In all the years I have worked on firearms (around 40) I have never seen a S&W converted to .22 by Parker Hale. The liners for the cylinder are extended out in half moon shapes and the quality of the conversion is good in my opinion. It has crowns instead of the S&W logo medallions in the grips which is what caught my eye. All proof marks are present and the revolver looks to have the original finish from PH. It is not the Victory Model which I have not encountered one yet. It does have the hole in the grip frame for the ring. A patient gave it to a doctor as a gift along with the story that he acquired it during WWII in Africa. The story is a guy came by in a jeep giving them away and telling everyone that they were training pistols for British officers. ( I love old war stories). From what I can find out is these revolvers were not converted until after the war. Am I correct? There seems to be little information out there on these conversions. The front of the cylinder is rough cut - so I assume they tore down the revolvers and grabbed a random cylinder and fit it to the gun then applied the PH serial number? I did place the revolver in my machine rest and fired it at 25 yards. It held a big 1 inch group with 50 rounds of std. vel ammo. It does shave a little lead on each cyl at the 7 O'Clock position which I find acceptable considering it has next to no forcing cone and unknown amount of use. It has the 6 inch barrel and the rear sight is adjustable. Are these conversions collectable? Any history or opinions on this revolver would be appreciated.

There have been a few posts about these here. I think the conversions were done post-war to make the guns more sellable; I suspect Parker-Hale was pretty busy during WW II and .22 revolvers and conversions from needed wartime sidearms were not high on their priority list.

And that is all I know...but someone with more information will be along shortly.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

You say you have never seen a S&W .22 Parker Hale conversion, yet I gather from your remarks that you have one. Am I missing something here, or do you mean you now have something that you have never seen? Could you please post photos of what you have ? Do that and I'll tell you what you have . I've owned, or handled several dozen of these Parker-Hale .22 conversions over the years and they were all K frame pre- Victory Models, and some were Victory Models. Ed.
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I've seen photos of them. There is probably a recessed space on the right of the bbl. with the P-H info? Made from .38-200 surplus guns after the war. Not wartime tng. guns.

Years ago, South African Panorama did a story on an old bush dweller who relied on one to pop snakes and small game and just for general shooting fun. The story was about him, not the gun. But the pics were good and he said what he had.

Other boards have pictured some, inc. a closeup pic of the bbl. marking, which is recessed in a sort of cutaway.

These were sort of poor man's K-22's.

I have a small frame Martini 22 rifle that has a Parker Hale liner in the barrel or whom I bought it from said it was a reline by them. It shoots very well. It is a larger diameter than the liners sold here. Jeff

I will take some pictures to post as soon as I can get the revolver from him. Like I said - I had never seen one until he showed it to me. I have worked on guns for forty years and still something new comes down the pike every now and then. I suspected it was a post war production piece because of the civilian British proof stamps on each cyl. The story told to the owner (who is a doctor and received it as a gift from his patient) was taken at face value. No provenance other than word of mouth and I was checking for him to see if such a story was credible. The revolver could have been a NRA pistol donated by a member for the early war effort then lined and resold to the US civilian market. At least it has interested me enough to learn more about the conversions so I won't be quite as ignorant next time.

All of the many Parker Hale .22 conversion I've handled had the commercial British proof stamps, as required for their conversion, as they were intended to be sold in the UK after WW2. Yes, it's possible the gun could be an NRA donation revolver that was originally in 38 Special caliber. If you can post the serial number while you are waiting to get the gun, it might give us a quick clue as to whether the birth date is pre-WW2 or much earlier. Ed.

I believe that the British first banned the centre fire handguns, back when this occurred a lot of guns were converted to rimfire. The excess of guns and cost of conversion probably made good sense at the time.

I have a 455HE that was converted to .22

A simular thing occurred in Australia with the 2005 introduction of a minimum barrel length for competition shooters. 120mm for S/A & 100mm for revolver.
Gun barrels were lengthened, new barrels, or sleeves fitted, I have seen a model 39 with a barrel extension no sure how it was done but it’s now greater than 120mm (4.72”). Unfortunately most were handed in and destroyed, I must add that compensation was paid to the owners.
Cheers.

I will have pictures shortly. The S/N on the back of the cylinder facing the shooter is: 750027. The S/N on the frame where the crane closes is 86407 and the crane is stamped 6407. Like I said - I will post pictures as soon as I get them. I should have them today. I'm also curious if these conversions were performed on Colt's revolvers as well. I will also post some pictures and ask some questions about a victory model I have owned for years.

I can add more if needed. I posted the Victory with pictures on the Victory data section.

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The SN on the rear face of the cylinder should be the same as the SN on the butt. At least the digits should. Is there a letter prefix to the butt SN? A non-prefixed SN in the 750000 range would indicate it's from the spring of 1941.

As we Smith fellows know,the crane numbers that you reference mean nothing-simply factory assembly numbers.The butt number,cylinder number,and barel number are the important ones here.The gun was converted from fixed sights to adjustables.

The number is the same on the cylinder as on the butt of the gun There is no V - however there is a P on the other side of the lanyard hole. there is no numbers stamped under the barrel.

Here is a post on mine with photos. There is also some additional info here that was posted by others that I think that you will find useful.

Parker Hale Conversion 22

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Corripe Cervisiam

Then yours is approaching its 73rd birthday. At the time yours was made, S&W was making very little else besides revolvers of this type for the British Commonwealth. I wouldn't expect a .22 barrel to be numbered.

Thank you all for the information. I'm sure the doctor will be tickled to death to hear about his revolver. Since it does have some collectors value I will just clean the greaseburgs out of it and wax it.

Funny thing this afternoon I'm looking at a April 1961 American Rifleman and the ad for Kliens Sporting Goods has an ad for a S&W 22 cal target revolver "custom converted in England from 38 S&W cal. to 22 cal by finest English gun smiths" proofed by offical Birmingham England proof house. Smith and Wesson military and Police model, has Belgian made brand new " barrel these were selling for 39.88. Note the barrel in the ad picture looks like the original S&W barrel I think the belgian barrel was a liner. Jeff

I've seen several of these and Louisiana Joe, who happens to be my brother, has the nicest one I've seen. I've shot it several times and it's very accurate. Knowing what it used to be and what it is now, I think it's a neat piece of history. Joe, when you come up next week, bring that one with you again.

I was incorrect at post #8 the centre fire ban was mid to late 1990s.

I did a little research and found they are training guns.

The British did this with pistols and rifles to reduce cost during training. The Enfield rifles in .22 are called training rifles, I have a couple but didn’t put 1 and 1 together until now. The British company Webley supplied many revolvers over 50+ years and they also suppled training revolvers in .22 rf. Other companies did the same, either manufacturing some in .22rf or fitting conversion kits. The training guns always looked and functioned like the real McCoy. The British converted batches of most if not all firearms used in service including the L1A1 to .22 rf for training uses.

With the purchases from Smith & Wesson they then had some, appears quite a lot, modified to .22rf for training.