S&W 66-1 Pinned, Not Recessed

[Martyk]

Hello, I'm new to this forum so please excuse me if I breech protocol. I have a S&W Mod. 66-1 w/a 2.5" bbl & rounded butt. The SN is 89K2872. The question I have is this; This revolver has a pinned barrel but not a recessed cylinder. Is this some type of transitional piece, or was the cylinder swapped out? Also what is the year of manufacture? Thank You
Martyk

[Mack]

It is quite common to see transition guns with only one feature.

[JCS&W]

Standard Catalog of S&W shows that serial numbers 57K0001 through 91K6800 were shipped in 1980. Could deffinately be a transitional piece, oh, BTW welcome to the site.

[Person]

My 99K 66-1 2.5" is the exact opposite. It does not have a pinned barrel but it does have recessed cylinders. Most of the transition 66-1's I have seen are like mine. I personally have not seen one like yours but that does not mean anything since I am fairly new to S&W's.

[fyimo]

Whenever S&W makes an engineering change that involves more than one type of change in that - number revision there will be some transition revolvers that have one or the other changes but not both. That's because S&W used up all the parts they had at the time and they didn't seem to be too good at having an even number of parts on hand for a particular Model.

[Maximumbob54]

S&W makes mostly all the parts in large batches and use them with the various models that share the parts. So the frames may all be made in the same run, so many go off for this heat treat, this bead blasting, and this polishing. Then these get these barrels and cylinders and those get something else. Then they get stamped as to what they are. So if they still have certain frames, barrels, and cylinders then they use up whatever they have in the parts bin and you get what you get. As far as I understand it, they still operate that way today. That is why you don’t get a manufacturing date, you get a shipping date on your gun.