I recall the early 80's when the change over to speed-loader cutouts occurred. I purchased a lot of N, L, and K frame guns during that time that were factory fresh and NIB. The significance is they haven't sifted through other peoples hands, and I still have almost all of them - intact and exactly as shipped. I'm writing this because I believe any "newbies" reading posts like this may be confused by the controversy....
The first cut-outs I can remember seeing were on two first month of production 686's.
Many people, especially law enforcement, were excited to see the new cut-outs as the old stocks really were a detriment to speed-loader use. Many people who preferred wood grips to the Pachmayr style immediately sought the new cut-out grips to replace their earlier "footballs", casually swapping grips without a second thought.
Today it's obvious this stocks issue can cause a lot of confusion as so many people have bought and sold these guns through the years. A few still remain NIB but somewhere along the way the original grips were exchanged for cut-outs with the gun still being portrayed as "original". It's reasonable to accept a subsequent owner is convinced the gun is "as shipped" from S&W, when in fact someone, perhaps wanting to keep an exceptionally beautiful set of grips, swapped them for others..
The functionality of the speed-loader cutouts accelerated the grip changes and along with it the concern for grip "correctness" . The guns were sold or traded not considering or understanding there would ever be any concern about the "correctness" of the grips... after all, they're all original S&W production... right?
Soon after the "L's" began showing up so did the cut-outs on the "K" and "N" frames. I have two Mod 66-1s that actually went the other way with stocks. Each gun, one a 4" in the 39K serial range and the other a 6" in the 60K area were both delivered NIB with "footballs," well into the time frame when they should have been delivered with cut-outs... The two 66's were a LE order directly from S&W and the possibility they could have been changed somewhere in a distribution chain was nil....
I've heard so many people be absolutely positive their earlier S&W came with the cut-outs and I can fully understand how they came to their conclusions. I've only heard from a couple, however, who were the
original owners of their guns claim the guns were as delivered with cut-outs before the approximate 1980 arrival of the cut-outs...
Woulda been nice if the record keeping, production numbers, and other issues so important to "correctness" would have been kept through the years...
Just sayin' and JMHO
