S&W manufactured two variants of the 37MM gas guns, which were grossly modified N frames or guns that looked like N frames but were top break, single barrel weapons with N frame dimension grips and some N frame lock work. They were both single shot launchers and they could be fired either double action or single action to launch charges of colored smoke, tear gasses and other chemical clouds to cause the crowds to cease their disorderly deeds and disolve their groups and formations of activists.
Kid Sopris' photo is the longer version, which has a buttstock, and is referred to in SCS&W III as a S&W Model 209/276, and is intended to be shoulder-fired, using 12 guage shotgun shells to launch the larger chemical charge capsules.
The other variant was the same mechanism, but had a shorter, 7-1/2 inch barrel and the same N frame hammer and trigger mechanism in a device held by an N frame pistol grip. It was the S&W Model 209/277 gas pistol, complimenting the longer, more carbine-like Model 209/276 shoulder-fired gas gun, which fired, one-at-a-time, the same 37MM gas and smoke projectiles.
My example is a Model 209/276 carbine from which someone has removed the buttstock and added a nicely figured, "football" Goncala Alves target stock. I would like to restore it with an original buttstock, if someone would please be so kind.
S&W also produced a similar design known as a "line throwing gun" that, rather than hurling gas projectiles in social situations, had the ability to throw a long, torpedo-shaped hard foam and wooden plug with a light rope or strong line attached to it, which was fired from one sailer on a ship or pier to another sailer on a second ship, in order to allow sailors to attach heavier lines to the thrown lines to bring the ships together or bring a ship to the pier, when weather was too rough to allow hand-thrown lines to be sufficient to gain and maintain contact. The Line Gun was known as the Model 270 Pyrotex. Mine has a nice pair of N frame walnut 'football' relieved target stocks, a grooved service trigger and a hammer with the checkered thumb platform about twice the width of the hammer's body. The barrel is 15 inches long with about a 1 and 7/8 inch bore. There is a handle for the off hand, made of 3/4 inch strap iron holding a nice round rosewood handle, 4 inches long and an inch thick, at an angle 2 to 3 inches above the barrel.
The line-carrying projectile is a multi-component affair painted blaze orange. The main portion is a metal tube of 1-5/8 inch diameter that slides down inside the laucher's barrel. This tube continues forward into the 11 inch long foam plastic nosecone, tapering from 3 inches to 3-1/2 inches then down to a bluntly rounded nose. Two 11 inch rods are affixed to the collar of the shaft, at 180 degrees to each other. They are ended with integrel loops, to which braided steel cables are looped through and crimped into place. The braided steel cable is then attached to the "heaving line".
The projectile is loaded into the barrel of the gun. A 12 ga. shotgun shell, possibly having just powder and wadding, is inserted into the breech of the opened barrel, which is then closed and latched shut.
With the left hand holding the handle on the barrel's top strap to establish elevation and direction, the right hand grasps the stock in a firing position and can shoot the mechanism double action or thumb-cocked and single action. The projectile soars over the target, towing a line attached to a heavier line. As the projectile comes down, sailors can grab this line and, "Heave Ho!" draw the ship to the pier or the ship to the ship or whatever.
Interesting devices, all.
