I was never much of a Skeeter Skelton fan, but read a lot of his material beginning in the '60s. That one SHOOTING TIMES article, however, impressed me to the point where I finally located a new 4" 24-3 in the fall of 1983 from Walter Craig Distributors. It may have been the only one they had in stock at the time. S&W made fewer of the 4" guns, but as I recall, the long-barreled models weren't easy to find either for the first year or two of production.

I later bought a 6 1/2" and another 4". I can see virtually no difference in any of these guns as far as accuracy or anything else. All are great cast bullet shooters and I shoot mine a lot.