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Old 04-22-2011, 07:23 PM
mikepriwer mikepriwer is offline
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Guys

As David mentions, this is an on-going gentlemens debate !

If one reads the catalogs, they will find BOTH the Model of 1902
(shown with a round butt), AND the Model of 1905 (shown with a
square butt) up into the 1930's. AND, in the parts catalogs, one
will always find 1902 and 1905 frames. From all the external factory
documents - like what orders were taken from - there are two models,
and their difference is ONLY the round butt vs the square butt.

AND , after WW2, there are, for decades, two models of the M&P; a
round butt model, and a square butt model.

The confusion comes about because of the Collectors wanted to
include/append engineering changes to the names of models. I think
this was an important idea, but it creates a conflict. The conflict comes
about because, in late 1904, at about serial 50,000 or so, towards the
end of the model of 1902 ( 1st change ) the factory introduced a new
model ; the Model of 1905 . It has its own page in the catalogs, but
in every way save for the butt configuration, it is identical to the
Model of 1902 1st change.

About 70 years later, when the Collectors were trying to define some
uniformity in the model designation, this presented a problem ; the
factory had introduced the Model of 1905 a bit too early for the
Collectors ! It would have been very nice to call this new gun the
Model of 1905 1st change , because then it would have been in sync
with the Model of 1902 1st change. Alas and alack, they could not
do this, because there was no Model of 1905 no-change preceeding it.

So - they elected to delay ( the Collectors did ) the introduction of
the Model of 1905 until the next engineering change, which is the
addition of the 5th frame screw in front of the trigger guard. And, at
that time, the Collectors went one step further and defined ALL
K-frames to be Model of 1905, round butt or square butt.

This has the effect of solving the inconsistency problem of numbering
engineering changes between round-butt models of 1902, and square
butt models of 1905. However, it loses the identity of the Model of
1902, which the factory never lost.

There are two further comments to offer here. First, some round-butt
guns from 1908, 1909, and even later, will letter as late-shipped
Models of 1902. They were not late-shipped, because the Model of
1902 was very much alive and well at the factory. It may be the
case, however, that Model of 1902 is what was written in the shipping
records for those guns, and the historian is being true to the records,
in those cases. It may also have been the case that Model of 1905
was written in the records, for round-butt guns. Still in all, certainly
some part of the factory ( and I personally think all parts of the
factory) regarded round-butt K-frames as models of 1902.

Second, and I think much more important, is the unlucky hand that
fate dealt the square-butt model of 1905; it was discontinued many
years ago ! All that remains is the venerable round-butt Model of
1902. And that is why I think it is wrong to refer to them as Model of
1905 - regardless of how much confusion it creates !

Its been fun (!), Mike
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