S&W never offered the .38 Regulation Police in anything other than a four-inch barrel, as far as I have been able to determine. But last week I bought this barrel from Larry Poppert.
An honest to gosh six-inch I-frame barrel in .38 caliber that has been marked as a barrel would be when installed on a .38 Regulation Police. (Reminder: the .32 Regulation Police did not carry a model label on its barrel.)
This barrel shows expected signs of prewar manufacture: It has the patent dates on the barrel top (last patent 1914) and is notched for the '30s style large ejector rod knob.
Interestingly, the front sight has been modified to take a removable blade, as though this was going to be installed on a gun with adjustable sights. The fixed blade has been ground off, and the base channeled and drilled for the separate blade. To be candid, the prep work for the front sight is not very good. The top of the base is rough and the bevels on each side do not match very well. Also, the pin hole seems quite large for a sight pin.
The muzzle crown looks a little rough, too. It could have used a little more work before this piece went into the bluing tank.
The roll markings are a little shallow, with the caliber designation almost unreadable. If you look close you can see the curve of either the three or the eight in "38" just under the U in "REGULATION."
The forcing cone is the shortest forcing cone I have ever seen, with the rifling lands coming almost to the breech end of the barrel. Even so, the walls of the breech end are only .04" thick, so I can see why the barrel maker did not try to push his luck with the milling.
The barrel was apparently never installed on a frame. The threads do not show the groove you would see if the barrel had ever been pinned in place. The flat underside of the barrel is unmarked.
I don't have a prewar .38 RP to model this barrel next to, but here's the barrel lined up next to a postwar transitional .38 Regulation Police with a round butt. (I'm still waiting on the letter that will tell me what this model should be called. Round butt I-frame .38s have two-inch barrels and are called .38/32 Terriers; I-frame .38s called Regulation Police have square butts; this gun is neither fish nor fowl, but the company seems to have made and sold at least a few hundred of them.)
It's kind of cool to think that the company might have made a Target .38 Regulation Police for someone on a special order basis. The story I made up about this barrel is that it was a first effort rejected by an inspector when it was drawing close to completion. That ought to mean there is a better one out there, maybe installed on a very interesting revolver.
An honest to gosh six-inch I-frame barrel in .38 caliber that has been marked as a barrel would be when installed on a .38 Regulation Police. (Reminder: the .32 Regulation Police did not carry a model label on its barrel.)
This barrel shows expected signs of prewar manufacture: It has the patent dates on the barrel top (last patent 1914) and is notched for the '30s style large ejector rod knob.
Interestingly, the front sight has been modified to take a removable blade, as though this was going to be installed on a gun with adjustable sights. The fixed blade has been ground off, and the base channeled and drilled for the separate blade. To be candid, the prep work for the front sight is not very good. The top of the base is rough and the bevels on each side do not match very well. Also, the pin hole seems quite large for a sight pin.
The muzzle crown looks a little rough, too. It could have used a little more work before this piece went into the bluing tank.
The roll markings are a little shallow, with the caliber designation almost unreadable. If you look close you can see the curve of either the three or the eight in "38" just under the U in "REGULATION."
The forcing cone is the shortest forcing cone I have ever seen, with the rifling lands coming almost to the breech end of the barrel. Even so, the walls of the breech end are only .04" thick, so I can see why the barrel maker did not try to push his luck with the milling.
The barrel was apparently never installed on a frame. The threads do not show the groove you would see if the barrel had ever been pinned in place. The flat underside of the barrel is unmarked.
I don't have a prewar .38 RP to model this barrel next to, but here's the barrel lined up next to a postwar transitional .38 Regulation Police with a round butt. (I'm still waiting on the letter that will tell me what this model should be called. Round butt I-frame .38s have two-inch barrels and are called .38/32 Terriers; I-frame .38s called Regulation Police have square butts; this gun is neither fish nor fowl, but the company seems to have made and sold at least a few hundred of them.)
It's kind of cool to think that the company might have made a Target .38 Regulation Police for someone on a special order basis. The story I made up about this barrel is that it was a first effort rejected by an inspector when it was drawing close to completion. That ought to mean there is a better one out there, maybe installed on a very interesting revolver.
