New forum member here. Have a 5 inch, .38 Special, Hand Ejector (M&P?), blued, fixed sight revolver.... I'm trying to confirm the date of manufacture. From my previous research, I think it should fall in the late 1920's -early 1930's time line, but would like the exact year made, if possible. Serial # 429565, no letter prefix, stamped on bottom of butt; matching number on back of cylinder. Thanks for your help.

Hi and welcome to the S&W Forum.

No one will be able to tell you the exact date your revolver was manufactured. However, you can purchase a Letter of Authenticity from the S&W Historical Foundation which will tell you the exact date it shipped from the factory. It will also tell you its destination (usually a distributor or a hardware store, etc.). Finally, it will tell you the configuration (barrel length, stocks, finish, etc.) when it went out the door.

Based on comparable dates, we can estimate that your .38 Military & Police revolver shipped from Springfield in the early 1920s.

Does it say "Made in U.S.A." on the right side of the frame? That first showed up in about May, 1922.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

Jack, it does have the MADE IN USA stamp on the right side of the frame, below the cylinder. Other reference data is very vague, merely stating serial numbers between about 225000 and 1000000 were made from early 1920's up until WWII.

Good information above. The SN 'suggests' a production date of about 1923 but the factory uses the ship or sales date for an official age of the gun.

The reasons for this are they did not ship in numerical order, and for their record keeping it was a new/unsold gun until it wasn't. Even a popular model such as the .38 M & P would be produced in large numbers and shipped quickly, but an earlier SN is documented as shipping weeks to months later than a later SN.

With slow selling guns it is even less predictable; close serial numbers have been shown to be sold years to decades apart. One gets made and stuck in the back of the inventory vault, and there it sits until someone digs it out to fill an order.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

Welcome to the forums from the Wiregrass! Would you please post some pictures of your M&P. Folks may be able to tell you more about the gun from pictures. Go here for tutorials on how to post pictures from your PC. If you are using a smart phone, download the free Tapatalk app from your app store.

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Guy
SWHF #474 SWCA LM#2629

The estimates given above are a pretty good ballpark. If I had to guess, I would put your gun’s production most likely in the first three or four months of 1923. As others have mentioned, production guesses are generally more reliable than ship date guesses since guns could easily ship later for some reason, and you can find out only with a history letter.

In my modest accumulated data, I have the highest 1922 M&P recorded at a 416-serial, shipping in December. That indicates a 429-serial would not have been produced until some time into next year.

Thank you to all the posters and information shared regarding my M&P revolver's approximate build/ship date. I was unaware that S&W didn't fill orders chronologically with serial numbers in sequence. Looking forward to accumulating much more knowledge from this site.

Welcome to the Forum.

I have a commercial 1917 that shipped in January 1936. Most of commercial 1917s in my serial number range shipped in 1929-1930. Mine must have been waaay back in the safe.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!