I seem to be full of qauestions today. Sometime in the life of the 39-2 the barrel bushing was changed from one which had two holes (a big one for the barrel and a smaller one for the recoil spring guide rod), to one with two ears at the bottom like a Colt 1911 barrel bushing. In pistols with the later bushing, the recoil spring was retained by a shoulder at the front of the recoil spring tunnel in the slide. Does anyone know when this change occured? I have a pistol with this modification, SN A301264, SCSW says it was made in 76-77.

Had several 39-2s over the years. The slide with the bushing with two holes had a spring tunnel that was bored through. The bottom part of the bushing kept the spring from flying forward. Different slides for the two bushings. -- Can't address the timing of the switch but the fit of the bushing on 39-2 barrel was "loosey-goosey". At one point I bought 8 bushings from egunparts to tighten up the barrel/bushing fit on one 39-2 because the fit was so loose that accuracy was moot. Turned out the bushing that came with the gun was the tightest. Go figure!

I liked the gun for everything except the accuracy. I loved the grip shape. I got into P.38s/P1s because the grip shape and DA characteristics were close to the 39-2. The single stack mag was almost the same.

I've owned a 39 and several 39-2s since the '60s. To the best of my recollection, the change happened around serial number 150,000. I don't remember now what year this occurred. Apparently, there were reports of the soldered-together/brazed? bushing seperating from the stress of the recoil spring bearing on it. I never had an earlier style bushing break, but having the slide retain the recoil spring and going to the one piece bushing seemed like a good idea to me.

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NRA Life, COTEP 640

The early 39-2's had the barrel bushing with the 2 complete holes in it. From the Model 39 research I have done I can say the change to the 1 1/2 hole type barrel bushing started A14XXXX, but the older style made it into the guns until around A35XXXX. Yours is a later production version with that bushing, but it isn't out of the ordinary. Remember that, back then S&W didn't throw parts away after a change. The old and new style parts coexisted until the old parts ran out. It is this sort of thing that makes collecting S&W's even more interesting.

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J.D. Roy