I Tried to Buy a Gun With the Wrong Stocks

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red9

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I just received M&P snub #C58xxx (1948-49?) wearing pre-war round butt service stocks.

I bought it to swap stocks with my pre-war RB snub which is wearing early post-war wood:

I thought it was a good idea but now I find that I can't do it. The stocks on the C prefix are numbered to the gun! Oh well, now I have another neat gun and am still looking for my late pre-war wood or plastic RB's.

Bob
 
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You been hanging here how long and you didn't think about the stocks being numbered to the gun? :-)

I would have forgot, too. Really, deep down, you just wanted another snub.
 
Neat problem to have. I wonder how stocks that early came to be numbered to a post war gun? One of those "found in the bottom of the barrel" kinda situations where S&W doesn't waste anything?
They look great on your new gun too!

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
Red,

I am willing to help you out here....send me the bottom gun, and all of you stock problems related to it will be over ;)

It is a really nice problem to have however.....I too am a fan of the early snub M&P's.

Good luck in your search. Maybe a nice pair of Sambar stags will fill the bill?
 
Similar grip situations have been reported here previously. But not the reason, just speculation. C58xxx would likely have been shipped around mid-1949.
 
19leben said:
I wonder how stocks that early came to be numbered to a post war gun?
Click to expand...
I believe it to be a round butt thing.

Remember that round butt K frame M&Ps became relatively scarce in the 1920s. Those that were made between c. 1920 and 1940 numerically favored the 2" barrel variation. I suspect there were lots of K frame round butt stocks (or stock blanks) lying around when the war hit. I've noticed that prewar style stocks show up on round butt 2" S prefix guns more often than on any other variation. It is not uncommon to find an S prefix 2" round butt gun that shipped with black hard rubber or, occasionally, with checkered walnut stocks of the prewar style. It strikes me as a bit more unusual on an early C prefix gun, but not terribly surprising.
 
19leben said:
Neat problem to have. I wonder how stocks that early came to be numbered to a post war gun? One of those "found in the bottom of the barrel" kinda situations where S&W doesn't waste anything?
They look great on your new gun too!

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Many early post war Transitional models were originally shipped with left over pre war stocks with pre war and or post war medallions, therefore would be #d to the gun; also thumb latches, and extractor rod knobs with notched barrels #d to the gun. They are particularly sought after.
 
Last edited:
"Oh well, now I have another neat gun..."

Oh well indeed! You are fortunate to have such a problem.
 
Hondo44 said:
Many early post war Transitional models were originally shipped with left over pre war stocks with pre war and or post war medallions, therefore would be #d to the gun
Click to expand...

Jim
This is true. However, I would note that on the K frame .38 Military & Police square butt models the use of prewar style Magna stocks petered out very quickly. A large percentage of the revolvers shipped in March, 1946, wore correctly numbered prewar style stocks. But by the following month they seem to have been mostly used up and the vast majority of guns from that time forward wore the postwar style. The highest recorded serial number in my database for a revolver with prewar style Magna stocks is S816276. That revolver shipped in March, 1946.

Interestingly, I show a few revolvers in the low S814xxx range that shipped in April and all of them wore the postwar style stocks.
 
Thx Jack,

Again like with the M&P post war patent dated barrels, the M&Ps, having been shipped all thru the war with sq butt stocks, have their own unique 'trajectory'.
 
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