I sincerely believe that had S&W chambered the M-58 in .45 Colt it would have been a lot more popular and stayed in police service longer. Or, .44 Special if the ammo companies had loaded an improved round, with a 250 grain SWC at 850 fps instead of the traditional loading of a 246 grain RNL bullet at what usually chronos at about 700 fps.

Skelton wrote that S&W wanted to make a brand new police round that had no preconceived opinions about it. Backers of a new gun and caliber imagined that the new revolver should be a frame size in between the K and N frames, but Skelton thought, later, the boosters of a new gun and cartridge underestimated how much it would cost S&W to tool up for a whole new size frame, especially for a brand new cartridge that might not be as popular as they hoped.

Ferguson wrote that what helped doom the M-58 was the poor quality of Winchester's lead bullet, which was undersized and caused severe leading problems as mentioned above, and the lack of overall quality possibly caused by a sudden demand for the cartridge before they had thoroughly developed it.

I must say that, with the M-58's solid construction and lack of fragile parts, it probably made an excellent cudgel.