Model 10 Question

ZVP

New member
I own a Model 10 4" HB marked Model 10-6.
I just read Chuck Hawks article on the Model 10's and he states that the 10-6 was never a production gun rather a special pre-run of the revolver soon to be the .357 Model 13.
How bout it, does anyone know if this is true? Could my gun be one of these?
I know the revolver was on-loan to the British Bobbys as a duty sidearm. Plenty of British proofmarks all over it!
I have no intentions of shooting .357's through it because the barel is marked .38 Speical Smith and Wesson ctg.
If it's true I made a hell of a $200 deal!
Thanks,
ZVP
 
The heavy barrel was introduced in the 10-1 in 1959.
The 10-6 was an engineering change eliminating the triggerguard screw on the heavy barrels in 1962.
The Models 10-7 & 10-8 involved another change in 1977, so your gun was probably manufactured between '62 & '77. A check of the serial would nail it down further.

At a quick glance, I see no mention in either of my reference books of the 10-6 being a "special" pre-run of the Model 13 introduced in 1974 in .357 Mag.

And I'll ask you again, how do you know your gun was "loaned" to British Bobbies?
No post-war Smiths, to the best of my knowledge, were "loaned" to British police. May have been bought by them, but not loaned to them. No reason to loan guns to Britain by the time your gun was introduced.

British proofs, as pointed out for you in another thread, do not mean it was a police gun.
It could have been exported to England, proofed for commercial sale, and imported back here.

The date of introduction of the 10-6 also means your gun was not a Lend/Lease item, as you originally thought.

Do you have specific provenance showing British police issue?

And, if the barrel's marked .38, you couldn't shoot .357s through it even if you wanted to.
Denis
 
I don't know the dates but some police agency wanted a heavy barrel Model 10 in 357 and I think the 10-6 was the platform. After a short time they made the same gun stamped as the Model 13. Collectors go for the original 10-6 in 357 as they are not real common.
 
The 10-6 was a normal, HB 10 made from 1962 to 1977. Sometime around 1972, the NYSP ordered a special run of them made in .357. 1200, IIRC. S&W thought it was a great idea, and (it seems) after testing the waters by selling a few .357 10-6s to the general public, they renamed it Model 13 starting in 1974.
 
If the 10-6 designation was in place from '62-'77, it was a production model.
If stamped .38 Special, it would not be a .357.
It's not a rare one, if stamped .38 Special.


It was late last night when I hauled out the books & looked it up, I didn't check the entire history of the 10-6. :)

Any special orders or trial runs of a 10-6 in .357 Magnum would be marked .357 Magnum.

ZVP has posted before on his "Lend/Lease" Model 10 HB & it was pointed out that he was mistaken there.
Gives a little more detail here in now listing the model stamping, but I'd still like to know where he got the idea it was "loaned" to British police.

No reason for it to be loaned to them. If they used it at all, they would have bought it outright via whatever British purchasing network would have been involved.

British proofs are required on all foreign guns imported into the country for sale & don't indicate police use in & of themselves.

If the gun has other stampings, anything like the equivalent of "Metropolitan Police Property", that'd support police use, but it still wouldn't have been a loaner.

Also, during that period of manufacture, to the best of my knowledge no police agency in England was using sidearms as routine duty weapons.
If the gun was owned by a police agency there, it would've been maintained in lockup at a station house of some sort & only checked out in extreme cases.
Would not have been carried regularly.

ZVP, could you please say why you think your 10 was a police gun?
Denis
 
Model10-6_zpsc50647c8.jpg


Nothing to add but a pic of my 10-6.

Great shootin gun and it only cost me $200 OTD. :cool:
 
ZVP,
This is the second time you've posted on your "Bobby loaner", this time asking for help.

When people advise that it's not what you think it is, you don't come back.

There is a possibility it could have been owned by British police & returned back here.
The Royal Hong Kong police guns brought back some years ago are an example.

I'd be interested to know if your 10 was a police gun. I lived in England for a while during the 1970s & never saw an armed Bobby. Back during the period when your 10 was manufactured, the police were not routinely armed.
Today, that's changed to a small degree, but most are still not.

If yours WAS owned by British police, it'd be interesting to add to the general store of knowledge.

You asked for help, you got it (finally found that Hawks piece you referred to, he was wrong about the 10-6 never being a production gun).
Can you please, in turn, respond & say why you think your gun was a police gun & who told you it was a loaner?

The 10 is a classic revolver, I have one & its stainless "twin" Model 64 that I carried on duty. You have a revolver well worth owning, but if somebody sold it to you stating it was a British police "loaner" based only on proofmarks, they misled you, unless they provided some sort of documentation. If you're going to keep posting on it as a Lend/Lease or loaner police gun, it'd be good to have the facts correct.
Denis
 
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