I am a 25 year collector of S&W's. The problem (?) is I am a collector of top-breaks and tip-ups, so this Model 46 I just acquired is a little out of my wheelhouse. I am very new to this model of semi-auto, so please bear with me.
My pistol has the 5" barrel. It has the square-cut slide and is in the 24XXX range. Today, while looking around the internet, I ran across a Model 46 that is approx. 40 s/n's less than mine, yet has the radius-cut on the slide. This seems backwards to me. I thought I understood that the square-cut was changed to the radius-cut because of cracking problems. The slide and barrel on mine both number to the frame, and I would assume the one online matches as well.

Any thoughts ?
Thanks,
WB