I brought my 28-2 home from the gun store yesterday so -- while I am off taking pics of it and then figuring out how to post them here maybe someone can answer a question for me.

Model 28-2 made in 1973. The label on the end of the box has 3 3 4 written in red grease pencil in the Special Features portion. What the heck does this mean? I can't find anything 'special' on it anywhere.

I've never seen that before. I'll speculate that it might be a dealer's inventory number, and that Smith & Wesson didn't put it there.

Maybe the barrel needed to be set back to get everything right, lined up and true, and the forcing BC gap corrected, and it ended up with a 3 3/4" barrel instead of 4".