Welcome the newest member of my slowly growing S&W revolver family. A tried and true 66-1.

It came with no box or papers and did not have the stocks shown in the top photo.

What I am curious about are the stocks it was wearing when I first spotted it in the case (photos 2, 3 and 4). I didn't care for them, so I replaced them.

I guess someone made these custom. They are nicely finished and fit well. The exterior sides are so smooth and polished that they look like some kind of plastic. But they are wood. The medallions are United States Army emblems. There are no markings of any kind.

Can anyone shed some light on these?

As always, I welcome your thoughts.

Not positive but they look like the ones coming from Thailand off eBay

I'll bet you are right. I think the company is Grand Blue and they are made from sandalwood. Once again, I've learned something new here!

Post them for sale on the forums for $35 or $40.

Someone will buy them.

Worse to worst, someone will sand them down, and then refinish them so they look a little tamer.

The stocks you have on it now look A LOT better.

Try and get a set of Football Cutouts for it, for era correct Pics.

BTW, you 66 is beautiful. One like yours is on my Short list.

Look like grips I ve seen that are made in Thailand.

Oh!

I got the same grips on a 36 3" a few weeks ago. I sort of like them.

I don't know how sandalwood will hold up.

Tom_R, I never got a clear understanding of which grips came on the 66-1. Mine is from 1979.

Googling an answer further muddied the picture. Some said speedloader targets came in the early 80s, others said late 70s.

I finally just Googled Smith 66-1 and looked at images. I saw plenty of speedloader cuts and plenty of football cuts.

Still don't know for sure!

I'd go with the footballs

By '79 the speedloader cutout was well in play; if you use speedloaders, it's the way to go, and you'll definitely be "period correct".

Scotchblade,
Congratulations on the nice 66-1.
My short answer is the grips you placed on your 66-1 in your first photo look correct. The other posters look like they've helped you with the aftermarket grips.

The longer answer about grips:

A little grip history:
mid to late 1950's - extractor relief cut (i.e. "relieved") grips introduced to make extraction of spent cartridges easier. This involved making the upper left grip more shallow but did not involve fully cutting out the top portion of the left grip.

1967-1968 - the diamond center around the escutcheon (i.e. "diamond grip") was eliminated.

mid 1970's (K-frames)/early 1980's (N-frames) - the "relieved" area was enlarged and fully cut through on the upper left grip creating the space to allow use of speed loaders.

The 66 dash 1 dates to 1977-1982.I think the most likely original grips for your 66-1 would be the speed loader grips pictured in the first picture of your revolver (the picture with the marker through the trigger guard).

John

__________________
Scoundrel & Ne'er-Do-Well

The 66-1 is basicly the SS equal of the 19-4,

While nothing is absolute with S&W I have a 19-4 nickel 60K serial gun that came with football relieved targets and a blue 73K prefix 19-4 that came with speed loader cut targets.

Either way they would have SS washers inside,
a few years later the washers disappeared inside the grips altogether.

Being an Army vet, I like those stocks with the emblems.
The checkering really needs to be re-cut, however.

__________________
-jwk-
US Army '72-'95

Football targets came from the factory on the square butt 4" and 6" revolvers. I don't think they came with square butt Magnas.

Like this:

smith and wesson 66-1 - Google Search

Or the more relieved targets like this, depending on when it was shipped:

smith and wesson 66-1 - Google Search

Football targets look better, but the ones relieved more, work much better with Speed loaders.

Beautiful firearm. I too have a 66-1. It is a '80 according to S&W. I love the thing, also not sure of the grips but I put a set of the full size rubber grips and put the woods away. Also have a 4" Mountain gun in 44 mag which looks to be the twin of the 66. Congrats on the new firearm. Allen