I did not want to hijack Doc 44's thread showing his beautiful Combat Magnum, linked below. His thread raised several questions about grips on early Combat Magnums that I would like to pose to the forum.

A Special Cased Combat Magnum, K260005...

I have an early Combat Magnum, serial number K261987, shipped in February of 1957. Unfortunately, the original grips were "butchered" by a previous owner. They do feel great, but any collector value was destroyed. Its interesting that the owner did this as the gun does not appear to have been carried at all or fired much at all.

The original grips are shown here.







When I got the gun, I put the grips shown below on it. I got them on a pre war 22 Outdoorsman. I knew the grips were not original to the Outdoorsman, but also knew they were valuable as a stand alone purchase and that finding original, pre war, service grips was fairly easy to do.

Here is the Combat Magnum with the replacement grips.





My questions are:

First, what type of wood are the original grips made from?

Second, what type of wood are the replacement set made from?

Third, are the replacement set (those currently on the gun) the correct type for a Combat Magnum?

Last, if the replacement grips are not correct, what gun would they have originated on?

Thanks in advance for any help here.

Bill

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Bill

They look correct to me: diamond, small football and made of walnut.

Walnut was the wood of choice for the early target stocks. Goncalo Alves came along a bit later, I believe, but I don't remember what year. Perhaps someone here can tell us.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

Just checked the SCSW 4th. It says GA stocks were available on Coke stocks (that would be N frame) as early as 1955. No clear mention of GA on K frame stocks that I could find. There is an illustration of smooth K frame target stocks with the football cut, with dates of 1967-1980. But that may or may not be the same time frame for the checkered stocks.

It also says that rosewood was most common on Coke stocks.

Finally, it makes the statement that Cokes were available for K frames - a statement I don't believe is true . . . it has been debated on this Forum before.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

1958, the Goncalo Alves were a $10 price increase.
I agree. The stocks on that gun are correct.
BTW, where did you get your shipping info?
My # 262336 is 349 numbers higher than your gun and it was shipped, along with 50 like guns, 7-20-1956. First year of production. Factory letter.
My gun looks exactly like yours. Near unfired and 100%. Big Larry

Okay. So I just found the following thread, by Doc44.

See the pictures in his original post for a very early Combat Magnum with GA stocks.

A little farther down, he intimates that GA was common, even normal. So what do I know??? Nothing apparently!

A Special Cased Combat Magnum, K260005...

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

Mr. Jinks gave me the shipping information based on his records.

Bill

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Bill

Not surprising. They shipped out of order all the time.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

There is more than one person on this forum that can make your original stocks look like new, DWFan for one.

It may be costly, but they will be original and less than a set will cost on ebay!

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Richard Gillespie
FBINA 102

It would take serious magic to restore them. They have been cut down in the front, bottom and top. They don't look great, but feel better than any other target grips I have ever used.

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Bill

Cant tell what kind of wood your original set is from those pics...
Second set are K diamond target stocks made of walnut likely from the 1963 to 1967 era.

1950's era K diamond target stocks have a slightly different checkering pattern at the heel, if you compare your originals you will see the replacements checkering border makes a rounded turn at the heel.

Can you post some better pics from the side showing your old stocks, something is interesting in the pattern.

"Combat Magnum, serial number K261987, shipped in February of 1957"

I don't show any K-series SNs anywhere close to yours listed as shipping in 1957, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. It could have stayed in finished goods storage for longer than normal (maybe on the bottom of the pile) or pulled out of inventory for some reason or other for a considerable time period and then replaced. For sure, it's in the 1955 manufacture SN range.

I requested the shipping date from Mr. Jinks on the SWCA forum and that's the date he provided.

" Bill, .357 Com. Mag. serial K261987 was shipped in February 1957. I hope that this helps. Roy
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Roy G. Jinks
Historian, Smith & Wesson "

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Bill

Thanks for the information.

I looked closer at the grips Doc 44 posted compared to mine and I can clearly see the difference. The speed loader cutout is larger on the Walnut, later, grips. The checkering pattern goes further toward the rear of the grips on the G/A grips than on the walnut.

I'll try to get out my camera/light box and do some better photos of the old grips. They are so modified it is difficult to conclude how they started life.

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Bill