RichCapeCod
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- Joined
- Feb 20, 2006
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I purchased this model 10 from the NYPD Equipment Section around November 1972. Although I had been appointed to the force in October 1969 I did not attend the Police Academy until then due to my serving as a deep undercover office in police intelligence.
Many thousands of rounds have gone through this handgun. It is superbly accurate (shoots to point of aim, which, in a fixed sight sidearm, is a beautiful thing) and, if forced to give up all my handguns but one, this is the handgun I'd hang on to.
A couple of things about her:
I had Tritium sights put in sometime around the late 1970, early 1980s for an article I wrote for Combat Handguns. The company that did the work was located somewhere near the Tappenzee bridge in Westchester County. I had a sweet deal with that magazine. As I lived on ten acres of land with my own range I was able to test assorted handguns very easily. Worked out for both them and me. Got to shoot lots of different firearms during that period.
The model 10's trigger and hammer had been buffed smooth by department gunsmiths. That made the hammer far less destructive to clothing, while the trigger was (and is) a joy to stroke.
The pressed in piece on the recoil plate is another story.
Normally there is a hole drilled there for the cylinder pin to mate up with. While assigned to the Firearms & Tactics Section as a sergeant I was doing some shooting and noticed she was spitting lead badly. Took her in to the department gunsmiths. These guys really knew how to do magic with service revolvers. Anyway, they couldn't get the weapon to time up properly. No matter with them changing out hands of various widths and doing whatever they could do to the revolver the range rod would always "tick" going into the cylinder's chambers. Someone finally looked and saw that the hole in the recoil plate for the cylinder pin was egg shaped! After many, many thousands of rounds I'd worn the girl out.
There was a S&W representative at the range that day, so he took the gun back with him to S&W. When I got it back they had replaced the barrel (the old one was bulged), the cylinder (a little bulged as well. I guess a few of my handloads might have been a tad warm….) and put in that press fit piece with its new clean round hole for the cylinder pin. She was also reblued.
For the record, the guts of the gun were never worked on for the purposes of polishing the action's parts. Department gunsmiths didn't even like to do "action" jobs on revolvers that didn't have at least 1,000 rounds through them. As it was explained to me, polishing the inners of a handgun is simply removing metal. Until you know where the metal parts are rubbing there is no way to be certain you're simply not adding years of wear needlessly to the handgun by doing a premature polishing job. Although she is smooth as butter it's all due to many, many rounds going through her. In addition, all springs are full strength. This was (and is) a working tool. I carried her for twenty years in the NYPD and I needed to know that when the hammer fell there'd be a bang.
Rich
Many thousands of rounds have gone through this handgun. It is superbly accurate (shoots to point of aim, which, in a fixed sight sidearm, is a beautiful thing) and, if forced to give up all my handguns but one, this is the handgun I'd hang on to.
A couple of things about her:
I had Tritium sights put in sometime around the late 1970, early 1980s for an article I wrote for Combat Handguns. The company that did the work was located somewhere near the Tappenzee bridge in Westchester County. I had a sweet deal with that magazine. As I lived on ten acres of land with my own range I was able to test assorted handguns very easily. Worked out for both them and me. Got to shoot lots of different firearms during that period.
The model 10's trigger and hammer had been buffed smooth by department gunsmiths. That made the hammer far less destructive to clothing, while the trigger was (and is) a joy to stroke.
The pressed in piece on the recoil plate is another story.
Normally there is a hole drilled there for the cylinder pin to mate up with. While assigned to the Firearms & Tactics Section as a sergeant I was doing some shooting and noticed she was spitting lead badly. Took her in to the department gunsmiths. These guys really knew how to do magic with service revolvers. Anyway, they couldn't get the weapon to time up properly. No matter with them changing out hands of various widths and doing whatever they could do to the revolver the range rod would always "tick" going into the cylinder's chambers. Someone finally looked and saw that the hole in the recoil plate for the cylinder pin was egg shaped! After many, many thousands of rounds I'd worn the girl out.
There was a S&W representative at the range that day, so he took the gun back with him to S&W. When I got it back they had replaced the barrel (the old one was bulged), the cylinder (a little bulged as well. I guess a few of my handloads might have been a tad warm….) and put in that press fit piece with its new clean round hole for the cylinder pin. She was also reblued.
For the record, the guts of the gun were never worked on for the purposes of polishing the action's parts. Department gunsmiths didn't even like to do "action" jobs on revolvers that didn't have at least 1,000 rounds through them. As it was explained to me, polishing the inners of a handgun is simply removing metal. Until you know where the metal parts are rubbing there is no way to be certain you're simply not adding years of wear needlessly to the handgun by doing a premature polishing job. Although she is smooth as butter it's all due to many, many rounds going through her. In addition, all springs are full strength. This was (and is) a working tool. I carried her for twenty years in the NYPD and I needed to know that when the hammer fell there'd be a bang.
Rich
