Hi all,

I found an old pre Victory revolver at the LGS this morning. It is nickel plated (not facory) and is nto in the greatest shape. It has a little surface rust but no pitting.

I am a collector and love all these old revolvers and wanted to give it a good home. Of all the guns in my collection I have only ever refinished two - both were rescue jobs on guns that had lost all collector value. This will be the third.

This old gun has a 6" barrel. It is a 38 S&W with checkered grips with medalion. The grips are numbered to the gun. It has serial number 714953 so I assume its an early 1940 gun. There are NO British proofs that I can see. The S&W logo is still sharp under the nickel. It does have the "P" proof on the butt and has a "BO" stamp under the grips. There are NO import marks or sold out of service marks. There seem to be no military marks on it at all.

I will even get this old girl lettered. It is obviously one of the few 6" 38-200 military guns (given the serial range) but I would love to know who was the end user - Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or another Commonwealth country.

Anyway here are a couple of pics..... I will post more as the restoration progresses

Cheers

Mike

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N frame fanatic

Hi Mike:

Good luck with your project. While most collectors squirm when a refinish is discussed, in this case I would have no trouble recommending that since the gun was already refinished once anyway, so nothing is being lost. As you probably know the original finish was blue.

Your revolver likely shipped from the factory in 1940. I can't reliably be any more precise than that as the ship dates jump around quite a bit on the guns in that range. My estimate is that your revolver will letter as having been shipped to the British Purchasing Commission.

I hope that you will post back here again with the details on what your factory letter reveals. I am sure that all of us would also be interested in following the progress of your "rescue."

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Charlie Flick
SWCA 729 HF 215

Mike-


G'day! Good luck with that rescue. I can't believe they asked that much for a gun in that condition!

Maybe the pitting can be obscured or obliterated if you have it engraved in a suitable pattern.

My brother once owned a blued one like this in about 90% original condition. He sold it due to the weak, expensive, harder to find ammo. But it was a nice gun, with considerable historical interest.
Yours may well have played a role in pushing the Japanese out of New Guinea, or have served against Rommel, too, before most Aussie troops were called home to confront the new menace in the East.

I don't think they ever issued holsters for the six and four-inch barrels. I've seen six-inchers crammed into webbing holsters for the more common five-inch guns, and was amazed that they could snap the flaps. The butts hung WELL out, making it easy to ID the S&W revolvers in photos. One was taken of a group of RAF pilots in North Africa. But I'm almost sure that someone posted a pic here of Aussies with those six-inch guns. One seemed to be inspecting or cleaning it.

Oh: about the price...how is the exchange rate between your money and US dollars? Here, I doubt if anyone knowledgeable would pay over $100-125 for the gun in that condition. I wouldn't even pick it up to examine! It is good to think that you may restore it to better condition. It deserves that. Good on ya!

Hey lads,

Thanks for the replies.

Yeah I would have liked to pay a few bucks less but I didn't have a 6" and you dont see them very often down under.

That price is still REALLY cheap for any gun down here.

I'm going to remove the nickel, clean her up and reblue. Then replace the nickeled trigger and hammer with CCH originals which I already have.

CHeers!

Mike

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N frame fanatic