S&W 4506-1 What does the "1" Mean???

S

San Francisquito Bill

New member
Hi all,

Looks like I found a pretty good deal on a S&W 4506-1 police trade-in. It will probably cost me $273.00 plus tax and transfer, and the gun looks to be in excellent condition. I disassembled it, and the internals looked clean with very little wear.

My questions involve some of the details of the gun with which I am not familiar.

1. What does the "1" stand for in 4506-1?

2. The magazines are all marked something like "This magazine must be used with a yellow follower." They all have the yellow follower, but are they different from current 4506/66 type magazines?

Thanks for the responses!
 
With regards to the 4506, I'm not sure of what changes were made to rate the "-1" suffix. It was common practice for *&* to designate design changes on models (anything from adding a firing-pin safety to changing the grip screws) with the hyphenated series #.

My 625, for example, is a -4. It has a hammer-mounted firing pin, whereas the -5's have the frame-mounted unit...

------------------
"..but never ever Fear. Fear is for the enemy. Fear and Bullets."
10mm: It's not the size of the Dawg in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog!
 
The -1 indicates that the frame was changed to the same frame that the full size 10mm S&W autos used. If you notice, on a 4506, there is a hook on the trigger guard and on each side of the frame the contour is different than on a 4506-1. These changes were cosmetic. The 4506-1 has a rounded trigger guard with no hook.

ASG
 
to sf bill

I have had a couple of 4506's. Probably the best 45 I ever owned, close to perfect. The mags for 4506 all work. If I recall some were yellow, some black and some orange. I could only guess the colors were for increased safety vision and it ( the Warning on the mag.)was some way to cover themselves if sued. The best price I ever got was $399 with $20 mags. regards
Hi all,

Looks like I found a pretty good deal on a S&W 4506-1 police trade-in. It will probably cost me $273.00 plus tax and transfer, and the gun looks to be in excellent condition. I disassembled it, and the internals looked clean with very little wear.

My questions involve some of the details of the gun with which I am not familiar.

1. What does the "1" stand for in 4506-1?

2. The magazines are all marked something like "This magazine must be used with a yellow follower." They all have the yellow follower, but are they different from current 4506/66 type magazines?

Thanks for the responses![/QUOTE]
 
Regarding the mags, you have some good ones. The first 4506 mags had orange followers. The color, in and of itself, is not significant.
These first mags were found to have a very light grip on the top cartridge. If you ejected a partially loaded mag, the top round occasionally had slid far enough forward that it would hang up the magazine. Forcing the mag out by pulling it sometimes actually stripped the top round out of the mag, and it would come tumbling out of the mag well after you pulled out the magazine. This did not happen frequently, but you can imagine how that might present a problem at a critical moment.
To remedy this problem, Smith redesigned the magazine and the follower. These redesigned mags had yellow followers to distinguish them from the earlier ones.
What they did was to add a couple of little dimples to the feedlip area of the mag body that held back the top cartridge as it slid into place. The newer followers had a corresponding pair of recesses molded into them. Because the older followers lacked these recesses, they would not function properly in these new mag bodies.
Later, Smith started making the followers black. And therein the mystery of the follower colors is solved.
 
In the early 90's I bought a 4516 that developed some feeding problems. I returned the pistol to *&* for adjustment and received the pistol back identified as a 4516-1. A new barrel and magazines were in place. As stated above, the magazines have a warning on them to use only with a 4516-1.
I have always thought the -1 or -2 indicates the changes to the original model during a production run.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone!

Looks like I have a keeper. I took it apart again today, and though the external appearance has some scratches (none too bad--It obviously sat in it's holster most of the time, as there are plenty of scratches on the grip), the internals look brand-new.

I figure that I'll get a 40 Super barrel/spring set for the gun and use it for pig hunting, while being able to switch back to .45 for defense.

Too bad there aren't too many police trade-in 1006's around!
 
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