I purchased this .38 Safety Hammerless a few months ago. I finally received my letter from Mr. Jinks and I was really surprised with the information provided in the historical letter. Neat to find out it was a state police gun that shipped November 1, 1935. Does anyone else have one of the 25 revolvers in the same configuration that shipped to the Massachusetts' State Police? PM's are welcomed.

It's interesting and surprising that any police organization in the USA would have bought such a revolver at that late date. I suppose they felt the need for something more concealable than, say, a Colt Detective Special or some small autopistol for deep undercover work. It would probably still do the job, but a little on the weak side.

I would think that the excellent condition it is still in tells the story that they discovered there were better handguns for the perceived need. Lucky you that can now own it!

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I suspect that they may have gotten a terrific deal on them. They were not moving at all well out of inventory by then. The fact that the factory is located in MA also helps.
Mark

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Mark Connot

That is in really great shape! If you ever want to find another home for it, I would love it!!

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Tom
NRA Pistol Inst

For those of you who disparage the purchase of these guns, please consider that many police departments must have considered the caliber adequate for the job, as the .38 RP had been selling for nearly 20 years at that point, and would continue to sell for nearly 30 more years. The S&W .38 Terrier came out in 1936 in the same caliber and barrel length, and while it may have been a stronger gun than the .38 Safety Hammerless, it was also more expensive, and probably not as concealable, nor as easily drawn from a pocket. The OP's gun would be just as desirable today to me as a carrying piece, and much more desirable as a collector piece.

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Tom
1560

The .38 S&W is sort of on the raggedy edge of suitability for defensive use, as is the .380 ACP, and those are still popular for that purpose. The difference is that much more effective ammunition is now available for the .380. And of course, the British military revolver caliber during WWII was the .38 S&W. To some extent, the smaller size and light weight of .38 S&W revolvers compensate for the reduced ballistics of the cartridge.

They were billed at 19.47 each. The shipment included 25 guns. Although the .38 S&W is not considered a very effective defensive round, I wouldn't totally discount the fact that it could still perform the job at hand. No worries, it will not be carried and will now reside in the world as a collector piece. Still a neat piece of S&W history and I felt the information was worth sharing.

I think that back in 1935 when they ordered this gun in this caliber, they simply didn't have our knowledge, or rather our delusions of knowledge, about the "effectiveness" of calibers. After all, our obsession with inches of penetration and such is a relatively recent phenomenon. I have to think about this every time I watch some clown on Youtube measuring bullet channels through a gelatin block and "authoritatively" declaring some bullet more effective because it went an inch further or tore up a slightly wider swath. In the real world, you still read of cases where people take fatal hits with major calibers in the chest and go on fighting for minutes without showing any visible effect, while others take a .22 in the foot and collapse in a screaming heap. Human anatomy is just too unpredictable.
Those guys back then probably saw the .38 as a perfectly good round. Keep in mind that in most of Europe, until the 1970s the .32 Auto with FMJ bullets was the standard issue caliber for uniformed police officers (FN 1910/Walther PP etc.), and most of them survived to retirement, too.

I don't have the book anymore, but Marshall & Sanow's "Stopping Power" indicated that the .32 ACP using Silvertip bullets gets a real world stopping power rating far beyond what anyone would expect.

As I've related before, Joe Stalin's personal executioner killed many thousands of those who were perceived as being inconvenient to Stalin by using nothing more than a Walther .25 automatic. Allegedly, he killed 3,000 in only one night (I imagine it took a few assistants to keep his guns loaded and the bodies moved out of the way). Bullet placement counts for more than anything else.