This is a Heavy Duty Transition shipped January 30, 1950.

I have not lettered the gun, however thanks to 1Aspenhill's photo album on this site, we know when it was shipped.
Additionally, and again thanks to 1Aspenhill, we also know this is one of the latest known/shipped Transition models.

This Heavy Duty is a complete numbers matching gun, including the stocks.
Unfortunately, the stocks have a coat of varnish on them that is clearly not factory applied.
Sooner or later I'll send them to one of the artisans on this forum to have them cleaned up.

Along with a few other HD's, I purchased this gun a couple years ago, coated it with Corrosion-X, placed it in a zip-lock bag and locked it up.
I finally took/made the time to photograph the gun in detail.

This particular HD goes nicely with my 5 inch Transition gun.
And while it would be neat to have a 6.5" Transition in blue to complete the "set", I'm not holding my breath on finding one.

There's 260 photos of the gun here:
http://s1217.photobucket.com/user/ta...20Transitional

A few photos from the album linked above:

















tp

very nice. I've got S74301, also a 4" that shipped Mar 9, 1950, one week after I was born. that's as close to a birthday gun as i'll likely see. lee

That's a screamin' HD!

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Hey Lee!

I have S74442 also a 4" HD.

That's a pretty late number for long action, isn't it? What's the latest long action number known?

Awesome gun, I have one similar but with single line address.

Nice grab Todd!! You're 2/3's of the way there. Maybe Bill can spare one of his 6.5's to complete the hat trick.

BTW - can you take a few detailed photos? It's hard to appreciate the beauty of that gun with only 260 pictures

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Rick
SWCA #2727 , SWHF #435

Thank you Sir.
A "Trio-O-Transitionals" would be a neat set, eh?
I'll see if I can get a few close-up photos for ya...

tp

The latest long action HD known is S75704. The earliest shipped HD in the S75000 range is 6 June 1949. Nice transition!

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38-44heavyduty.com

Thanks Bill for the answer!

While I have you on the line, another quick question: What was the switch from maroon to gold boxes like, was it slow and sloppy or concise, bout where is it centered?

Thanks, Pete

Pete,
A question without a definite answer but I have some ideas. I think that towards the end of the transition HD production, guns could have gone out in either box. I recently purchased one that is in a properly marked Gold Box and is a transition and I have no doubt that it is the gun's original box. I also have a maroon box for a 5" Nickel HD that has a S92000 serial number on the end of the box. I personally doubt that the gun with that serial number left the factory in that box but it may have been used to ship a repaired gun back to the customer. The gun I just purchased was shipped in June 1949, very early for a S75000 range HD.
I hope this helps,
Bill

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38-44heavyduty.com

As always, thanks for your knowledgeable contributions.

This is a short action...



But it ain't an HD!

Sebago Son, do you have a ship date on that 3.5" .357?

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John

Nope. Not yet John. I've only owned it for a short time. As far as I know, it's never been lettered. It is a Northern Border LEO gun however.