval shape. The early ones also had a
fine checkering on the top of their hammers which changed to a more
course style later and the early ones also had
a half moon style front sight blade which later changed to
a 1/10" ramp style front sight blade. They came in nickel or Blued finish and were made in
Round Butt configuration and later became available in a
square butt version.
The stock's were made of
walnut with a diamond center on them. In
1957 S&W stamped all their guns with a
model number and the model number
36 was chosen for the Chiefs special. They did offer this model with adjustable sights and Known as the Model 50 which are a rare find as most were made with fixed sights and known as the Model 36 or Pre-36. In
1968 was saw the
Diamond's that they used in the center of their walnut stock's get dropped so
all Post 1968 guns will have
Non Diamond stocks on them. The very early Chief models had a standard cylinder release on them, then they changed to a
flat latch style which was used up into
the Middle 1960's time span, before we saw them return to the standard style cylinder latch again. Later on they offered the chiefs special
in stainless and that model was the
Model 60 and S&W was the first Gun manufacturer to offer a revolver in stainless steel and later we saw it offered in
.357 Magnum caliber on a new designed slightly larger
Magnum-J-Frame to handle the more potent .357 Magnum cartridges.
From the serial number you provided I suspect
your gun was made around 1952 time span and is what they call
a Transitional revolver meaning it was a time when design changes were happening as the upper side plate screw being dropped and later the front trigger guard screw being dropped as well. These Transitional guns are
not rare but scarce. The Model 36 that was stamped with it's model number in 1957 in the crane area, is still being produced today after decades of being made it is still
one of the most popular carry revolver's to hit the market. I hope this answer's your questions. Regards, Hammerdown
