Been looking for this revolver on the family property for awhile and finally found it. My grandpa's S&W revolver! What I know about it: It's a hand ejector for sure, nickel plated. It's chambered in "32 W.C.F. CTG" according to the barrel, which I know to be 32-20 Winchester. It has a 6-inch barrel. The serial number is 72XXX.

Anyone know the date of manufacture? I need to clean it up, it's been sitting in an old leather holster for years and years, I am just glad it is in as good shape as I found it, i was worried.

A happy event. Glad you found it.

Having 32 W.C.F. CTG on the barrel puts it between about 1914 and 1922. The cartridge stamp was different before and after that period.

Serial number 76289 shipped in June, 1917, so that gives you a rough ballpark to consider. But remember that they did not ship in serial order.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

#42094 shipped December 22, 1908, and #114655 shipped August 21, 1923----for a rougher ball park.

Ralph Tremaine

Fairly good shape being that it sat in a leather holster so long. GREAT FIND!! Enjoy!

Welcome to the Forum.....

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

Nice! Out of curiosity, where did you find it?

Welcome ,looks like you have been living right to find that.there are a lot of excellent threads here on how to clean up your revolver without damaging the finish further ,I have one like yours although was way rougher when I got it . Get you some 32/20 cartridges and let us know how it shoots mine is way more accurate than me. Enjoy.

Welcome to the forum.

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Roger

Welcome to the forum!!

Great find and yes we love to hear where these have been squirreled away for years and years!
OLD GUN CLEANING AND SAFETY CHECK PROTOCOL FOR HEIRLOOMS & NEW GUN OWNERS:

Simply put, the only usual issue with these marvels of yesteryear is they are gummed up and dirty. Old oils of its time do not match the quality of these old guns nor the science of today, and actually dry up and harden to the point of impeding operation and accelerating wear. The simple solution does not need a gunsmith or removal of the side plate. Just one of many premium modern gun care products from any sporting goods, gun store or hardware store.

Most are both cleaning and preserving agents; Breakfree, Kroil & M-Pro7 are some of the best, and there are others, but do not use WD-40. Disassembly is not necessary. With grips removed and a spray can version of the product, flood and flush the revolver thru every opening and crevice until the black gunk stops flowing out, let it drain for an hour and wipe it down thoroughly with the same product.

Scrub barrel bore and cylinder chambers with a simple cleaning rod kit found at the same places as the cleaning agents above; patches cut from rags is all you really need. And scrub any observed exterior and crevice crud with an old toothbrush with bristles cut off short for stiffness.

You have a quality made, very well engineered, assembled with skilled craftsmanship, and hand fitted revolver, no longer affordable to produce on a competitive market basis, and the likes of which we'll never see again, ever.

To remove grips for cleaning the gun: loosen the grip screw completely and carefully push down on the screw head until the bottom grip separates, then remove. Now carefully push the top side grip off with a finger or toothbrush from the backside thru the grip frame.


A careful polish with the correct products will bring back the nickel. Well known polishing products are Flitz, Semi-Chrome, Mother's Mag Wheel polish or the equivalent.

An application of wax, Renaissance wax is a popular one, will enhance and protect the finish if you want something to do while watching the news! if you want something to do while watching the news!

For rust spots, Blue Wonder cleaner will remove the rust but leave the bluing. Or use Bronze wool, not steel wool, size 0000 and toothbrush with bristles cut short, and a rust removing agent/gun cleaner like M-Pro 7 (odor free), Kroil or Breakfree and gentle scrubbing.

Once cleaned and lubricated, with a few simple checks you can determine if it’s safe to use; no need to waste time and money on a gunsmith, especially if you don't know one. Open the cylinder and verify the barrel is unobstructed. Cock the hammer in single action mode. Gently push on the hammer to confirm that it will not drop w/o pulling the trigger. Cock the hammer slowly and confirm the cylinder locks in position for each of the 6 chambers about the same time the hammer cocks. If satisfactory, now operate the gun in DA pulling the trigger slowly; again confirm the cyl locks before the hammer drops. After each cycling of the action, confirm that the cyl is still locked in position.

Cylinders can have fore and aft movement and rotational movement. Check rotational movement with the hammer cocked just to make sure it won’t skip to another chamber. That's all that is really important from a safety concern. Then unless you experience 'spitting' at the barrel/cyl gap when fired, you have no reason for concern.

You have a quality made, very well engineered, assembled with skilled craftsmanship, and hand fitted revolver, no longer affordable on a competitive market basis, and the likes of which we'll never see again, ever.

Shoot it to your hearts delight, and it will delight you with its fine accuracy, and comfortable recoil.

Any current off the shelf ‘standard’ factory loaded ammo is loaded safely for use in these old guns.

Blast away and let us know how you like shooting it.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Congrats on a great find, and thanks for sharing it with us!

We have my bride's grandfather's .32-20 Hand Ejector 73793, which still has amazing nickel finish and is perfect mechanically.

The old gentleman had a reputation of being quite good with the revolver in his younger days. I recall going to his funeral over the July 4 the holiday in 1964. FIL inherited his turn of the century L C Smith fluid steel barreled hammer gun. BIL got the revolver. BIL was not a gun guy. We thought the handgun was long gone. BIL never married, so wife inherited his stuff. He died about ten years ago, and while cleaning out the house, we found the revolver wrapped and hidden away. A dealer friend said that the gun dated to the late teens.

Neither of our parents/grand parents were wealthy, but we have received momentous from them That are treasures. My wife's grandmother gave us a set of solid gold cuff links that her mother gave her father as a wedding gift dating back to the early 1870's. They are not large, but even the backs are gold.

We also treasure a book of my wife's family history on her maternal side. The family, though not Quaker, immigrated to the US with the William Penn colony. Seems like her family was always patriotic, even if they were not good warriors. One was captured by the Brittish during the Revolution. Another that had migrated to SC was captured during the Civil war. At the end of the war, he could have been released by singing allegiance papers to the US. He refused. When the government closed the prison, they opened the gates and left. Ancestor went to Florida and lived with this Seminoles. After many years, he returned to the family, but liked the Seminoles better and went back.

My paternal grandfather had two guns. A nice S&W .38 HE and a 12 ga Model 12 Winchester. He was a skinny guy about 5'8" and he was good with the shotgun. I never knew which of my Uncles ended up with those.

Congratulations upon finding your "lost" treasure,

Jack

I firmly believe that lubricating/penetrating oils are not the best cleaners. Breakfree, Kroil & M-Pro7 are not designed to act as solvents. They are oils, that will probably blast out loose debris and contaminated liquid oils, but many of these 100 year old revolvers have hardened, solidified oils and grease that need a heavy duty solvent to dissolve and blow away the gunk inside.

Kroil was developed as a penetrating oil and lubricant and does not contain any hydrocarbon solvents. Breakfree is intended to be used as a lubricant and preservative. M-Pro7 contains Synthetic Oil (80%), Tritolyl Phosphate, and Petroleum Hydrotreated Paraffinic, which is a combination of synthetic hydrocarbons and pariffins. M-Pro7 usage statement says it is a cleaning agent that repels dust/dirt and can be used as a “cleaner” to remove surface carbon in the field.

All these products work by thinning heavy liquid oils inside a revolver to the point that the pressure from the aerosol will blow them out of the mechanism. None will readily dissolve dried oils and greases. There have been several good mixtures of solvents that do a great job dissolving this debris, but they take time and submersion to work. You can also use a cleaner like Carb-n-Choke cleaner, which contains strong solvents and is an aerosol. Brake cleaners used to be a great cleaner, none better, but some are now water based and should not be used on firearms. Braklean is probably the best non-chlorinated cleaner out ther today. Active ingredients are acetone, toluene, and methanol.

Of course, there is no better way to clean up a gun that has been sitting around for decades than to disassemble it and clean each part thoroughly, lubricate and immediately take it to the range and shoot a box of ammo. Shiny, squeaky clean and the 32-20 is great fun to shoot, so enjoy.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

I have one on my list which is a little closer to yours - 725xx shipped in 10/1917. If you plan to shoot it, ammunition maybe a problem. While it is still made, it isn't stocked by many retailers. You may need to have a dealer special order it for you or get some from an internet site. It is not cheap.

Jim,

Great info about various products, thanks.

The absolute best and test proven cleaner is a 50/50 mixture of acetone and ATF (auto tranny fluid*). Not only for cleaning but removal of rust, inside or out. Just soak for a day or two and no disassembly required. Agitation speeds up cleaning.

Let drain and wipe off. Already lubed on the interior.

* Nothing cleans and lubricates like ATF steeped in chemistry and engineered design for long duration under the extreme conditions of a $4000+ piece of precise machinery, a modern automotive transmission.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Welcome to the forum! Was your Grandpa in Law Enforcement? From the wear on the right side grips, it looks like he carried it quite a bit. Glad you found it, a family treasure saved.

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PTLAPTA!

WD40 works great to clean out the gummy mess. Remove the grips and hose it down (or even soak it in a plastic bag) with WD40. Next blow it out with some compressed air. Then lubricate with a good gun oil or power steering fluid, and blow it out again with compressed air and re-install the grips. Don't use motor oil; that's what probably gummed it up to begin with.

But then you have to clean out the WD-40.

It dries and leaves a coating.

Some gunsmiths charge extra to clean a gun that's had WD-40 used on it.

And don't get it around loaded rounds, especially a defense weapon, it will kill primers!

It didn't score that well in rust remover tests either.

The only near perfect solution to the rusted screws/rust removal problem doesn’t have to be laborious, using force, or machining; it's time, patience, and letting the right product do the work.

As shown below, the scientific test proven top solution is not an off the shelf rust or corrosion product, and in fact exceeds them all. And off the shelf products are far from equally effective. Kano Kroil tops them all in testing and some are just a flat waste of money.
Just a few representative tested products quoted in test results including the hands down winner: 50/50 mix of ATF and acetone. Cruddy guns are a piece of cake to clean with this solution.

Average load (Lbs) to release a rusted/corroded test bolt and price per fluid ounce:

W/O penetrant.... .516 pounds $0.00
WD-40.................238 pounds .. $0.25
PBBlaster ........... 214 pounds .. $0.35
LiquidWrench ......127 pounds .. $0.21
KanoKroil ............106 pounds .. $0.75
ATF-Acetone mix....53 pounds .. $0.10
(Note: 53 lbs. was the load required to release the pre-corroded testing device.)

SOURCE: April/May 2007 edition of MACHINIST'S WORKSHOP scientific test of penetrating products to remove rust and measure the force required to loosen rusted-solid test devices.

They are all inferior to (well down the list in test results as can be seen below), and more expensive than ATF, good old tranny fluid. None of the other products have or will ever have the years and level of research and engineering to remove crud and/or rust, keep spotless, and sustain the life of a $4000+ and higher, piece of high tech equipment; your automatic transmission! It's also the least expensive product.

So if you have two parts cruddy or corroded together solid and want them apart, the only thing better than ATF, again as test proven, is a 50/50 solution of ATF and acetone. Nothing approaches its efficacy and performance, nothing. Just soak and agitate, period!

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Had never heard of the ATF-Acetone mix. That's some great info to file away for future use! Thanks.

Shoot, and here I thought that was an old machinist's secret formula !

Larry

I was thinking the same, I have heard nothing good about finding old guns left in holsters. I think it has only been sitting for 3-4 years in the holster.

One of my dad's old hangout spots, buried under a mountain of engine and motor parts, haha. I made sure to be thorough since I knew the revolver was in that room years ago.

Interesting to note: No, he was not in law enforcement but according to my dad he often loaned it out to the sheriff (Story goes that he couldn't afford a pistol back then) of the small town near our property, which probably accounts for the wear on the finish.

Thanks for all the replies! I have been cleaning a lot of guns my dad left behind and I tried my best to be extra careful with this one. I used Rem Oil to lubricate and protect from rust, and I used stainless steel wool to clean up the rust. It does a great job of removing rust without harming the finish, though I will admit that a small amount of nickel plating was removed in the worn/rust damaged areas due to the rust itself. I have noticed the same thing happen on an old Iver Johnson I cleaned that had some bad rust damage. The revolver is now lookin great for its age and how it was left, with not a speck of rust on it.

I have fired it a few times, I found a box of 32-20 ammunition in the same room as the revolver and put about 18 rounds through it. Fires true and without a hitch!