Hello, my name is John and this is my first post on this forum. im a big fan of S&W hand guns and currently own 3.

I picked up this revolver from a family friend. it was his fathers revolver originally. it seams to be in pretty nice condition though im sure its been refinished as the S&W logo is worn. it is a 6 shot 32 S&W long. the serial number is 2662. i believe it to be a model 1903 Hand Ejector but i dont know for sure. id really appreciate any help you all can offer about this little revolver as to what it actually is and when it was produced. if you could give me an approximate value i would appreciate that as well.

Welcome to the Forum. You actually have a 32 Regulation Police. These ! frame revolvers were made from the Model 1903 design, but had a modified butt frame and extended walnut stocks.

I think you might have used the assembly number instead of the serial number. The assembly number is inside the yoke and stamped on the frame and the cylinder yoke. The serial number is stamped either on the front strap or the butt or under the stocks of the bottom of the butt frame. There is also a serial number on the rear of the cylinder and on the barrel under the extractor rod.

Refinished for sure, but looks like a great shooter.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

Welcome from Louisville. Nice old revolver!

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Oh well, what the hell.

glowe, thanks for the information, i did find the actual serial number. it appears to be B 197756 at least that is what is on the underside of the barrel and on the back of the cylinder. could you possibly help me date the manufacture of this revolver? or possibly point me in a direction with info about these regulation police revolvers.

I am for the most part a collector of Military rifles from WW2 and older. but lately i have become very fond of S&W hand guns. at this point i have a 637 that i use as my every day CCW gun, earlier this week i purchased an M&P 9, and now ive got this Police Regulation 32.

can this revolver handle standard factory loads? i have heard that some of the older S&W revolvers didn't have hardened cylinders and shouldn't be fired with full power loads. if so i am a competent reloaded and can roll up so lite loads for plinking.

shouldazagged, Thanks for the welcome.

Welcome to the forum, Glowe has given you accurate info, as usual. The serial # is 197756 and should also be in these other 5 locations:
Front grip strap on non-round butt .22/32 & Regulation Police I frames (the Butt on all other models).
Barrel*
Yoke* on rear face visible thru a chamber with a flashlight
Extractor star, backside
Cylinder, rear face
Right stock, backside
*Note: these two locations will usually also have the B for original Blue finish or N for Nickel. The B or N is not part of the serial #.

The 32 Reg Police was introduced in 1917 and continued in the 32 Hand Ejector serial # series. Yours is a very early one likely made in 1917-18 and definitely before 1920 because it still has the gold plated brass medallions which ended c. 1920. It does not have the 'Made in USA' stamp on the lower front right frame side so clearly made before 1922.

.32 Reg Police Model barrels were not stamped as such like the .38 S&W RP barrels.

Being that early it does not have a heat teated cylinder which all Smiths received by the early 1920s. However, all 32 Smiths beginning in 1896 with the first model wil easily and safely handle any 32 Long Catridges ever made including anything currently produced made. So shoot away and enjoy it!

Value as refinished and assuming safe mechanical condition about $150 depending on geographical location.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

I'll give you $200.00 for it. Been looking for a nice low recoil .32 for my 12 year old granddaughter to use, because I'm starting to teach her to shoot handguns. She has little hands and although can and has shot my wife's .38 special a couple of times, with her little hands and petite 12 year old size, that's still a handful and just about max for the recoil I think she can handle considering her age and very small petite size. She can't shoot granddads (me) .45 1917's since they are too heavy and too much recoil for her. That .32 would be just about right for her both in size and recoil. As she gets older and bigger I can step her up caliber and recoil wise. Let me know if you'd like to sell it.

Oh, and welcome to the forum!

Nice entry point in to the old S&W revolvers! I got the bug a couple of years ago and find them both fascinating and fun to shoot. I'm more of a "gatherer" than a collector. The .32 S&W Long ammo seemed to be pretty hard to find even before the current madness, but brass and dies are available.

Now you'll need to find a Mod 1917 and a couple of Victory models (Brit and US) to go with your MilSurp collection. Read up on the Victory models on this forum before you jump in to that morass. There are a lot of butchered up, non-collectable examples lurking around. BTW - I own a Lithgow SMLE Mark III* and have really enjoyed it.

I haven't really looked around too hard, but I would expect to fork over at least $200 for that in my neck of the woods. In fact, I recently paid slightly more than that for a nickel 1903 3rd model. Enjoy!

Rick

Can I ask you to inspect the serial number again? The lowest serial number on a .32 RP is about 258000. Before that all .32s in the .32 Hand Ejector series had round butts and the serial numbers were stamped on the bottom of the grip frame, the flat underside of the barrel, the rear face of the cylinder, the underside of the ejector star, and the short vertical face of the yoke. You can only read this last number through a charge hole in the cylinder and with a strong side light. (Or you can take the yoke off the gun and slide the cylinder back, but that's a lot of work.)

I think there is a little more to the story of this gun than we have worked out yet.

EDITED TO ADD: Oops, didn't notice that Hondo44 had told you about the serial number locations earlier. Sorry to double up on advice.

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David Wilson

I looked at the revolver again and the SN is defiantly 197756, i checked all the locations that you said and they all match.

Bill_in_fl, I appreciate the offer but i have to decline. part of the deal for getting this revolver was that i cant get ride of it as it belonged to a family friend since the early 70's.

I appreciate everybodys help with this revolver, thank you very much.

Thank you for checking the serial number again. What we can now say about your gun is that it is a .32 Hand Ejector Model of 1903 (Second Model) that was probably first shipped in 1913. At some point the original round butt stocks were replaced with a set of Regulation Police stocks that were not actually produced until 1919. (The earliest RP stocks from April/May 1917 had no patent date on the bottom. There were no RPs made in 1918. RP stocks with patent numbers and deep dish gold medallions are likeliest to date from 1919, though some may have appeared in summer and fall of 1917.)

Regulation Police stocks will not fit a round butt grip frame without modification of either the stocks or the frame. The easiest change is simply to chisel out a small strip of wood from the inner surface of the stocks that prevent them from fitting the round butt frame. But cases or known in which the steel frame of a round butt revolver has been notched and filed down to fit the design of the RP stocks that someone desired to mount on the gun.

Your revolver is thus a "virtual" .32 Regulation Police -- it resembles the .32 RP but was not actually manufactured as one at the time it was assembled and sold.

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David Wilson

Phantomrig,

I agree with David, it's a M 1903, 2nd Model, 5th change.

I was pondering if an older unfinished frame had been pulled from inventory, and completed as an RP. But since the gun has been refinished, it's far more likely that the rd butt stocks were replaced with RP stocks at the same time.

So now we must see the backstrap to know which way it was modified. Was wood shaved from the stocks? Or does it have a cut in the backstrap (a rebate) as shown below?

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Hondo44 ill take a pic of the frame without the grips and post them here if i get the chance tomorrow.

Excellent, thx!

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Hondo44 I apologies that it has taken me so long to get back, this last few weeks have been very hectic. i did get the chance to check out under the grips on my revolver, it is not shaped like the one in your last post at all. i will do my best to post a picture here but i just need to find my camera first.

Hondo44, haven't we heard about RP-type grips that were inletted to take a standard (non-rebated) round butt frame? I don't remember whether they were ever factory or not, but it seems some have been observed. Do you think this could be what Phantomrig has?

Froggie

I do, yes. It's a simple modification David describes in his post #10, added info in brackets is mine: "The easiest change is simply to chisel out a small strip of wood from the inner surface [in the back strap area down to the butt] of the stocks that prevent them from fitting the round butt frame."

When looking at the photo I posted above, one can see the area of wood that needs to be chiseled out or thinned from the inside of the RP grip wood.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Here is the pic that you requested, thanks for your effort so far.

John,

Thank you very much for that photo! There is something very unusual about those grips. The discussion above speaks to the grips not being original and having been altered to fit your gun's round butt, we see that a lot.

However:
In post #9 you confirmed that the serial number 197756 is in all of the 6 locations I listed. I assume that includes penciled on the back side of the right stock, is that correct? (Sure it could have been added later.)

I also assume the # is on the bottom of the butt where it should be, not behind the trigger guard on the front grip strap, correct?

Here's why I ask, I have a theory that your gun may have its factory grips even though it should have shipped about 1913, 4 years before RP grips were patented or available. I say that because I've seen another example of the RP style grips factory supplied on an unrebated round butt grip frame.

The grips do not look modified but rather fitted to your round butt gun at the factory. Revolvers of this model you have were shipped up until 1917 and we all know S&W did not ship in numerical order, and some guns, way out of order and much later.
Or, the gun went back to S&W for those grips to be retrofitted. Is there a 3 or 4 digit number on the bottom left side of the grip frame under the wood grip? And maybe a star?

I've seen modified grips before but yours fit perfectly; wood can be carved off the grip but you can't put it back on, and those grips were made for a round butt with a round front toe.

You need only to compare the front toes of the two grip frames. The Reg Police grip frame below has a square toe and the wood is square to fit the square toe.



Now look at the toe on your round butt grip frame, it's a round toe, AND THE WOOD CURVES AROUND THE TOE.



All modified RP grips I've seen have about a 1/16"- 3/32" gap at the toe.
Your grips have no gap and who would add such a tiny piece of wood? I suspect your grips were factory made for and fitted to the round butt, either on a late shipped gun, or less likely, after it was sold and went back to the factory. Here's a much earlier example of how original factory hard rubber target grips are produced to fit a round toe and originally supplied on round butt/round toe grip frames. It's just like yours:



It's quite possible that very early Reg Police wood grips were fit to round butt frames that were already too far into the production process to go back and mill the newly designed rebate into the back strap. It matters not that these grips are later and stamped with the patent dates while the earliest square butt RP grips were not; parts were never used in order of vintage, we see that time and time again.

I wouldn't give a lot of credence to just two examples if it wasn't for the well known fact about S&W collecting: we can never say never!

I'd appreciate confirmation to the questions above, thanks!

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Jim
S&WCA #819

This is a fine old pistol. Congrats!

Nice old revolver! Congrats on your find!

So if I'm understanding you correctly, this revolver is a model 1903 hand ejector that was sent back to the factory and modified into a Regulation Police model.

The SN is penciled on the inside of one of the grips I believe I just can't remember which.

And the SN is on the butt and is totally covered by the grips.

No I don't believe it went back to the factory because there's no factory rework date on the left side of the grip frame.

I believe it was intended to originally be made as a 1903 Hand Ejector. But it was not completed or shipped until after the new (in 1917) Reg. Police guns and their sq butt grips were designed. So the factory adapted the new sq butt wood grips to it's round butt but w/o the patented rebate cuts to the metal grip frame which would have made it like the regular production RP models. Then it was shipped later than it's serial number would indicate, and as a Reg. Police model.

The factory was famous for using up old parts and partially completed frames in inventory to make into new models.

Only a S&W letter will tell if it was shipped as a Reg. Police model for sure. And that would make it a "Transitional" Reg. Police model and very unusual. I'd be very interested to know. It could establish a formerly undiscovered transitional model that has been overlooked by collectors all these years.

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Jim
S&WCA #819