Before I knew anything about S&W's I had one pass through my hands. I had a short marriage to a female cop. She had an older S&W 357 before I knew anything about model numbers under the crane. What was unique about her revolver was it being a round butt, N-frame with a 4 5/8 inch barrel. Her dept said no to the revolver because of a 5 inch requirement. After it was discovered the barrel was 4 5/8 and not 5 she was pestered constantly to sell it by co-workers.

Long story short. The revolver was stolen. After a house fire the restoration company took all my firearms to a gun smith for cleaning of smoke damage. The gunsmith had a burglary, my gun collection was cherry picked and after I filed suit he declared bankruptcy. I wound up in court with the restoration co. and the guns were only minor portion of the complaint.

Detectives said the burglary was an inside job and the gunsmith refused a polygraph. Don't know the complete details but do know ATF refused to re-new the gunsmith's license because of a previous similar so-called burglary and complaints about unreported missing guns.

Anyhow back on the subject. Does anybody know anything about a 357, N-frame, 4 5/8 inch barrel with a round butt grip? Anything you can tell me about it will be appreciated.

The gunsmith claimed it was a Model 27 or 28 with square butt with 4 inch barrel but a photograph made him a liar. My X also came up with a letter on her police dept's letterhead basically saying the Chief would not make an exception to the dept's 5 inch policy for the 4 5/8 inch barrel. A detective that did the burglary investigation, not my X's dept. Said we had a rare model along with an offer to buy it if it were recovered. Unfortunately I no longer have the serial number.

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Dave

I have never heard of any S&W 357 made with a 4&5/8" barrel. The only revolver I know of with that length barrel is the Ruger Blackhawk. It is possible that a pre-war Registered Magnum could have been ordered with that barrel length as any barrel could have been specified but I am unaware of any that were made and I have never heard of any RMs with round butts. It could also have been a custom job done by a gunsmith with the barrel shortened and the frame modified to RB configuration but I don't know why anyone would cut a S&W barrel to such an odd length.

With nothing more to go than what you have offered, all anyone can do is speculate as to what you had.

If I had to guess, it was a 4 1/2" barrel. On all pre-WW2 guns, the
standard barrel lengths, like 4", 6", whatever, were always +/- at least
1/16", and sometimes as much as 1/8". If her gun was a pre-WW2
.357, 4 1/2" was a not-uncommon barrel length, and it might well have
measured 4 5/8" .

I have two 4 1/2" reg mags, and both measure 4 7/16" !

If her gun was post-WW2, then someone could have cut the barrel to 4 5/8",
and remounted the front site on the rib. This would have been a very
simple gun-smithing operation, just because of the rib.

On the other hand, one could always special-order any barrel length,
within reason, even through the 1960's. As a special order, the
invoice would spell out exactly what was ordered, and a factory
letter would contain all that information. Of course , without a serial
number, there is no information .

Mike Priwer