My son has an opportunity to buy this S&W 22. He is going to call again on Wed. So I am needing info on this one as I don't know anything about these other than I have seen pics of them here on the forum.

Thanks, John

Attached Images

!cid__122200_1840[00].jpg (33.7 KB, 222 views)

This is a .22 / .32 Heavy Frame Target from the pre-war era.

I got a couple here too...



Values of these guns varies substantially between the earliest issues and the later ones....

Drew

It's a .22/32 Heavy Frame Target. Assuming the stocks are original to the gun, the lack of medallions points to a 1920s era production date. Do you know the serial number?

At its 1911 introduction, this gun was called the .22/32 Bekeart after the name of the San Francisco sporting goods entrepreneur who talked S&W into bringing the model out. But it wasn't as popular as he thought it would be, and after a few years it was redesignated the .22/32 Heavy Frame Target and later (after the heavier K-frame target model called the K-22 Outdoorsman was put into production), just the .22/32 Hand Ejector. In the last couple of years of its prewar production it was called the .22/32 Target. When a variant of this model was introduced in 1936 with a four-inch barrel and smaller stocks, it was called the .22/32 Kit Gun.

Can't tell if that one has been refinished, but it looks pretty good. These are very nice compact revolvers, but I find it hard to shoot them accurately. Others have no problems with them, but I do better with heavier guns.

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David Wilson

I do not know the serial number. Any approx value is appricated. Maybe something of best case variation and worst case variation values.

Thanks for the quick replies.

John

New or almost new in the original box, they can go for about $1500 -- certainly well over a thousand.

In 95% - 97% condition without a box, maybe $700-800.

Mechanically sound, good bore and chambers, but only 80% blue, maybe $500-600.

Beat up guns are under $500.

You'll get arguments about these prices from folks who live where these guns are a drug on the market, or where all guns are just cheaper in general.


Since Drew is posting pics and I try to keep up with him when I can (a tough challenge, I assure you), here's another one. It's almost new.



It came with a box:



The box is almost unblemished, too, except for that scuff.

My gun is from 1940 -- one of the last ones shipped before WWII shut down commercial S&W production in favor of military contracts. The label shows the very last designation applied to this model before it went on production hiatus.

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David Wilson

I may ask you to take me to school one day.... I would love to be able to make photos of the quality you regularly do...

As to value, if I remember correctly, I paid $350 for the upper gun in the photo, which is a Bekert No. 2080 (iirc) and so marked on the stocks and $400 for the lower one which is a 'transitional' based upon the serial number, but came to me with unmarked, questionable stocks...

This within the past 3-4 years...

I think David's prices are in line with what I see. Mine falls in the 95 to 97% category with no box, and it would take atleast $900 or more to get it.


Charlie