New to me 10-5 3"

skyraider

skyraider

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It took awhile but I finally found my new carry gun: a M10-5 3" that was manufactured in 1974 or thereabouts. All-in-all, it's in very good condition.

The bluing is mostly intact with just some high point wear and a little wear on the muzzle tip on both sides. Under very bright flourescent lighting the barrel and cylinder are a tiny bit different color of blue. The barrel and cylinder are slightly more gray than the frame. There is no evidence that it has been refinished.

The grips are not original to the gun. They don't have a serial # stamped on the inside of the right grip and they don't fit the gun as well as most magnas do.

Mechanically it seems excellent and the bore looks great. As soon as I get an opportunity I'll take it to the range and post a report.

Any observations and opinions are welcome.

Have a terrific weekend,

Paul Moore
Colorado Springs CO
 

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Very nice. It's a fairly early 3" model 10 (a few made in the late 1950s excluded), and as you noted the stocks are from a slightly later K frame; the correct type would have a wider checkered area.

I have fairly often observed the barrel and cylinder on a revolver being a slightly different shade of blue than the rest of the gun. The parts for a given gun were supposed to be blued at the same time for a color match, so I don't know if the metal of the different parts just take the blue differently. Enjoy!
 
Congrats! That should make a very good carry gun.
I saw one at a local pawn shop a couple of years ago. It looked like new but they were very proud of it.
 
Nice gun.

Didn't all of the 10-5 guns come with tapered barrels? Maybe it is the photo but that doesn't look like a tapered barrel.

Bill
 
murphydog said:
Very nice. It's a fairly early 3" model 10 (a few made in the late 1950s excluded), and as you noted the stocks are from a slightly later K frame; the correct type would have a wider checkered area.

I have fairly often observed the barrel and cylinder on a revolver being a slightly different shade of blue than the rest of the gun. The parts for a given gun were supposed to be blued at the same time for a color match, so I don't know if the metal of the different parts just take the blue differently. Enjoy!
Click to expand...

Murphydog, you are absolutely correct. The grips are too narrow for the frame. I've got another pair of K frame sq butt magnas that I will check tonight and see if they fit better.

Paul Moore
 
Dot_mdb said:
Nice gun.

Didn't all of the 10-5 guns come with tapered barrels? Maybe it is the photo but that doesn't look like a tapered barrel.

Bill
Click to expand...

It has a subtle taper, like 3" model 36s had before the -1. I think most call this style the "heavy" barrel, and the later the "bull" barrel. There is a thread here with an excellent side-by-side photo of the model 36s for comparison.
 
murphydog said:
It has a subtle taper, like 3" model 36s had before the -1. I think most call this style the "heavy" barrel, and the later the "bull" barrel. There is a thread here with an excellent side-by-side photo of the model 36s for comparison.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Considering the difference in the barrel shapes I think it is possible that my 4" with the tapered barrel doesn't weigh any more than the 3" version.

Bill
 
The Victoria (Australia) police purchased 3" model 10s with this type of tapered barrel many years ago.
Yours liiks similar to these.
Recently, they were traded back to S&W when that force went to M&P40s. Bud's had a lot of them. Most had replacement or mismatched stocks.
Mine even arrived in a M&P box.
Nice guns, carried lots, apparently seldom fired. Mine:
10-5.jpg
 
thanks

Thanks for all the great info. I didn't know about the different levels of barrel taper. I've heard of tapered, heavy and bull barrels, but wasn't sure about the specifics of the terminology.

Thanks for the photo of the ex Victoria gun. It looks exactly like mine! Are there any markings on it that I should look for on mine? The only thing I found on it that I haven't observed on my other S&W revolvers is a small, faint stamped circle or "o" on the left side of the frame hidden by the left grip.

Paul
 
TAROMAN said:
The Victoria (Australia) police purchased 3" model 10s with this type of tapered barrel many years ago.
Yours liiks similar to these.
Recently, they were traded back to S&W when that force went to M&P40s. Bud's had a lot of them. Most had replacement or mismatched stocks.
Mine even arrived in a M&P box.
Nice guns, carried lots, apparently seldom fired. Mine:
10-5.jpg
Click to expand...

Do you mind giving out the first 4 digits of your serial #? I'd like to see how close to mine it is. Mine's D6243XX (I would have posted the entire # but I forgot the last two digits).

Paul
 
Nothing like the excitement of finally finding what you have been searching for, is there? Congrats on a great pistol and may it always serve you flawlessly.
 
skyraider said:
Thanks for the photo of the ex Victoria gun. It looks exactly like mine! Are there any markings on it that I should look for on mine? The only thing I found on it that I haven't observed on my other S&W revolvers is a small, faint stamped circle or "o" on the left side of the frame hidden by the left grip.
Paul
Click to expand...

The Victoria Police Armoury revolvers all appear to have had a micro-barcode inventory sticker on the sideplate.
Most folks removed these immediately.
Chose to leave mine intact, as its part of the gun's history:
vpa.jpg
 
Thanks to everyone for all the great information. Two of my good friends live near Melbourne in Victoria, AU. One of them has a son who is a member of the Victoria Police force. His son is very aware of the revolvers that were traded back in to S&W and he is going to see if he can track my serial # to one of those trade in guns. It's not really a valuable gun, so I'd get information from my friend's son regarding my M10-5's serial # than pay for a letter from S&W. If he says it was not a Victoria Police gun, I may pay for a letter. There weren't that many 3" Model 10's made during the pinned barrel era, and it would be interesting to know it's history.

Paul
 
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