1st I want to thank the folks that keep this site up and running. I have a few old smiths none are shooters and I've recently acquired this 32-20. I would only be shooting light loads but would like to know what would be considered a max load for this revolver.
there are no numbers on the yoke
Serial number is 107### (with star after last number)
32-20 with 5 inch barrel
I understand the star indicates it was returned to S&W at one time, judging by its condition I would say it hasn't been fired very much since.
Again thanks in advance

Got letter from S&W / your revolver is classified as hand ejector model of 1905 fourth change. Shipped June 7th 1922. returned January 1945 for
rework, with no record of work done.
Cylinder and bottom of barrel both have machined numbers matching serial number on butt.

Not long ago I found one just like this except nickel finish, 1st change and is in just a little better condition

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Absolutely right up my alley.

I grew up during 50's, 60's in Texas shooting that old 32-20 in a first generation SAA.

Your HE looks like outstanding condition. I'll bet you enjoy that 32-20 if you handload.

Ammo prices are high and still kind of anemic, but that's not bad for the metal in that HE.

Congrats.

Prescut
The HE in 32-20 should stay under 800fps in my estimation. If before 1920's, not heat treated.

Make of this what you will, #114684 of the .32/20 hand ejector series was shipped August 21, 1923.

I find the apparent concern manifested by these heat treating questions both interesting and peculiar. The interesting part is I wonder what percentage of the folks asking the questions (and answering them for that matter) know what the tensile strength of the steel was as it came from the mill---never mind what it was after treating. We'll come back to this directly.

The peculiar part is I don't recall many if any such concerns expressed about the heat treating of some still earlier guns------the .44 Special Triple Lock for instance. That would be the gun Elmer Keith just loved, and used to launch some scalding hot loads----and wasn't heat treated. Do I have that right----it wasn't heat treated?

Okay, back to the steel----before and after: This comes from a letter by D.B. Wesson to an inquisitive customer. The letter is dated March 1, 1934. Make of that what you will too------because I don't know what if any difference there was in 1934 steel and pre-1920 steel (as it came from the mill). I do know Elmer's Triple Locks were all made before 1920. This should suffice with no further explanation: "As a matter of fact, even in our larger calibers the steel as it comes from the mills shows a tensile strength in the neighborhood of 80,000 lbs., which does not make the additional strength gained by treating a necessity." Those which would do just fine without treating include the Heavy Duty and .38/44 Outdoorsman. I don't know diddly about the pressures involved, but those who do likely can work okay with these numbers: .38/44 S&W Special muzzle velocity-1226 fps.

The End

Oh----the after heat treating number is 130,000 lbs.-----in 1934.

Ralph Tremaine

See post 4.

Heat Treated Cylinders

Kevin

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Unshared knowledge is wasted.

Hm. This is an interesting one.

The .32-20 M&Ps we have on record from the 100- to 110-thousand range all shipped in 1921/22, yet this one has a post-1926 barrel-shaped ejector rod and appropriate barrel cut. The stocks are later WW II Victory stocks or replicas thereof.

In view of the repair/rework star, the possibility of a barrel/rod/cylinder replacement should be considered. Have you checked for a date stamp on the grip frame under the panels? Do barrel/cylinder/extractor serials match the butt?

All S&W cyls were heat treated from 1920 until 1945 when improved steel precluded the need for treating on all Smiths except the magnums.

Although made in the 20's, your barrel and extractor rod were replaced in the 30's. Perhaps the cyl as well. Parts that were replaced will likely have a diamond stamped on them near the part's serial #.

Look for the date this was done at the factory under the left grip frame for the date stamp near the 'toe'.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Welcome to the forum, I'm in Spokane. You should not have any problems with any of the 32-20 ammo that is on the market sporadically and usually high priced, there are some cautions about ammo designed for rifle use, I have not seen any of that stuff. Generally anything you are going to find will be Winchester Super X 100gr. RNFP, older Winchester Western in the same configuration. I've also run across Remington ammo that is labelled Express, its just the label. They produce the stuff knowing it could be shot in older equipment and as Ralph mentioned they are stout little revolvers. If you are into reloading at all the 32-20 is a good candidate with only fly in the ointment being the very tender case mouth which only requires an extra bit of care when being raised up into the die, if you feel the slightest resistance or bump when raising the case it is likely crumpled. There should be adequate data on "Search" part of the forum for reloading information. I generally shoot lead through mine and keep the loads mild @ right around 1000 fps. I've had good luck with a Meister 115gr. RNFP commercial bullet with 8.5 grs. of 5744. I also have a Winchester 92 in 32-20 that I've loaded up some jacketed 100gr. bullets, I keep the rifle bullets in red cases and the S&W bullets in green. I do the same thing with 38 special bullets, if they are in red they were loaded to 38/44 specs or +P.
32-20 is an interesting little cartridge and many people enjoy shooting it. Lots of history in rural law enforcement when the officer had to purchase his own firearm.
I have a friend that has a Thompson Contender barreled in 32-20 and he loads it to the nuts, the Hornady book has loads developed for the Contender. I would stay in the lower portion of that scale just to be on the safe side.
Have fun with that old gem.

Welcome to the Forum.

The .32-20 is a fine little cartridge, in rifles and handguns alike. I bought a S&W in 1975 and have had at least one since then. I have had S&Ws, Colts, Cimarrons (Ubertis), a Winchester 1892, a Marlin 1894CL and a Martini cadet rifle in .32-20. All were fun to shoot.

Check some reloading manuals for lead bullet .32-20 handgun loads.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

cylinder numbers match the butt, no date stamp under grips, left grip does have the letter S stamped on it. Grips appear to be black walnut very small numbers stamped on frame under yolk are 50543 on the swing out part of the yolk are 5 numbers tow not readable 87--5

I have a youth Martini that has a old Savage 32-20 barrel which is a good shooter

I'm about 120 miles north of you, village called Northport. I've been loading the 32-20 for quite awhile but this is my 1st handgun. Have a few loaded up for this S&W looking for 800 to 900 ft pd range.

Darn, I took the grip panel back off and under the it at the toe I found 1.45 (could be I.45) then on the bottom at back is a small diamond. Also on the grip frame but at the top is the numbers 152

My eyes aren't that good, then when someone said under the toe I took the grip off and found these numbers I found 1.45 (could be I.45) then on the bottom at back is a small diamond. Also on the grip frame but at the top is the numbers 152

1.45 indicates that this revolver went back to S&W in January 1945 for some sort of repair.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I'm not up to speed on what SWHF has digitized, but if 1945 is included they MIGHT be able to find something that will tell you what happened to your gun in "1.45".

Ralph Tremaine

The 152 is a inspector stamp and unimportant.

The diamond means changes were made to the gun and likely a re-finish.

Now you need to check the bottom of the barrel for a diamond following the factory re-stamped serial # (to match the gun), and rear face of the cyl for a diamond to know which parts were replaced.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

No archives exist before 1920, but 1920 to 1960 have been digitized.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

32-20 is a wonderful little cartridge. I found this out just this year myself when I purchased a like new 32-20 hand ejector. I like the cartridge so much I immediately went out and found another revolver with more wear on it so my constant shooting does not wear on my "like new" gun. I reload myself and using lead bullets and the recipes prescribed to them, you have no worries whatsoever for a gun with or without treated cylinders. As a matter of fact we all know that the ammo loaded by manufacturers in our modern day of litigious crazy people are loaded down quite a bit from the days when men were actually men. So my advice for the OP is to go find as many brass 32-20 casings as you can and shoot that gun and reload to your hearts content. By the way Hp38 powder works perfect for both 100 grain and 115 grain lead bullets.

on the barrel bottom is a diamond and matching serial number. the cylinder also has matching serial number as on the butt. Couldn't find a diamond on the cylinder

Would you recomend contacting S&W and asking for any information?

I used to fish the Columbia for Sturgeon, we usually set up camp on Marcus but also went upriver to Snag Cove and Onion Creek. Northport was further away than Kettle Falls so seldom went up that far. Also used to fish Big and Little Sheep Creek when I was young and spry, that's when I would run into Northport for supplies. That's beautiful country up there, I tended to run up the Kettle side spent time hunting up Boulder and later we travelled up to property in Canada on Christina Lake, I'll admit to missing that. What I don't miss is the hassle on the U.S. side at the border crossing, the Canadians God Bless Them were never a problem.

S&W, the company, and its customer service, will be of no help whatsoever.

January 1945 is an odd date for a re-work of a gun that wasn’t a .38 caliber M&P. But a stamp is a stamp.

The records are indeed digitized, but I don’t think anyone has had much luck with any repair records from the war years. I know I haven’t, although I did get a DSC ship order from 1945. You are supposed to order a regular history letter first, before you can ask for further research from the Foundation.

Smith & Wesson Historical Foundation - Home Page - Insuring that the rich history of Smith & Wesson will continue for generations to come

S&W has no information of value/interest to you---or at least none they'd be able to find. The S&W Historical Foundation, on the other hand has scads of information. Your quest starts with a letter request (which you can find in the Foundation's section of this forum). The letter will (almost always) tell you when your revolver was shipped, to whom, its configuration when shipped, and general information on the series from beginning to end. Send a copy of that letter to the Historical Foundation (See their section of the forum.) requesting a search for additional data.

The letters and additional material from the foundation provide a learning opportunity available no place else---and a pleasant surprise every now and then when you find out your gun and/or its original recipient was special. You'll see people asking which guns they should letter. I answer that question by lettering all of them. It's been worthwhile.

Ralph Tremaine

"January 1945 is an odd date for a re-work of a gun that wasn’t a .38 caliber M&P. But a stamp is a stamp."

I have a 3rd Model .44 Special that went back to the factory in February 1942. I thought that was odd, since there was a war on, so I asked Mr Roy Jinks, the historian, about that. Mr Jinks said that even though production was geared to churning out Victory model .38s, S&W was not going to abandon their civilian customers when it came to repairs.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I reckon the firearms repair business was booming (no pun intended) during the WWII years. It ain't like you could go down to the corner and buy a new one. The gun makers were busy making military guns. Hell, damn near everybody was busy making military something. My father was the purchasing guy for a farm machinery manufacturer. They were making tank treads and machine gun barrels.

Ralph Tremaine

Very cool gun. I like the 5" barrel. I think the stocks may be homemade by a previous owner.

A lot of oldtimers swore the 32-20 hit harder than it would appear capable of doing. It was described as a "man killer" by some. I dunno 'bout all that. But a few years ago I became interested in the cartridge and picked up an early (c. 1910) S&W with a 6.5" barrel and round butt and a Colt Army Special with the barrel cut to 3". For unknown reasons many 32-20s are observed with bulged barrels. No doubt my Colt suffered that fate and was cut down to correct it.

I have seen a serial at which point cylinders were tempered for the 32-20s but I don't recall the number. Most think around 1919-1920. Yours should be tempered. Mine is not. But note the 32 caliber chambers leave thicker chamber walls than do 38 caliber holes so that helps.

The 32-20 is a caliber that demands reloading due to scarcity and cost. Bullets and cases are readily available. I load a 115 grain lead Keith type over 4.5 grains of Unique.

__________________
No life story has happy end.

By my SN list for this model your gun should have shipped around mid-1922.


Don't worry about about a maximum load for your gun, just stay within the limits published in various loading manuals for pistols! Do not use Rifle data. With 100-120 grain cast bullets a good maximum is 4.2 gr/Bullseye or 4.5 gr/ Unique.

Yes, the star is referred to as a re-work mark. It indicates the gun was returned to the factory at one time for what turned into a major repair. This could have been a re-finish, major component replacement, or a combination.

Read Ralph Tremain's post below! since it quotes from a letter by D.B. Wesson it can be taken as authoritative! This reinforces my belief that heat-treating of cylinders was not intended for strength, but rather to harden the metal to prevent or reduce battering of the cylinder-stop notches. Many older guns are seen with the stop notches battered.


Added: This revolver has what is known as the Large Extractor Rod Knob. This change dates to 1928 or 1929. Since our gun dates to 1922 I would bet replacement of the extractor rod and possibly the cylinder is what the work was that is designated by the re-work star!


Added:


Green Frog's point is well taken!The original barrel may have been replaced. I would expect it would be because the original was bulged instead of a caliber change to .32-20 though. Compare the butt serial number to that on the bottom barrel flat. If the barrel has no SN, or it is irregular and appears to be hand-stamped then I would bet on a barrel change.

__________________
Gunsmithing since 1961

You may even find that the caliber was converted from 38 Spl to 32-20 when it went back for the rework... stranger things have happened. The later extractor rod would have been likely to come with a cylinder replacement (or perhaps to match the notches on a late model barrel??)

As for the bulged barrel comments, this is purely based on anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me the I-frame 22 HFTs and K-frame 32-20s show up with bulged barrels all out of proportion to their relative numbers of production. I don't know whether it's a function of available ammo or what, but that's what I've observed.

Froggie

The OP told us yesterday already that the serial on the barrel (and the cylinder) matches the butt and that there is a diamond with the barrel flat serial.

Since the barrel has the cut for the barrel-shaped knob, a barrel replacement must be assumed unless the company would stamp a diamond for re-machining and rebluing the cut while installing just a new ejector rod and possibly attached parts like yoke and cylinder. I don’t know about that.

Barrel was replaced for sure an numbered to match the gun as was protocol for factory work. Cyl was not replaced.

No 32-20 barrels were made w/o the single step notch. So the only barrels in inventory in 1945 would have been with the single notch for the barrel style extractor rod knob.

Therefore the rod had to be changed as well to the barrel style to match the notch. There was plenty of these left n 1945 and we see them used on many transitional post war models on all frame sizes until the surplus notched barrels were used up.

After notched barrels were used up the factory did not cut notches in new barrels. The milling jigs for that were long gone post WWII. After the war we see many pre war guns that have had a post war factory barrel change with no notch and straight 'no knob' extractor rods for just that reason.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Alk8944's take on Wesson's letter (Post #26, that the heat treating was primarily intended to lessen or prevent the battering of cylinder stop notches) is certainly possible, but any reinforcement of that belief derived from Wesson's letter may arise from Wesson's words being taken out of context. Seeing as how I'm responsible for the context (here), here's the rest of the story: Having noted the untreated steel is entirely adequate (for safety when used "even in our larger calibers"), Wesson goes on to say "----------we (S&W) do very much prefer the greatly increased factor of safety that is obtained with the 130,000 lbs. elastic limit that the treating gives."

This letter was written to explain to a customer who had ordered a .22 Outdoorsman and a .38/44 Outdoorsman why the .22 was left untreated and the .38/44 was not. It was noted "the great thickness of the cylinder walls (of the .22) do not demand any further strengthening."------------and while the steel used (same for both guns) could handle the "larger caliber" without any additional treating, they prefer to treat it----ostensibly to achieve "the greatly increased factor of safety". It's likely we will never know if the greatly increased likelihood of not hearing from the plaintiffs' bar provided by heat treating entered into the decision making process or not. Same goes for the prevention of cylinder stop battering.

Ralph Tremaine

Now that I've been obliged to think about cylinder stop battering, I recollect guns being made with hardened steel shims in the cylinder stop notches to prevent just that. I'm fairly certain I've never owned any such guns----and don't know which guns were involved without researching the matter, but I'm about 99% certain such was the case.

The steel shim inserts in the cyl notches began with the Model 1896 32 Long Hand Ejector. To my knowledge they also ended with that model and no other models used them.

REVISED: PLEASE REFER TO MY POST # 39.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

I use a 11 foot flyrod and fish from the banks using small lures. biggest one has been 11 pounds, took a long time getting him to the bank. Me and a buddy used to go quite often, just catch and release them except for the big one, had him mounted. My buddy is fishing the big river in the sky now and past few years I've been crippled up and can't walk forth a hoot

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You guys are super!

I've downloaded the Letter of Authenticity Request Form and will get it in the mail asap

Someone said the serial number under the barrel would have been did by hand. Mine looks to be machine made?

Also no one commented or noticed the three notches cut in the right buttstock. More than likely the notches might be for three beer cans hit

Anyway when I get the report I will share it.

Took the old girl out today 115 grain lead & 3.5 grains of unique gave a average of 848 ft per sec

"To my knowledge they also ended with that model and no other models used them."

My first .32-20 was a square butt 1905 and I think it was shipped in 1907. I got a letter for it, but have no idea what happened to it. This was back in 1975 or '76.

I do remember it had the cylinder stop shims, which I had never seen before.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Well, for what it's worth, my earliest .32-20 was 42094---was shipped December 22, 1908---is also a square butt (target) and did not have cylinder stop shims.

Ralph Tremaine

Continuing the saga of lined cylinder stop notches----------this from N&J (Revised Edition). Note I checked only within the .32-20 section.

And-------32-20 HE First Model---1899-1902, #'s 1-5311."The cylinder stop notches were lined with hardened steel shims to prevent upsetting."

Through HE Second Model 1902----#'s 5312-9811,

Model 1902 First Change-----#'s 9812-18125,

Model 1905------#'s 18126-22426,

1905 First Change-----#'s22427-33500,

1905 Second Change----33501-45200----------and "The use of hardened steel shims in the cylinder stop notches was discontinued late in the manufacture of this model."---sometime prior to 1909----and as I noted earlier, my earliest one (42094, shipped December 22, 1908 doesn't have them).

-------------------just in case anybody asks.

Ralph Tremaine

Made a newbie mistake, was posting replies by using the quote button which kicked my replies way down on the bottom

And yet our planet continues to spin-------------------and orbit about the sun.

RT

Thanks for that additional evidence. That sent me back to the "books" which confirmed your observation. Apparently both .32-20 and .38 HEs did indeed also use cyl notch shims; all 32-20s but only commercial model 38s, S&W 1857 -1945, N&J.

Thanks Ralph, the 38 HE 2nd change does indeed include the same notation.

That sent me back to the 32 HE and sure enough, there's also a statement in the 32 HE Model of 1903 2nd change 1906-1909 section indicating the shims were eliminated near the end of production for this model, which I discovered I already had in my notes!%#@!

In Jinks' A History of Smith & Wesson, the practice stopped in 1908 because S&W began using an improved steel for cylinders.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Looks like a nice Gerrard strain to me, I went up to Trout Lake, B.C. to fish for them in their native water...incredible fish. I never did catch a big one but they go over 30lbs with regularity. I caught plenty of 16-20" fish that go 3-5lbs or better but the big boys are very tricky. The feed on huge balls of native Kokanee, on a good fish finder you can see the cloud of Kokes and just under the cloud you'll see huge arcs cruising along waiting for one of the little guys to fall out of the ball, then BAM!
The other fishery up there are the big Dolly Varden, they feed on the Kokes after they spawn out and come floating back down the creek, its a blast to wade out into the mouth of the creek and cast a plug that imitates a spawn colored Koke which is a beautiful dark green and bright red. I miss that too....