I recently traded some work for a S&W 38 spl. It is an Airweight 5 shot, J frame, Round butt, 2" barrel, blued finish, shrouded hammer, S/N BPA 155x.
Can someone tell me when it was born and solve the mystery of the BPA prefix.
Help will be appreciated.

Late 80's early 90's

At one time smith revolvers shared serial numbers based on frame sizes. So, N frames had N prefixes, K frames had K, etc

This does not hold particularly true for all frames and that story is too long for me to type.

Somewhere in the early/mid 80's Smith went to a three letter prefix and all revolvers (maybe all handguns) were numbered with that prefix. I have a 29-3 and a Model 60 that both have an AFS prefix.

I am not sure how high the numbers go before the prefix is changed. I assume the first one was AAA, then AAB, so on.

Thanks for the response .

Based on the serial number, it would of most likely shipped in....

Febuary of 1993.

Nothing particularly special or mysterious about BPA. It was just the run of the mill three letter s/n prefix between BNZ and BPB. I've seen several.

One was even a M38-2. It was a product code 101702.The others were either L-frames or N-frames.

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~ S&W aficionado in training ~