As I was looking through my closet this revolver resurfaced.
I bought it many years ago. A old guy with a bag full of guns came to a gun store in which I was a customer and tried to sell the all thing. The owner was not interested by old junk... but outside of the store I was. There were 5 or 6 old hand guns. The old guy wanted $100.00 I gave it to him. I put the bag in a closet and did not look at it for weeks. When I finally inspected everything in details I had a walther PP, a beretta 34 a smith Wesson 32 double action 2nd model a couple ot other hand guns i cannot remember , the 38/44 and 6 rolls of silver quarters. I never saw the old guy again.
My question is about the 38/44. I really like the feel and the heft of it and enjoy using it every once in a while.



The markings on the side of the barrel 38 sw ctg on the right
and Smith and wesson on the left.
the serial number under the butt is S 740xx.
Any information would be appreciated.
Best regards
Robert.

nice Heavy Duty..

looks like you ripped him off !

those rolls of quarters are worth ~$200 each @ todays silver price.

Well Robert, other than to tell you that you may have made the best $100 deal ever done on this forum, I don't know what to tell you.

Your Heavy Duty is a post war transitional model and was probably produced around 1950. Highly desirable. Even without consideration of the other guns, coins, etc., you made out like a bandit.

Bob

Probably 1950 for a made/shipped year. All the 38/44s were marked as just "38 S&W Special Cartridge". They will handle standard 38 Specials all day long and feel more like shooting a 22 doing it. The 38/44 or 38 HiSpeed cartridge was a forerunner to the 357 Mag and was introduced in 1930 (the Magnum came along 5 years later). Original loadings for the 38/44 drove a 158g SWC at 1150 fps or so, depending on barrel length.

If you want to know what it was like, get a box of Buffalo Bore's 158g SWCGC+P 38 Specials. They are a near duplicate of the original performance and will make that old warrior bellow. Oh, and their perfectly safe in that great old N-frame.

Dave

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RSVN '69-'71
PCSD (Ret)

Robert:

Welcome to the Forum !

Those two boxes of ammo are worth FAR more that you paid for everything else !

Jerry

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.38/44 Outdoorsman Accumulator

Robert,
Nice HD and could have been shipped from the factory anywhere from 1947 to 1950 based on the pics you posted. Great looking transition HD and as Jerry said, the full boxes of the ammo are going for $100 up. Thanks for sharing and if you don't mind, would you send me the serial number for my data base. I would say that it is between S68348 and S75500!
Thanks,
Bill

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38-44heavyduty.com

Neat old HD, and quite a story to go with it. Congratulations and thanks for keeping alive the truth that deals are out there.

Jerry

OK, that's all the good luck you get for this lifetime.

Seriously, what a great deal. I don't know what the sack of stuff was worth when you bought it for $100, but I bet all those guns and the collector grade ammo would be worth a few thousand now.

You shoot that HD so you know that a four-inch .38/44 is one of the finest revolvers S&W (or anybody) ever made. Interesting that it came with a trigger shoe on it; I think there was a kind of vogue for that kind of treatment in the mid to late '50s. I wonder if the previous owner looked for a humpback hammer but failed to find it. You couldn't get a wide-spur long-action target hammer from the factory, but a gunsmith could probably have fabricated one. With a 1950 shipping date, that could be one of the last long-action HDs ever shipped.

Congratulations, and thanks for posting the pics.

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David Wilson

Seriously now, I'm tempted to through out the BS flag here. How did you buy a "bag of guns" and just toss them in a closet for weeks? Were you thinking they were stolen or a murder weapon was in the mix? I don't know how you could do that. I think almost everyone here would have immediately riped the bag apart and started assessing and cleaning our new toys. That said are you looking to get your $100 back? Nice score on the HD. Kyle

Sounds like the old man was searching thru someones house. quarters,ammo ,guns.Sounds fishy too me.

Sounds as though you got a great deal, both economically and in the essence of what was purchased. That is a handsome 38/44!

I have just one, also from the 50s, that is renickeled and under 90%, for sure. Spent some time, I gather, at the Austin PD. [Marked Austin Police Dept 54]. S 89026.

Hope you enjoy yours greatly!

Regards,

Dyson

Things like this happen. I've bought several guns in a shop after the owner didn't want them. Occassionally a deputy will get the lucky call from a widow or a single mom with a kid coming home from prison who doesn't want any guns in the house. I've gotten a few this way over the years.

I love the look of that gun, I had one with the 6 1/2 inch barrel but I have been itching for a 4-inch version to buy and toss on a Wondersight. The thought of that and loading up some nice handloads make me itch to work some OT when and if it gets my way.

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Vaya con Dios

sounds a little fishy to me but i bought a box of handguns from a retired cop some years ago. there wasn't anything special about any of them. sold them all at one gun show, made a good bit of money off them for all being junk...

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George Jamison