I picked up this cool old Smith today in a local shop. I'm fairly certain it is a K-22 Masterpiece. I cleaned it up quite a bit and touched up some bluing. It is tight and the timing is spot on. I'd like to identify a date of manufacture and confirm the identity. 6" barrel.
The serial is K 254073. All numbers match including the stocks. I was stoked to find it.

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K22 Masterpiece. My guess is 1955 or 56.

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No life story has happy end.

Welcome to the unoffical K22 club if you have never shot one of these you are about to experience something wonderful.

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Randy

What Art said.
It's a 5-screw K22 Masterpiece. Some call it a "Target Masterpiece" to differentiate from the "Combat Masterpiece" (the 4" version with ramp front sight) but the factory just called the 6" the Masterpiece.
It became the Model 17 a year or two later when model numbers became a thing.
I have a bunch of various K22s. They're all great shooters.
You will enjoy it!

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Chris
SWCA #2243 SWHF #292

I have k244832 that shipped in August of 1955 so yours is probably late 55 or sometime in 56

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

On the other end of the spectrum, K278720 shipped in November, 1956.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

This is one of the few S&W models that have a factory list of actual manufacture dates, so your revolver was made in 1955 for sure. It most likely would have shipped in that year or the next.

Nice gun and those wide angle photos make that 6" barrel look really long!

Let me add a period flyer for the Masterpiece line in case you want to keep it with the gun.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

Gary
Where can one find that list. I've never seen it.

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Don Mundell

Don, I have a copy of a list that was supplied to me from another member here on the Forum, but you can find the 1946 to 1883 K frame manufacture list on pages 488 & 489 in SCSW4.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

You have every right to be stoked! I don’t know what the actual prices are running these days, but they are definitely in high demand, and from the pictures, you got a nice one. Others have given you information about presumed dates of manufacture and shipping, but the biggest takeaway is that it comes from a time when the term “Masterpiece” was appropriate. Enjoy yours, and by all means take it out and enjoy it!

Regards,
Froggie

Gary
Those are ship dates.

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Don Mundell

So mathematically interpolating between the serial numbers supplied would mean you gun shipped in December of 55 or January of 56. Of course that assumes the 2259 k frame guns were shipped each month between August of 55 and November of 56....and also, of course, this has no real correlation to when your gun shipped, you can only know by asking in a letter or on the SWCA side.. this is what happens when you are bored out of your mind because of the pandemic...you have time to make meaningless calculations....you have a nice revolver that you will love shooting.....

Robert

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

Don, the da6a I have was provided by one of our long-time members and was given to me as a date of manufacture list originally from the factory and it is the same list that is in SCSW4. We all know that one cannot provide an accurate ship date list chronologically, so how would someone be able to publish this list if it were ship dates and imply accuracy by stating exact serial number cuts?? Doesn't make sense? the book does not say what the list is based on, so are we sure that there was no way to generate a manufacturing date list post-WWII using the factory records?

I would like to know for sure that there no way that records were kept on manufacture dates for post-WWII K frames. If so, I will change my notes to reflect whatever is the correct answer?

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Gary
SWCA 2515

I have seen a pair of M&Ps from the 1960s 150,000 apart in serial and the lower number shipped 4 years later than the higher. It's an estimate without exact confirmation.

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No life story has happy end.

I finally found something on the subject. Roy's book , 125 years with Smith & Wesson, 1977, has the list on page 190. The text preceding the list states "the following table identifies the postwar K-frame serial numbers and the year they were manufactured."

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Gary
SWCA 2515

The book states "at best, these tables may indicate the probable production era for a particular gun."

Not ship dates.

We have all seen instances of a serial number showing up as shipped years after it would have supposedly been manufactured.

Having spent decades in manufacturing, I think it is safe to assume that frames were serial numbered early in the manufacturing process and were numbered sequentially. That would minimize the changing of numbers from one frame to the next. If it weren't so, time would be wasted looking back to see what was the last number used on a given frame size so as to know what number to stamp next.

Even if the mating of barrels and cylinders took place much later, as is lpossible in slow moving models, the date the frame was manufactured could easily be considered the date a particular gun was "made" even if specifics as to model, etc, were not completed until later. I can't believe that S&W left a lot of unfinished frames waiting on orders. Likely they worked off of forecasts and completed revolvers shortly after frames were produced, in accordance with marketing forecasts. The inaccuracies in those forecasts, or last in, first out inventory management, would account for items shipping long after their date of manufacture.

I know whenever serialized goods were produced in companies I managed, records were kept to detail the dates.

IMHO.

Robert

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

Thanks Robert, but where did your read that comment? It is not in my edition of the book I referred to in the above note?

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Gary
SWCA 2515

Page 486, second paragraph

Robert

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

RelicHunter451, do you mind my asking the approximate price you paid for this gun? Just curious, as I've my dad's K22 M that I was told shipped in 1950. Sounds about right since he came home from the So. Pacific maybe two-three years previous and bought the gun for "sitting rabbits" that he had no reason to load one full of shot when he could pop it with the .22. The gun is the most accurate gun I own. It's a pure joy to shoot. Before this year's gun craziness, I've seen the K22s around here going for 650 to around 850 dollars. I'd never sell the gun, but I wouldn't pass one up if I saw a decent price. The last one I saw at a gun shop was in poor condition, looks-wise, and they wanted over $1000. I'm just wondering what a decent one like yours is going for. Thanks, Jeff.

Well, this one definitely needed cosmetic cleaning and I touched up a bit of bluing. It is mechanically sound. I managed to get it for $480.00 OTD. I felt that was a pretty good price point, given they are scarce in this area. I would estimate that a given example would be priced at $800 + in my area.

You guessed right!
Nice score, as it is probably worth 600 even with the surface rust and or blemishes around the muzzle. One of my favorite pieces of classic Americana again...firearms of this era get me excited-congratulations-enjoy

I think people are confusing manufacturing and shipping as one in the same.
I still say it's not possible to accurately date when a piece was manufactured unless they put a serial number on an unfinished frames as soon as it leaves the forge. I have been in the Forging Department at Smith & Wesson and have seen them drop forging frames many times. Never once did I see the application of serial numbers take place.

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Don Mundell

K frames must have been moving briskly in the middle 50s. I have 5 with serial numbers in the 54 to 55 production dates that all shipped within that time...

Robert

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

I would think that would happen once initial machining of the yoke area was completed...

Robert

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Robert
SWCA #2906, SWHF #760

Just curious- 4 or 5 screw? (I bet 4)

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Regards,
Lee Jarrett

Yep. Four screws.

I also had 4 screw # K285963 until I traded it off recently. It shipped in January, 1957.

Incidentally, neither of them had serial numbers on the cylinder or the barrel flat, contrary to the common assertion that those numbers only went away when soft fitting ended in 1957. Both of those revolvers had to have been assembled in 1956.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

Yeah, it's page 190 in my copy of 'History" also (Eleventh printing), "----------------year they were manufactured." Maybe Don can talk to Roy---who can talk to the publisher----who can talk to the typesetter----who might be able to get it corrected (if there's another printing), or uh, at least changed to what Don says it is, so he doesn't have to keep reminding us about our lying eyes.

Ralph Tremaine

It appears to be the heavy bbl. type, and a 5 screw at that. These are much harder to find than the early slim bbld. K22's. Most I have seen approached $1,000. I am still looking for a 5 screw with the heavy bbl. Big Larry

Congrats. I’m lucky enough to have both the masterpiece and combat masterpiece. The 6” was my uncle’s that he handed down to me. The 4” was a very close friend’s that he gave to me to be handed down to my grandson. My grandson will eventually receive both. They are both 5 screws made in the 50’s with original stocks. My uncle was the original owner of the 6”.

And then again it may be us common folk thinking of the term "manufactured" as referring to the completion of the gun rather than the forging of the frame. Yeah, I know----the ATF thinks of the frame as the gun, while we who don't know no better think frames are just that----and no matter how hard you try, you ain't gonna find no place to put no boolits in no frames nohow.

I wonder what Roy was thinking when wrote the word "manufactured"? That would be what counts here, right?

Ralph Tremaine

Definately interesting but there are several things that need to be identified
First off is the barrel rib the earlier style narrowvrib or the later version with a wider rib that tapers towards the muzzle?
(Need a pic looking down on the barrel rib)

While the frame has the broader uncut shoulders for a wider rib gun it almost appears the rib is narrow.
Also, the finish appears to be satin, this is interesting as every other 1955 wide rib K22 I have encountered has been in bright blue.Five screw k22's with the wider rib barrel had a fairly short run before the change to the new 4 screw frame with the introduction of the Combat Magnum in late 1955 / early 56.

The satin finish on the rib is the result of my re-bluing.
I wasn't happy with the finish condition initially. I was careful to preserve the majority of original factory bluing though. I wanted the metal to have better protection. I have attached detailed pictures below.

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The pics confirm it is the wider rib version . IIRC the new wide rib K22 appears in 1955 replacing the older narrow rib barrel version,
The ones I recall seeing usually are in the same serial range roughly around K250000.

By 1956 the Combat Magnum was in production and was the first 4 screw K frame, the serial range reserved for them was K260000 to K265000.
I would expect that the K22s with serial numbers above K265000 will also have the new 4 screw frame (which continued until the dash 2 revision).

Basicly the wider rib 5 screw K22 probably only appeared for about a year in 1955-56 which makes them kinda interesting.
Always wondered how many were actually produced.

Ralph
I guess I was proved wrong. I must have I missed the section on the Forging Department where they stamped the raw frames. Thanks! I will include a manufacturing date along with the ship date when I do letters from now on.

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Don Mundell

I think the date for the end of soft fitting is a variable. If a gun does not have a numbered barrel, that barrel could NOT have been soft fitted. When soft fitted, a barrel and cylinder were mounted and fitted to a frame. They were then numbered to the gun, and removed for bluing or plating. The parts for a gun were not blued together at the same time. When frames were blued, that oven contained only frames. When barrels were blued, that oven contained only barrels, and when cylinders were blued, the oven contained only cylinders. The parts HAD to be numbered to be reunited.
In hard fitting, parts were blued before fitting, so there was no longer any need to number them. Once fitted to the frame, barrels and cylinders stayed with that frame till it was finished and shipped.

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Regards,
Lee Jarrett

I've got a pre 17 serial numbered K268746. I believe it dates to 1956. From what I've seen it was 5 screw through 1955 with 4 screw pre 17's until they started numbering in 1957 making only a two year window for the 4 screw non model marked K22's

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Forum consigliere

More or less.

There were some 5 screw frames assembled in 1956, before the changeover. One would assume some frames were already drilled for the top sideplate screw before the management decision to drop that screw. 4 screw frames start showing in about mid-year, 1956.

Also, while management assigned model numbers in 1957, no model marked guns left the factory that year. The earliest known model-numbered gun (a Model 29) shipped in January, 1958. On some models it was quite a bit later.

So, the length of the "window" is really unknown and will vary based on which model we are talking about.

Here are some representative facts concerning specifically the K-22 Masterpiece:
K311533 shipped in mid-January, 1958. It is not marked as a Model 17.
K327346 shipped in June, 1958. It is marked as a Model 17.

In addition:
K-38 # K314496 shipped in July, 1958. It is marked as a Model 14, and was a special order with a 4" barrel.

The lowest serial number I've located on a model marked K target revolver that wasn't a special order is a Model 19 #K316819

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

My online dealer has a s&w 1948 k22 target masterpiece 22lr/6” Barrel listed for $800 I think.

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Plant garlic in the fall