.32 Hand Efector 5th Change?

[madcratebuilder]

I picked up this cute little thing yesterday. Near as I can tell it's a Model of 1903 5th change. Serial number is 250677, it's under the barrel and the back of the cylinder. What's odd is the butt has had several lines cut in it obscuring any marking.

Shows some surface imperfections from poor storage conditions but is a very tight lock up. Only S&W SA trigger I have ever felt creep with. The action was as dry as a bone, lot of Eezox later it's nice and clean.

I found a strange piece of metal in the action. It's a round piece, .115 in diameter, .062 thick with a .030 hole in the center. At first I thought it was the end of a screw but the hole has my stumped.

Were the original grips bakeolite?




What are these old gals worth now days? I paid $150.

[Green Frog]

Last question first... $150 is a good price for it around here at least.

Bakelite grips are probably a replacement... maybe from Franzite(?)

The odd piece of metal sounds like one of those bushings that were sometimes put into actions to space a pivoting piece (hammer, trigger, etc) off of the side of the action and to take up slack so said piece would move smoothly along a single plane.

Need more info on the cuts on the butt. What do they look like, and where on the butt are they? They don't obscure the serial number, do they?

Froggie

[DCWilson]

At $150, you're in good shape. The gun is not collector quality, but it looks like a good shooter, and the price is definitely right for that grading.

Yes, franzite grips. They probably date from the 1940s or 1950s. I can't recall if they were available in the late 1930s as well.

The gun probably shipped in 1916 or so. It is one of the last 1903/Fifths. The Third model serialization began about 258000.

What's interesting about the franzite grips is that they imitate the Regulation Police shape that was introduced in 1917. Real wooden RP stocks would not fit on the standard round butt I-frame unless the backstrap was milled to allow a component of the oversize wooden stocks to mate properly with the frame. These frames are called rebated, and they almost all have their serial numbers on the forestrap above the strain screw and behind the trigger guard. It doesn't look to me as though your gun has a serial number there so I assume it is on the butt. That means your gun was necessarily a round-butt revolver in the first place, and the stocks on it now essentially converted it to a square butt gun.

I don't know if these franzite Regulation Police stocks are identical to the wooden ones. Can you post a picture of the gun that shows its back strap? And a picture that includes the marks you mentioned?

Green Frog may have identified the loose piece. If you take off the sideplate, look to see if there is an empty pocket in the steel where this little piece would fit.