Would anyone care to offer an estimate of how many .22/32 Target Model revolvers were produced between their 1911 introduction and the end of production just before WWII?
My own estimate, which is about half statistical and half wild guess, is that total production may run about 25,000 -- possibly as much as 30,000. That would be in the neighborhood of 1000 units per year during the life of the model, with the understanding that during the boom of the early '20s production might have been quite a bit higher. By the late '30s, .22/32 Target production might have been down to only a few dozen units a year, if any production runs were scheduled at all.
I am omitting from consideration the prewar Kit Guns, of which there were (I think) about 3,000 to 4,000, all of them produced between 1936 and 1940. Kit Guns were essentially .22/32 Target models with four inch barrels instead of the familiar six. But I am interested only in production statistics for the six-inch barrel units.
Leaving out the .22/32 revolvers, production in the .32 HE number series included the regular varieties of the Round Butt .32 Hand Ejector (obviously!) and the .32 Regulation Police. The .38 Regulation Police and Terrier models were in a different numbering series.
Total production in the .32HE series between the first .22/32 in 1911 and production shutdown before WWII was just under 400,000.
David Wilson