Personally, I won't buy any without a heat treated cylinder, but you collector guys won't shoot it, anyway!
Won't shoot it!! Why not? Like the one below?
I am from Michigan, but often feel that I should be from Missouri, the "Show Me" state. What I am always interested in is why people form opinions and what is the basis for these opinions? I would like to see just one example of a blown cylinder on a pre-1915 S&W. Or show one document that non-hardened cylinders were a problem?
Heat treating is not and was not a simple cut and dry process over 110 years ago. Many references to early heat treatments of various steels ended with enough embrittlement to cause the part to break due to the fact that heat treatment can easily end up with a more brittle and weaker part than non-hardened steel. It is known that, during heat treating, the part becomes stronger, but more brittle. Part of the value of the type of steel used in firearms is the ability to withstand shock loading and that means that the steel has to be somewhat ductile. Heat treating by nature, makes steel less ductile. Bottom line is that heat treatment has limits and the improvement in strength is not that great.
Standard structural steel tensile strength in 1910 was 55,000 psi to 65,000 psi without heat treating. 38 Special SAAMI limits are still 17,000 psi. Heat treating most likely added maybe 10% to those numbers to keep the steel from becoming too brittle. Most proof loads are only 25% higher than operating pressures, while a few were as high as 2X and still well below tensile strength limits.
So why did the company do this? One very plausible reason was that cylinders made before heat treating had cylinder stop shims inserted and that was a costly feature. Heat treating was a viable option to remove the shims and much cheaper. Second, the US Military required the Model 1917 to have heat treated cylinders, continuing to push the company in the direction of heat treating everything.
