Went to the gunshow in Richmond yesterday for a couple of hours. As we do every year about this time, my wife and I renewed our NRA membership at the door. Got $10.00 off the membership, and free tickets to the show. I consider that a bargan.

We walked around a bit and I spotted a set of diamond Magna grips in a display case. They looked pretty good to me, so I bought them to put on a old M&P I have. I don't know if they're exact for the time period, but they're closer than the smooth target gips it was wearing.





Moved the targets to my 17-3 where they look better.



Didn't see anything else I couldn't live without, and the wife was getting tired, so we went on home..

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John 3:16 .

Beautiful. I agree that they are a darn sight better than the ones on there before.
I had a buddy go there with $1000 and he couldn't spend it. Nothing he liked, and he called me a couple of times with pics of stuff he knew I'd like, but really just a lot of stuff he and I were happier to pass on. Sad, really. He couldn't even find a single 4506 magazine for sale. (Except for the gunclips guy, who wanted $50 each. He can keep them)

Very nice example of early PC (Plain Clothes) Diamond Magnas and they do look good but yes they are probably for a gun made a little later than your early post war long action M&P.
Correct style would be the early post war flat bottom diamond Magnas with high shoulders.

That's what I thought E49. They're more of a match for the ones on my 55/56 2" M&P.

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John 3:16 .

This stock pattern now on your M&P is correctly referred to as "Modified Magna" as shown in the 1952 Centennial Catalog.





"Modifieds" were used on service guns like your M&P, which looks to be an early postwar gun with both prewar & postwar features.

The earliest "Modifieds" I have seem to be from the 1951 production year



While S&W didn't mark the serial prefix in the wood, my estimate is that these stocks were from C128,614. I think that my pal John Taylor had an earlier pair...

The earliest postwar M&P's had the regular, square bottomed Magnas.



So, I would guess that if your serial number is in the "C" range, your new stocks are appropriate. If however your M&P is of the earlier "S" range, it would need the regular "Magna" stock to be correct.

Drew

His gun has the long action, so it has to be an S gun.

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Regards,
Lee Jarrett

This S 800,000 serial M&P probably is just a little bit earlier than yours because of the larger ejector rod tip but
yours probably came with the same high shoulder flat bottom style grips.


"That's what I thought E49. They're more of a match for the ones on my 55/56 2" M&P."

Guessing your 55/56 2" M&P looks like this?

Pretty much.





The first 4" gun is an "S" prefix. I swapped the grips over to a "C". Not quite as nice as the "S", but not bad.





I'll have to keep looking for a square bottom set for the "S".

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John 3:16 .

NICE GUNS!

Did you notice that your snub is same finish and condition as my 4" and your 4" is same finish and condition as my snub ?

I had wondered if my 4" (the "C" above) had been refinished somewhere along the line, or if it's from a time when S&W was transisitioning from the Matte post-war finish seen on the 2", to the brighter finish of later years. The S/N of the two guns are close, with the 2" being around C 310xxx and the 4" C342xxx.

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John 3:16 .