Need help identifying this gun

R

rock_jock

New member
I have a friend who just bought an old S&W and needs some help identifying this thing and estimaing its value. Here are the features:

- it has plastic grips, so I'm thinking it is definitely a reproduction, unless they were added later
- it is a break-top model, double-action
- it is very worn, the cylinder spins freely at times, the hammer cannot be fully cocked for single-action mode, and the trigger can barely be pulled
- most of the stamping on the barrel is worn, so he has no idea what caliber it is

Any info would be appreciated.

rock
 

Attachments

  • im000174.jpg
    im000174.jpg
    72.2 KB · Views: 58
Your picture is pretty blurry, but it looks like a S&W Double Action Third or Fourth Model (you'd need the serial no. to tell which one; a 4th model runs from 322700 and up, the 3rd model is lower than that). This should be a 5-shot 38 S&W, and the Std. catalog of S&W (1996) lists one in "Poor" condition at $60. Hope this helps.
 
SDC's nailed it.

These are very common, don't command a lot of collector interest in anything other than absolutely pristine shape or with original box and papers.

The grips likely are NOT replacements.

Many of these guns were stocked with hard rubber, and later in production an early plastic called Bakelite.

Both have the look and feel of plastic, but both are original to the gun.

That the hammer can't be cocked and the trigger is very hard to pull makes me think that the original spring broke at some point, and it was replaced with either a poorly made home made, or an incorrectly fitting spring that was jury rigged into place.
 
Mike likely right about the trigger and cocking problem. However, I have seen much more recent guns with the same trigger symptoms that were just full of crud and corrosion. The worst I have seen was purse carried by undercover female. She qualed with a different gun and the purse gun had not been fired in years. An amazing amount of crud inside and the corrosion was disasterous. Gun maby four or five years old and totaly inoperable with no wear.

Was looking at a bull barrel 10-8 just yesterday that felt like it had a nest of rats or sumpin inside. Very hard to single action cock. Lot of corrosion under the grips, didn't look inside but guts probably in same shape.

Sam
 
This helps a lot. Two questions:

- What year was this made?
- As an estimate, how much would it take for a gunsmith to get it shape enough to fire (given the problems I've described)?

BTW, I've attached a better pic.
 

Attachments

  • im000175.jpg
    im000175.jpg
    82.1 KB · Views: 37
My first reaction would be make a mantle or wall display out of it.

How much to get it into shooting condition depends on what is wrong. Some parts are available but the labor could mount up quickly. Value isn't going to come up much at all and wouldn't be hard to put a couple hundred bucks into it. Never know till it has been opened up and inspected tho.

Then, if lucky, you get a .38 S&W shooter. .38S&W is a dead end round. Ammo getting scarce and usually it costs quite a bit more than the much more powerful .38 special.

Sorry to be so negative but I don't think there is much to work with there.

Sumpin else to think about.....it could be a knockoff from Spain or Belgium. There were some copies of Smiths that even had the logo right. And some of the knockoffs were unsafe to shoot when new.

Sam
 
rock_jock,

Given that it doesn't have much value, even if a genuine S&W, I'd forget about trying to get it to shoot. For the money you spend trying to restore this one, you could probably buy a real nice one and skip the step of attempting to get it working.
 
Rock,

I'm 99.99999999999999999999 percent sure that those are the original hard rubber grips.

As for when this gun was made, the serial number would narrow it down to a specific year, or range of years, but the basic model was made in 6 separate iterations from 1880 to 1940.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top