This is a photo-essay about short-barrel .38 target revolvers. 1899's were offered in 4", 5", and 6 1/2" standard lengths, with a 6" barrel offered on special order. There is at least one known 8" barrel, made up special for Dr Reginald Sayre, one of the great target shooters of the early 1900's. There may be one other 8" 1899, and there is a third one that was originally made as a 6 or 6 1/2", but was subsequently changed to 8" a few years later by the factory.

For the past six to eight years, I've been developing 1899 target barrels that are in non-standard, and shorter lengths, and have finally completed the four lengths that were planned: 2 1/2", 3", 3 1/2", and 4 1/2" . The 2 1/2" has just recently been completed, and this thread shows the three shorter lengths.

These four special barrel lengths were made from original 1950's 38/44 S&W factory barrels. The ejector rod housing, and most of the rib, was removed. There was enough steel in the barrels so that the remaining piece of rib formed the forged front sight base. I devised a grinding technique to reshape the barrel, to the exact dimensions and contour of S&W 1899 barrels, which are all the same except for their length. They are all straight-taper barrels, with the same muzzle OD, and the same frame-face OD.

These first two pictures are the 2 1/2" 1899 .38 target revolver. The frame was chrome plated from head to foot when I received it. The chrome was stripped, the logo recut, the frame refinished, and the hammer and trigger were sent out to be re-case-colored. This case coloring is not period-correct, but its acceptable.





The next two photos are the 1899 2 1/2" with the 1899 3" revolver. Jim Fisher graciously consented to test-firing this gun, and found that the knife-blade front sight was too high. He mounted the King sight shown on the gun now. It's a wonderful shooter; I need to lower the original blade and mount it back on the gun, to make it period-correct. The picture following these two is the test target that Jim shot for the 3" revolver. Note that the group can be covered by a half-dollar.







The last pair of pictures are all three 1899 target revolvers: the 2 1/2", the 3", and the 3 1/2". Jim also test-fired this gun, and found the Paine-bead front sight blade was too high, causing the gun to shoot low. We made up a new higher rear sight blade that fixed the problem. The third picture of this set is the target that Jim shot for the 3 1/2" gun. Note that the group can be covered by a nickel.







Regards, Mike Priwer

Very nice, thank you Mike

Regards,
Bruce

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Regards,
Bruce

Mike,

Very impressive, I can not begin to imagine the hours put into such a project. Well done, and beautiful to boot!

One question, did you stabilize the yoke with a ball and detent, as the ejector housing is absent?

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GARY
SWCA #2897, SWHF #436

incredible... my hat is off to you... outstanding revolvers and a very interesting project you have.

Gary

1899's do not have any front locking for the ejector rod. The cylinder only locks at the
rear. It has no ejector rod housing, nor a lug under the barrel. This is true for all 1899's.

Mike

Mike!

What an incredible project!! And the dedication to keep on over that long a period of time to achieve this dramatic result. Congratulations!!

And pretty good shooting from Jim Fisher as well!

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

Mike,

Color me embarrassed!!! I should have known that. I blame it on old age!!!

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GARY
SWCA #2897, SWHF #436

Hi
I would like to thank Mike for letting me be a part of this project it was very interesting.
I spent many hours shooting these great guns. It was a real treat to work with these find guns. Mike did a very nice job on the barrels I would put these guns up against any custom gun our there.
Thanks again mike.
Jim Fisher

Mike:

Way, way cool!!!

Thanks for sharing,

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Richard
Engraved S&W fan

Great guns there Mike.

Back in the late '90s, I worked part-time in a pawn shop/gun shop. They had several 1899 S&Ws, both .32-20s and .38s, in so-so condition. I turned my nose up at them then because they lacked the ejector rod lug. I should have known S&W never built any junk!

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Wonderful creations Mike, thanks for showing them.

Stu

Mike,

So what is a home modified and reblued Model 1899 worth since there is just no collector value???????

Very impressive set of short barrel targets. Did all start out as standard frame guns that you had to insert rear target sights? I am also curious as to how many hours of work went into each of those guns?

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Gary
SWCA 2515

Thanks Mike, good shooting Jim!

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Sam
S&WHF 333 S&WCA 2198

Gary

It was a labor of love !

First, three of the four were factory original target revolvers. Part of the reason the
project took so long, was finding target frames. The fourth frame, while a target when
I received it, may or may not have been an original factory target. Its all numbered
correctly, but the records are not conclusive.

Second, they are not exactly home-brew. The barrels are, in fact, S&W factory barrels
with a S&W bore. They have simply been reshaped on the outside, but not the inside.
Because of how this was done, they are perfectly centered, and as you can see, they
shoot very tight groups. Dave Chicoine actually did the final polishing, thread cutting,
fitting, and bluing on all four barrels.

Third, this whole project was not so much about the guns, but about the factory. I have
always thought about it as 'What could have been". Let me elaborate a bit.

Ignoring the model of 1896, the model of 1899 was the first side-swing hand ejector.
It was the beginning of the most successful line of revolvers that the factory ever produced. It had some short-comings; One was that forcing cones would crack. However, and this is crucial, because it has no extractor lug under the barrel, it was
very easy to repair the cracked forcing cones. They simply cut off about a half inch
from the breech end of the barrel, recut the threads, cut a new forcing cone, and
screwed it back together.

This fact alone is what prompted this project. It occurred to me that if they could
easily make a shorter barrel out of a longer one, they could have made and offered
these shorter barrel revolvers. From my perspective, they have a better overall appearance than the 4" standard barrel.

In fact, there are several examples of 6" 1899's that have a shorter flat under the
barrel. It is short by 1/2", suggesting that the barrel was originally made as a
6 1/2" standard barrel, then converted to 6" by the above cutting and threaded technique.

So - I set about to prove this idea, that "What could have been" was something very
similar to the registered magnum offering: barrels of almost any length. The rib on the registered magnums was the key to being able to do this; the lack of an ejector rod lug was the key to being able to do this for the model of 1899.

The beginning efforts for making the shorter 1899 barrels had some failures. The first
attempt was cutting the last 3 1/2" from a badly bulged 6 1/2" 1902 barrel. It worked, but because of the straight taper, its OD at the frame face was a bit too small. The
frame-face recess showed a gap all the way around the barrel. And, of course, there
was no flat under the barrel, so the gap between the extractor rod and the barrel was
too large, and unsightly.

There were other experimental failures, but had we started from rough forgings, it
would have worked out just fine.

I tell you this story because I was not keeping track of my time, and so I don't know how many hours are in the project total. Given today, I can tell you the the grinding
technique for converting a 38/44 barrel to a short 1899 barrel takes a few hours. Its
a good technique, but its not what the factory could have done.

Because of the uniqueness of the model of 1899, the factory could have offered barrels of almost any length. It took until the registered magnum for this to become a reality.

This is what the project was all about.

As to what are they worth, etc, only a well-attended auction can answer that question. As I got further and further into this project, I learned a whole lot more about 1899's than I thought I would. That in itself was, and is, worth a lot to me. I also learned how scarce 1899 target revolvers are. I gave a presentation about this very topic at a Las Vegas S&WCA meeting some years ago, and I
estimated that maybe the factory made 10% of the 1899 as target revolvers. On top of that there
is the survivor question, which reduced that 10% to maybe 5% or less.

All of this stretches the definition of 1899 collector value. I think these 1899 short-barrel targets have a lot of value, partly because they have better eye-appeal than the longer-barrel factory versions, partly because they shoot as tight a group as the longer-barrel factory versions, partly
because of the genuine scarcity of 1899 target frames in any condition, and partly because if you really want one, for whatever reason, they are scarce and will be expensive !

Regards, Mike

Mike

Sure looks a lot different than when I sold it to you! Very nice! Will respond to your email.

Great work! 1899s are a bit of unsung hero in S&W's history, thus I am always glad to see them get attention when they do

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}-----Jim----->
~SWCA #2732~

That 3" is just..........perfect. Neat project there, and very well done. Thanks for showing it.

Beautiful work.