I have been chasing this 4" TL for some time. It has a target blade front sight with standard groove rear (often called a "Half Target"). The standard front sight was cut off at the boss, with a Patridge blade pinned into the boss. The installation is very professional. The blade is held in the boss with a small pin with extended tips. There is no evidence that it has ever been changed. I would appreciate any of your comments on the originality of the sight. (Feel free to opinionate on the "Why" of a Half Target, also.)

I believe that the barrel is an original one, my question is whether it left the factory with the Patridge blade. The finish is also all original. The gun shipped in March 1917 in a single gun shipment.

Roy has said that can not help much since in that period just before WWI the records were not very good and the gun is not in his data base. He does show several that were made with 4 " barrels in that time when the factory was clearing out inventory as they geared up to produce the .45 HE M1917.

The gun came to me with a really spectacular set of large silver medallion service grips (a little icing on the cake) and still on it when I took these pictures a little earlier. The gun now has a nice set of the proper gold medallion grips.

Bob









Here is the newcomer with a pair of its 6.5" and 5" siblings.

Very Cool Bob !

You can do what you want but I'd keep it! (smile)

On a more serious note, a very interesting variation. Thanks for showing it to us.

Dave

__________________
RSVN '69-'71
PCSD (Ret)

so since it is a 1/2 target can I buy it for 1/2 price????

Nice gun Bob

I can offer some speculation based on what I have read over the years.

The old gunfighters often preferred a prominent front sight. I assume this was for quick "pick up" or target acquisition in the modern vernacular. Recall the famous letter from Wyatt Earp to Colt ordering a new revolver in which he specified that the front sight should be "a little taller and thicker than normal."

Col. Jeff Cooper always stressed the front sight in teaching combat shooting. He admonished students to "watch the front sight" in defensive shooting situations.

All of this leads me to believe that the front sight is far more important on a fighting gun than is the rear sight. When I see a revolver such as this one I think we are seeing a pistol that was carried by a gunfighter, set up to meet his specific needs.

I suspect that the gun was customized at the request of a law enforcement officer who didn't sit behind a desk all day and needed a potent handgun. A heavy caliber DA revolver with a short barrel and a prominent front sight would have been the hot setup for a serious pistolero in the early part of the 20th century.

Now, as to whether S&W shipped this gun in this configuration or if it was modified later I can't even guess. If it doesn't look exactly like the way the factory installed target sights at the time then I would guess it was altered after it left Springfield.

Anyway, that’s my take on it.

__________________
No life story has happy end.

I guess I agree with SP. Don't know if it was factory modified or not, but who cares. That is one serious, turn of the century law enforcement sidearm. What a great gun, enjoy!

Bob

While anything is proverbially possible, I do not think that is factory.
The blade itself does not look factory, it doesn't fit the sight base
the way all the other factory blades fit, and the pin is too high.
On factory front target sights, the pin is about in the middle of the
sight base. This one is too close to the top, as though the
slot in the sight base is not cut deep enough.

I agree with Steve that the barrel is a proper 4" barrel from the
period, certainly before 1917. Somewhere around 1916 or so,
they changed the patent-date roll markings, so that it would fit on
top of the barrel. Prior to that point, since about 1903, with the
introduction of the shoulder on the barrel, the roll markings were put
on the side of the barrel, as those dies were too long for the top
of the barrel.

Could you get us some closer pictures of the front sight, particularly
looking into the rear of the front sight base, and also some good
side views of it ?

Regards, Mike Priwer

Bob, Do you know if the late Bill Powell was ever in the history/provenance of this gun? Ed.

hi
Here is a picture of a half Target that letters not a very good picture.
jim

Steve,
The rear sight groove is the earlier style (the same as the 1908 6.5" and the 1914 5" Triple Locks in the picture. The front sight blade is actually a little thinner than the blades on the other two guns. When I put a micrometer on all three blades and grooves, there are slight differences in all as might be expected from hand polishing before the finish was applied.

So Saxon, on the 4" gun the difference between the thickness of the blade and the groove is greater than either of the other two resulting in more light on each side in the sight picture. It is a very subtle difference but most certainly a quicker picture. (The first year gun has the tiniest sight picture that I have ever seen and makes that on the current micro .380 autos that are so popular for CCW, look like a target sight.)

Mike,
I'll try to get a better picture of the blade. Your point about the pin placement is well taken. However, I will say that the pin certainly looks undisturbed from the original finish. As I mentioned before, it protrudes from each side in the manner that the factory pins do when they were placed before bluing. In other words, the barrel and boss was polished, then the sight was pinned in and then the finish was applied. There are some plier marks on the side of the blade as though someone attempted to use a needlenose to make a windage adjustment, however, because of the strength of the steel, it did not bend. The marks are much later than the finish on the gun or the sight.

Ed,
I got the gun from my table mate here in the DFW area. I just called him and he said that he has had the gun for more than 10 years and did not get it from Bill. I guess it is possible that Bill sold it to whoever my table mate bought it from. Did Bill have one similar to this? The serial on this one is 13345.

On the SWCA site Roy told me when the gun sold but that "the gun is not in my data base and the invoices are not very good". I am unclear as to whether that means just the info that he has at hand or includes all the info in the factory records at the Musem so I don't know if a Factory letter will add anything or not.

Thanks to all.

Bob

Jim,

Thanks for the picture. As you can see in my third picture, there are subtle differences between the two. The rear of mine extends flush with the boss. The junction is not completely vertical because of the curvature of the boss and the top is not completely parallel with the barrel. The pin placements in both seem toward the top of the boss.

That looks like a 5" Second Model. When was it shipped and do you know how many were in the shipment? Can you shed any light on the "half target" concept?

Bob

Bob

In this picture of yours :



the blade is overhanging the sight base. This is why I think it is
not factory. As to the fit of the pin, etc, my guess is that when the
forged front sight was milled off, and a slot milled into the sight
base, the barrel ( at least ) was refinished, after the work was
done.

I've never seen a factory front sight blade fit like this.

Regards, Mike Priwer

Mike,

I'm tending agree that the blade in mine is not factory. For the life of me, however, the finish on the barrel appears to be identical to the factory finish on the rest of the gun. That leads me to believe that the gun originally shipped with a target front sight, but not this one. The only problem with that theory is that the sight pin condition, size, etc. is exactly the same as the two pins which hold the triple lock/center pin plungers in place. None of the three ever appear to have been moved since they were originally placed.

Bob

Bob, that is just one great sixgun!

hi.
bob my gun was a special order shippment and was shipped may 25 1931
the letter states this revolver was shipped with a 5 inch barrel and a call gold bead front sight.
Shipped to sportsman supply Pittsburg PA.
It is the only one I have seen in the N frames that letter
I have one in a K frame 4 inch barrel also.
jim

I'll get a letter off and see if Roy has any more info.

Bob

Great revolver, Bob - thanks for showing it. Any 4" HE is a treasure in my opinion. I like Saxon's comments and agree that it doesn't look factory. As far as your invitation to comment on the idea of a half-target, here goes: Saxon is correct that a larger, more visible front sight is advantageous in a combat situation. Furthermore, the vertical rear portion of the blade is designed to reduce glare, however I personally prefer the rounded contour of the factory sight (it's why I like fixed-sighted guns). It's a trade-off to some degree: do you prefer to be snag-free? or is the possibility of sunlight glare rendering your front sight invisible more important? IMHO getting the piece out and up comes first. If you've ever lost some skin or drawn with a big clump of leather on your sight, you may better appreciate the factory type-sight. Of course, you could always serrate the back portion of the factory-style half-moon!

Some police officers like a Patridge front sight, as if some one choses to grab the officer's revolver, a quick pull will cut the offender's hand badly.

I installed a Patridge on my former partner's M29 back in the late 1980s.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Bob, nice catch.

All else aside, I’d carry that gun now and again.
It is very “sexy”.

Emory

Letter just received from Roy:

"We have researched Hand Ejector First Model (Triple Lock), Caliber .44 S&W Special, with serial number 133xx in Company records and find that it was shipped from the factory on June 8, 1917 and delivered to Kraut & Dohnal Co., Chicago, IL. This handgun was shipped with a 4 inch barrel, blue finish, and checkered walnut gold medallion grips. There is no mention in the records about the Patridge front sight. This is not uncommon at this time with the war effort and the factory working to remove this old model from inventory."

I am now comfortable that the sight is as shipped from the factory since there is no indication that it has ever been changed. Just an interesting variant on a scarce barrel length I believe.

I haven't researched the company of Kraut & Dohnal yet but I don't recall that name previously. Do any of you have other guns from there or know of their history?

Bob

Just looked up Kraut & Dohnal and found that they were a straight razor company. More research to follow.
B.

Resurrecting a really old thread here that I happened across while looking for something else.

If you still have that gun Bob, do you by any chance have any pictures of the rear sight? The work done there would be very interesting to me. I find guns like this fascinating.

In post 10 I'm reading Bob as posting that the rear sight is 'factory' and unmodified.

__________________
Jim
S&WCA #819

Seems to me that front sight is so fat that the rear sight being unmodified would be useless. Too skinny. That's why I am wondering what it looks like. I have the one factory modified rear sight, wondering if it is like mine.

I do still have the gun, however, I don't have pictures of the sights which would clarify the dimensions. I just made a few quick measurements of that gun and what I find is there is NO consistency in these early Triple Locks. Here are the measurements of the gun in question (#3) along with some of its contemporaries.

1) sn 2020 (1908) Military 6.4" bbl. R=.068" rnd. F=.073"
2) sn 9220 (1914) Target 5" bbl. R=.062" sq. F=.072"
3) sn 13345 (1917) Half Target 4" bbl. R=.072" rnd. F=.057"
4) sn 14387 (1917) Target 6.5" bbl. R=.106" rnd. F=.063"

I don't know what conclusions can be drawn from these measurements other than that these were each products of hand finishing by the individual workmen.

For what it's worth, the gun with the greatest difference between the sights (gun #4) was used by T. K. Lee (of the "Lee Dot" fame) to win the USRA revolver championship in 1921.

For those of you traveling to Baton Rouge for the SWCA Symposium, these guns will be in my display showing the evolution of the .44 Special revolver from the Triple Lock up to the .44 Magnum. As they say in Louisiana, "you're welcome to 'coon finger' them there."

Bob