DOB On This S&W Break Top .44, Please.

Wyatt Burp · #1 06-05-2010, 08:33 AM

I almost traded for this yesterday. It's a D.A. .44 with no caliber markings and a longer cylinder. We assumed it was a .44 Russian. The chambers didnt look tapered. It looks like a nice patina and hasn't been refinished (I think). The barrel markings are crisp. The serial # is 80XX.
Turns out we both passed on each other's guns. I really liked this S&W. Everthing worked perfectly and it had nice shiney chambers, but the bore was trashed. I wanted it to shoot blackpowder handloads. How would the poor bore effect your opinions on aquiring this gun? Thanks for any help here.

deadin · #2 06-05-2010, 09:38 AM

Wyatt,
If it has a 1 9/16th" cylinder and that serial number, it's a 44/40. (Frontier). Looks to me that it hasn't been refinished, just aged gracefully. A bad barrel may or may not shoot well. Only trying it would tell. It would be a bear to clean, especially with black powder.

(I have #11808 and it shipped in December 1900, if that helps any.)

DCWilson · #3 06-05-2010, 09:39 AM

I would be tempted to re-open negotiations.

I don't think the bore would matter that much to me if I wanted one of this model and there was no better one around. Later, if I found a better one, I might trade or sell this one.

Maybe the barrel condition is bad enough to affect accuracy, maybe not. I'd have to try it out to know, and I wouldn't mind owning the gun while I ran my tests.

Production on the .44 DA ran from 1881-1913, but all the frames were made before 1899. 8,000 is only about 15% of the way through the serial number sequence and sounds like a low number to me, but who knows when it was actually assembled and shipped? If numbers and shipping dates roughly correlate, this one might have gone out the door in the mid 1880s.

The long cylinder in a low-number gun surprises me a little; Neal and Jinks say the 1-9/16" cylinder is found only in later production models. The long cylinder is used exclusively in the .44 DA Frontier, introduced 1886, so maybe that is an indicator of the date of yours. (Or maybe not.)

If the frame is invariable, is it correct that one could retrofit a long cylinder to an early gun by swapping out the barrel at the same time?

Good looking piece with utilitarian potential. I see why you were interested in it.

deadin · #4 06-05-2010, 10:43 AM

David,
To further confuse the issue here is a synopsis/question I posed several years ago and never got an answer:

Quote:

I’m not sure I can even make my question clear, but……………
S&W started making the big top-break DA in 1881 as the .44 DA 1st Model and chambered it in .44 Russian. The serial numbering started at #1 and continued to #54668 ending in 1913 Total 1st models produced is listed as 53,590 units. That means there were 1,078 numbers skipped. As there were app. 1,000 .44 DA Wesson Favorites made, that’s probably where these numbers went.
OK. In 1886 S&W started making the .44 DA Frontier in 44/40 Win.. The serial numbering started at #1 and continued to 15,340 in 1913.
I have to assume, (which is a dangerous thing to do when talking about S&W serial numbers) that there were a large number of “duplicate” serials shared between these three models. 15,340 to be exact.
Now, the Frontier required that the cylinder be lengthened to 1 9/16” to accommodate the longer 44/40 cartridge. The accepted way to identify a Frontier is a 1 9/16” cylinder and a serial under 15,341. The accepted way to identify a 1st model is any .44 DA with a 1 7/16” cylinder OR any serial greater than 15,341.
This leads me to assume (there’s that word again) that S&W either stopped the production of 1st Model 1 7/16’ cylinders in 1886 and didn’t assemble any more 44 Russians until the run of Frontier frames was completed. (SCSW3 states that all .44 DA frames, both kinds, were made prior to 1899.) OR, they continued both frame/cylinder size production concurrently until the Frontier run was completed and then just assembled 44 Russians on the longer cylinder.
So now we have Comcass Will’s gun with a serial greater than 15,340 which should have a 1 9/16” cylinder (which is matching the frame) but it has the short cylinder. This probably is just a case of S&W using up stock in hand, but it does beggar the question of duplicate serials and was there concurrent production of these two models? If there wasn’t concurrent production it would appear to say that they produced 15,340 1st Models between 1881 and 1886, then produced the same number of Frontiers from 1886 until enough before 1899 to allow themselves time to produce another 39,328 frames by 1899. They continued to assemble both Models until 1913. All on the same frame size?

I guess the important question is about the frame size. Are they the same, or different? I currently only have a Frontier so I can't do a "tear and compare" to determine just where the differences are.

Wyatt Burp · #5 06-05-2010, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCWilson

I would be tempted to re-open negotiations.

I don't think the bore would matter that much to me if I wanted one of this model and there was no better one around. Later, if I found a better one, I might trade or sell this one.

Maybe the barrel condition is bad enough to affect accuracy, maybe not. I'd have to try it out to know, and I wouldn't mind owning the gun while I ran my tests.

Production on the .44 DA ran from 1881-1913, but all the frames were made before 1899. 8,000 is only about 15% of the way through the serial number sequence and sounds like a low number to me, but who knows when it was actually assembled and shipped? If numbers and shipping dates roughly correlate, this one might have gone out the door in the mid 1880s.

The long cylinder in a low-number gun surprises me a little; Neal and Jinks say the 1-9/16" cylinder is found only in later production models. The long cylinder is used exclusively in the .44 DA Frontier, introduced 1886, so maybe that is an indicator of the date of yours. (Or maybe not.)

If the frame is invariable, is it correct that one could retrofit a long cylinder to an early gun by swapping out the barrel at the same time?

Good looking piece with utilitarian potential. I see why you were interested in it.

I remember that the serial numbers on the frame and cylinder matched. They were on the butt and the back of the cylinder.

DCWilson · #6 06-05-2010, 11:58 AM

I'm getting more inclined to think this is a .44 DA Frontier. In that case the serial number may point to late 1890s. But wouldn't the chambering in .44 Winchester be stamped on the barrel by then?

Wyatt, good to hear the frame and cylinder are numbered alike. That does away with my residual fear that this might be a pieced-together gun.

Dean, I too am now interested in the question of frame dimensions. Maybe someone with both models and a micrometer can give us the measurement on the respective frame windows. Or maybe you could measure your Frontier and someone else could measure their First Model and report the measurements here.

deadin · #7 06-05-2010, 12:06 PM

Quote:

But wouldn't the chambering in .44 Winchester be stamped on the barrel by then?

My Frontier (#11808) shipped to Monkey Wards in Chicago in Dec 1900 and doesn't have the barrel marking.
Of course, there's no way of knowing when it was actually assembled...........

(I will get out my calipers and take some measurements)

deadin · #8 06-05-2010, 12:45 PM

Here's the window measurements on my Frontier...