Been following this post with some interest considering I was one of the transition school instructors this past week.

One of the things I noticed was the variations in the guns. Some guys had 4506s, but most had -1s. BUT even the -1s had some variations.

I was comparing my gun to another instructors. His had the blackened roll marks and Smith logo on the slide. Mine had non-blackened roll marks and the logo on the frame. His gun however was NOT marked-1 but clearly was. It had the round trigger guard, no step in the frame and blocky slide.

So that being said it almost looks like Smith went from 4506 to 4506-1 and some time later back to calling them just 4506? My gun was bought new in mid 1998, the other instructor bought his new in late 1999.

Also regarding those special order LAPD 4506s. Some were flat out lemons. It was pretty clear to use the special orders guns were made on overtime Saturday morning. On some guns the machining was so bad you could look down the side of the slide and see it was wavy and uneven. To their credit Smith made it right and repaired or replaced whatever needed it to make the guns work.