Post war Outdoorsman - single line Made In USA

[Shotguncoach]

I try to watch every evidence-gun auction that I can find because you never know what will turn up. Last week amid all the Lorcins, Ravens, and HiPoints was a lot simply described as:

"S&W Unknown"

I suppose when you have 500+ plastic bottom feeders to work through that a big chunk of steel with nothing on it but Smith & Wesson, Made in USA, and 38 S&W Special Ctg, just isn't worth investigating.

I'm ok with that.

 

[Shotguncoach]

Our "unknown" turned out to be a post-war transition Outdoorsman with a single line Made In USA marking.

There is a little bit of freckling on the sideplate and the bottom of the trigger guard, and some holster wear on the cylinder and sides of the barrel, but other than that the finish looks original.

The serial number is S 70201, which is going to be pretty early. I'll get a letter request out to Mike and Don later tonight. The serial number matches on the frame, cylinder, ejector star, barrel......and the right stock panel.

Right at the moment it's bubbling away in the deep fryer filled with boiling distilled water. I'm not going to attempt a refinish - just boiling and carding to kill the little rust spots.

More pictures to come soon...

 

[GLL]

Very nice transitional Outdoorsman. Thank you for providing the photos !

Jerry

 

[Shotguncoach]

...and here we are, back from visiting Dr. Grobet at the Boiling Waters Spa.

I so love working inside these long action N frame guns. Aside from the mechanical art inside, there is just.......so......much......room. I did my first J frame action job earlier this afternoon and compared to being inside a 442, working on this gun is like switching from a Miata to a suicide-door Lincoln Continental convertible.

Someone has already been inside our baby-boomer Outdoorsman. Two coils have been clipped from the rebound spring and the strain screw appears to have been shortened slightly. The double action pull is 7 1/2 lbs, the single action pull is 2 lbs.

Our stock panels are dry as a bone, so after tomorrow's range trip I'll hit them with some clear Danish oil to spruce them up.

Look for a range report tomorrow evening...

 

[boykinlp]

I try to watch every evidence-gun auction that I can find because you never know what will turn up. Last week amid all the Lorcins, Ravens, and HiPoints was a lot simply described as:

"S&W Unknown"

I suppose when you have 500+ plastic bottom feeders to work through that a big chunk of steel with nothing on it but Smith & Wesson, Made in USA, and 38 S&W Special Ctg, just isn't worth investigating.

I'm ok with that.

That's a brilliant idea, and it paid off in a big way! Thanks for sharing.
Larry

 

[murphydog]

I have seen more postwar "Transitional" Heavy Duty and Outdoorsman revolvers than any other model except for .38 M & Ps. There must have been some pent-up demand or prewar orders for them.

 

[22hipower]

I try to watch every evidence-gun auction that I can find because you never know what will turn up. Last week amid all the Lorcins, Ravens, and HiPoints was a lot simply described as:

"S&W Unknown"

I suppose when you have 500+ plastic bottom feeders to work through that a big chunk of steel with nothing on it but Smith & Wesson, Made in USA, and 38 S&W Special Ctg, just isn't worth investigating.

I'm ok with that.

Nice find. Is the barrel rib grooved or perhaps checkered, one of those using pre-war 357 Magnum barrels?

Jeff
SWCA #1457

 

[ameridaddy]

When you say "carded", what did you use to card it?
Thanks for sharing!

 

[Shotguncoach]

Nice find. Is the barrel rib grooved or perhaps checkered, one of those using pre-war 357 Magnum barrels?

Jeff
SWCA #1457

There is a limit to my good luck...it is a grooved barrel.

That leads to another question: are the rounded corners on the rear sight blade something that Smith & Wesson used to do? Or is it just a common aftermarket modification? The rounded areas on the rear sight are blued and not in the white as you would expect from Joe at the kitchen table with a file.

 

[Shotguncoach]

When you say "carded", what did you use to card it?
Thanks for sharing!

One of these:

Grobet carding wheel

The technique I use is to completely strip the gun and boil it in distilled water to convert the red rust into black rust, then use the extremely fine wire brush/wheel to remove the scale. It's exactly the same as controlled rust bluing just using uncontrolled "natural" rust.

Mark Novak has some great Youtube videos on this conservation technique.

Something I've learned is that it is extremely important to do this step FIRST, before cleaning the gun. If you go after the gun with solvent and a toothbrush before boiling, you'll remove so much of the rust that you get no bluing benefit and you'll just have bare metal where the rust used to be.

 

[Kinman]

Great score, well done...

 

[Shotguncoach]

It seems to shoot ok...

The rear sight came off for the deep clean and boiling, so I had to reset it before doing any serious work. Standing, two hands, 10 yards.....12 shots to get the sights were I wanted them, 12 shots for the record. I think I may still want to come up one more click.

Something that I do have to change: the numbered magna stocks are great to have, but I don't like to shoot with them. I'll stir the pile tonight and see what floats to the top. I think I have one more set of extra N frame diamond targets, and I know there are a couple of Herret's Jordan Trooper stock sets laying around. We'll see what fits best.

 

[rct269]

Color me impressed------and some edumacated to boot!

Ralph Tremaine

 

[Shotguncoach]

The mailman brought me a present today....

Customer order placed February 2, 1943. Shipment on August 28, 1946. I love that the customer address is just cross streets.

 

[Gun Relics]

The mailman brought me a present today....

Customer order placed February 2, 1943. Shipment on August 28, 1946. I love that the customer address is just cross streets.

It should be noted that you have a very early transitional. That puts it at the first month of production following World War II. Interestingly enough, I also have one shipped August 28 of 1946.

 

[bullmack]

It should be noted that you have a very early transitional. That puts it at the first month of production following World War II. Interestingly enough, I also have one shipped August 28 of 1946.

I own S71218 which sipped Sept. 1946.

 

[22hipower]

It should be noted that you have a very early transitional. That puts it at the first month of production following World War II. Interestingly enough, I also have one shipped August 28 of 1946.

Another of the S&W production mysteries. I have S69805 which didn't ship until January, 1947. Although I suspect it was built early in the run as it has one of the eight or so known pre-war 357 Magnum checkered rib barrels.

Would be interesting to take our time travel DeLorean back to 1946 and hear the conversation. "Hey boss, I found this drawer with some pre-war magnum barrels in it, what do you want me to do with them?" "Ummm, throw them on those 38/44 ODs we're building, maybe no one will notice we used those old barrels."

Which is even more odd given that S&W was also building post war 357 magnums and I'd have thought those pre-war barrels would have been saved for them.

Jeff
SWCA #1457

https://flic.kr/p/2qkroCx https://www.flickr.com/photos/194934231@N03/

 

[Truckman]

I have S69805 which didn't ship until January, 1947.

Oooof! My birth month and year!......Ben

 

[SS336]

The mailman brought me a present today....

Customer order placed February 2, 1943. Shipment on August 28, 1946. I love that the customer address is just cross streets.

That missed my birthday by just a couple of days!
if you ever want to sell it………..

 

[H Richard]

I wish all jurisdictions would do that, auction off evidence guns (that can't be returned to any responsible person). Our jurisdiction calls for them to be destroyed. When we used to have a Foundry in the area, lots of guns would be taken there and tossed into the melting pot. I've heard of some very nice pieces that went away in there. What a shame. I have also heard (unconfirmed) that there were some "substitutions" tossed in and some very nice pieces were kept by certain people in the know.