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Old 09-07-2021, 01:01 PM
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JP@AK JP@AK is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Absalom View Post
It’s an interesting question to consider:

Were the early S-prefix M&P’s with plugged holes really built on Victory frames that were manufactured and left over from the time before Victory assembly ended in mid-1945?

The factory had produced only M&P frames with swivel holes for the previous four years, since sometime in 1941, for all applications. Did they possibly just keep producing frames like that until it occurred to somebody in early 1946 that nobody wanted swivels anymore and time and labor could be saved?
I think this is a very reasonable question. I've never been able to fully buy in to the idea that all the SV and early S guns were actually "leftover frames" from the period 1941 up to August, 1945. There certainly is no proof of this theory.

The period from September, 1945, until February, 1946, was a time of transition from the wartime practices to full-on civilian production and sales. The company had much to do: the supply chain had to be reorganized, the sales force redeveloped, machine tool reconfiguration accomplished, production lines established, engineering changes implemented, other models reintroduced, and the list goes on. It would seem that reconfiguring the M&P production line would be the least of their concerns. After all, except for the bluing process, nothing urgent really had to change to address the pent-up demand for the M&P. That demand is illustrated by the M&P constituting the first large postwar shipment of revolvers to Cleveland PD in February, 1946. Also by the resumption of shipment of many hundreds of M&Ps in March of the same year.

Therefore, I tend to believe that many of the SV and especially the S prefix guns that shipped in the first few months of 1946 may well have had frames that were produced after the production of Victory Models had ceased.

I'm not sure we will ever know the answer with any certainty.
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