Bill:
No serial # on the barrel that I can find. I do understand that the halfmoon front sight were phased out, beginning in 1952 and the 4-screw frame phased in 1954. S&W was a lot like Winchester with "Running Changes"; meaning a style change was not like one door closing and another opening with exact cut-off dates. The changes came when the old parts ran out. 2" snubbies in the K frame were most likely not made to the same numbers as 4,5 and 6 inch barreled revolvers. So it stands to reason that halfmoon sighted barrels would have been in the bins considerably longer than the longer barrels. I haven't seen too many of these K frame snubbies around, compared to the J frame ones. That could also be a factor in a late change.

Usually i can tell if a gun has been monkeyed with and this one does not represent that. Given the condition of the gun it woeld appear unlikely it would have been in need of another barrel. The barrel on this one is like new inside. Most of my other S&W revolvers have b/c gap within the 4 to 10 thou range, except for the Victory (12 thou). The snub nose is a tight 3 thou.with practically no cylinder wobble or forward and backward movement.

Thanks Fellas for the help, very much appreciated.

Regards:
Rod