Thanks for the warm welcome! (And thanks for the kind words Don Mundell!) I got the pistol in trade for some work I did for a guy in CO - and only suspected it may have been Walter Winans after I saw mention of him while researching the pistol in The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson book. I couldn't get TOO excited until the letter arrived. (I mean, could have been Willy Wonka!) And what a great learning experience! Learning about Walter has been a lot of fun - successful business man, horse breeder, Olympic shooting champ, and died in a horse race! Couldn't have picked a better way to go. I would love to shoot this thing, veeeery carefully.