Mid 60s to early 70s S&W finishes were the best

C

Captain H

Moderator
I have a pristine no dash model 10 and a 10-7 S&W and both (although very nice) don't compare to the polished finish of my wifes 10-5. I have seen a number 10-5 model 10s at gunshows in the last year to come to this conclusion. All of my future S&W models that I plan to buy will be from this era. I am saving to add both a model 29 and a model 15 to my collection. The finish on these period S&W revolvers rivals Colt royal blue as found on the Pythons, IMHO.

Are there other periods that had as good finishes from the S&W factory?
 
I recently picked up an early model Highway Patrolman. Pinned and recessed, still marked HP. I think I've narrowed it down to about '56. While the blue isn't a high S & W polish (it was made or leo use), it's still very nice.
I love the old blueing on revolvers. Labor intensive and worth it.
 
If you ever get the chance...take a look at the pre-war Smiths...that's pre-WWll BTW...there's no comparison to what's been available since..Rod
 
If you ever get the chance...take a look at the pre-war Smiths...that's pre-WWll BTW...there's no comparison to what's been available since..Rod
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I have a S&W M&P in nickel from the late 20s or early 30s that was purchased new by my grandfather and passed down to me through my father. While I'll admit that the nickel finish has held up beautifully, there are a LOT of machining marks visible under the finish. I suspect that if a new gun had this many marks, the manufacturer would probably catch hell for it. But it's a great gun, reliable and accurate, so I'm not going to complain.
 
Scott...they'll vary and for sure not all were superb, but I'll stand by my statement...the pre-wars were light years ahead of anything since...here's a .32-20 H-E from the late 30's and certainly not a special order job... the pic doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea...BTW, hold on to your grand-dad's gun...you're kids and grand kids will appreciate it as much as you do...Rod

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I think anything before the 80's has a great finish compared to those in the display case today, even the 80s and early 90s look good compared to today. I Examined some new ones the other day and, oh my.... :eek:.
 
While the finish was good, some of the older S&W models did not have a high polish finish, but rather more of a satin finish. I find them quite attractive. I think some Colts, even more recent Colts had an even better finish than the best S&W finish. It's something about the bluing. I don't know how the bluing methods changed over the years but no doubt that had something to do with it, probably more so than the handwork.

I still remember the comment when I was admiring the finish on a Colt Python, which was still available new at the time: "Yeah, it really shows the scratches."
 
I think your statement is a little too broad ...and while the finish on some of the older models was pretty good ...the finishes thru the early 80's was very good as well....especially on guns like the model 27's and 29's blued ....or most any of the guns with a Nickel finish.

I tend to stay with guns made in the 1960's and 70's myself...with a lot of models ...like an engineering dash 2 version or earlier ..../ but I've also accumulated a lot of model 19's, 27's, 29's etc in Nickel in the last few years ...and I think any of them will stand up to what Colt put out.
 
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