Quote:
Originally Posted by 44wheelman
And to muddy the water further....I would agree all 4" pre-war reg. police have a rebated frame. I have a post war (pre-model#) 4" .38 reg police with a round butt frame. I asked Mr.Jinks about it. He said the rebated frames were eliminated after the war. I think he said this one was shipped in '54.
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I had forgotten this thread. I came into one of these unrebated postwar .38 RPs recently and was surprised by the round butt. It's like a Terrier with a longer barrel.
Mine is 58470. I think I see 58684 on the inside of the right grip panel of 44wheelman's RP. Mine shipped in July 1951, and I suspect that his would have gone out not too many months one way or the other from that date. Note that both are built on the unimproved I frame that utilized the flat spring.
As to the dates and availability of rebated frames, check out the first post in this thread:
Transition 32 & 38 Regulation Police
Clearly there were rebated frames available for RP stocks on the improved I-frames, both .32 and .38 caliber. So there was a short period (no more than a couple of years) in which the square butt RPs were not available, and then with the introduction of the improved I-frame (1953), the square butt on a rebated frame made its return. (Or maybe the rebated frames came back a little before the introduction of the coil-spring frame, in which case the round butt versions are an interesting scarce variant.)