HELP: Mystery 39

[DCW]

I dig it. I like the relieved trigger guard and shortened beavertail. Your rear sight looks like an MMC adjustable. If it has a white outline, it is exactly like the one I have on my 59.

Check and double check. Good one!

Thanks for your time, Koz.

 

[DCW]

Bobbed, beveled, and smoothed (backstrap). What's not to like? Awesome personalized 39!! Whoever did it, did it right. Beautiful pistol. Period.

Thanks Grif (but for a moment there I coulda swore I was listening to a plastique surgeon).

DC

 

[DCW]

Looks like nice work, very understated. I wonder if there is anything under the grips that would give any clues.

Many a good reply and thought came in, yours might've topped 'em all, Ron.

Here is a first, "faraway" look:

Then a second, closer look (added with a little deja vu all over again as I'm working on this. Too few hours; too much work.):

The above, both of 'em, had to be "just so" for the camera to actually pick up the initials "GPJ" (took the better art of Saturday) located under the left grip, adjoining the lower grip-screw bushing. Note that GPJ evidently didn't much care for the nature of the S&W bushings, securing his with a little bit of welding (for a lack of proper wording, if any).

I saw and purchased this 39 because I just couldn't see letting it go, otherwise. I'd been on a tear of sorts, buying a good number of weaponry of late as the tail end of the selling frenzy (such things happen in every market known to mankind) that followed the housing implosion (good ol' Barney, and I ain't talking "purple dinosaur") and, then, of course, each time President Obama threatened this or that to gun holders. I take such words seriously, but some take the same position on slim pickin's. It's kinda like the ol' steak taste on a hamburger budget, thing. At some point, something's gotta give.

I got a lot of good deals while providing cash flow to those who needed it but I, too, had reached the point of stretching, already blowing my budget for the month, when I crossed paths with this beauty.

Once seen, once passed, a week later I returned hoping that the 39 hadn't yet gone elsewhere. It hadn't and I jumped on it like flies on stink.

And here we are, months later, working it. And I'm appreciative of the help. I did a lot of stuff on this thing - even finding "GPJ's" initials on the gun's first tear down - but hit dead-ends on it.

However, beyond GPJ having signed his work, it's some damn good work - that goes beyond looks.

When finally getting it out to the local official gun range, I locked it down on the bench because I wished to know how it did, not how I did.

When at seven yards with five rounds it produced a 1.5" group I felt little need to stay there any more. So we went out to 25' and 50' and at each nothing less but "excellent" groupings were produced (now, if only I could learn to shoot as well!).

Tired, tired, tired. Just hit a wall. More later this week. In the meantime, please keep thinking of what might be done to find the guy who crafted this art piece.

Thanks a million!

DC

 

[DCW]

Other than the sights and the cut down safety lever, I'd say that's a nice package. Although it may not be practical, the slimmed trigger guard adds a unique frisson. It's been a long time since I handled a -39. Didn't they also come with a grooved front grip?

Mosey on over to the S&W Forum's members' photo albums to see what else was added Sunday to the Mystery 39 album - and take in a few others while you're there. Some good stuff to be found.

if anyone doesn't like blind links, here's an obvious one: Smith & Wesson Forum - Recently Updated Albums


DC

 

[dacoontz]

I think I just noticed another slight modification. The front of the slide looks to have had a bit of material removed from the cut out making it a little larger portion and creating a large curve, or am I just seeing things.

And DC, good to see you here on the forum. It certainly is a small world.

 

[DCW]

Nice piece. Is it ALL steel?

No Sir, just the slide, and in stainless steel.

Now the mystery of mysteries in this gun is that stainless wasn't introduced in the 9mm S&W semi-auto handgun arena until the 639 was introduced in 1982. Steel was used in S&W guns often enough before then (really, I came up with that one all by myownself; really proud, too) but stainless steel, largely due to stainless-on-stainless friction known as "galling" wasn't comfortably introduced into the semi's until the early 1980's when stainless steelmakers forged (get it? Forged? I just slay me sometimes!) a metallurgy whose composition was able to overcome galling or similar effects.

Thanks for "tuning in."

DC

 

[DCW]

Other than the sights and the cut down safety lever, I'd say that's a nice package. Although it may not be practical, the slimmed trigger guard adds a unique frisson. It's been a long time since I handled a -39. Didn't they also come with a grooved front grip?

In the area of what's often known as the "Front Strap?" Or, put another way: That area located below the trigger that spans a grip's frontal portion between the forward most material of right and left grips?

Insofar as I'm aware fore and/or aft vertically grooved grip straps were not utilized on the 39 or 39-2 models, even though the two models did employ a crosshatched replaceable back gripstrap.

With respect to S&W manufacturing a fixed fore or aft grip strap employing vertical grooves, such was first introduced in the Model 59, it's front and rear grip straps being grooved beginning in 1972, excepting a small number (200) which got none at all.

An unknown but believed likewise small-in-number group of Model 59 handguns got either a bare front strap with a grooved back strap or vice-versa.

I personally believe that grooved back/front strap was among Smith & Wesson's more poorly thought through manufacturing techniques inasmuch as many an otherwise pristine 59 have often had backstraps and frontstraps missing significant levels of bluing that is not similarly matched on balance by the remainder of the handgun. I've got one: A never-fired 59 that truly is pristine . . . except for its $#&*^@!# back straps.

Fore and aft crosshatching - that is grooves which met at right angles with other grooves - were found in a number of second and third-generation semi-auto handguns.

 

[DCW]

Before I get into this continuing mystery, here's a word from our sponsors: Smith & Wesson Forum.

Yep. One and the same.

Should one look at what's beneath the hood at S&WF, the numbers are astounding. Just the sheer volume of "incoming" leads one to believe that this here forum is THE place to go for Smith & Wesson discussions, facts and information.

Okay, this member has established the forum is "cool" and, by logical extension, its members are cool. And the coolest of those? The guys who pay to be a part of the scene, whether sponsors (advertisers) or Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze Members, who pony up buttercup. Money, that is.

This Web service just ain't cheap. So tell sponsors you saw them on S&WF and spend money with them. Buy a sponsorship, too. For about 33-cents a day you'll get space on a server for all your neat S&W pictures and a gold bar symbol (like mine) that gets stashed alongside your name. Be really cool and go "platinum."

But, whatever you do, go for it. Everyone will appreciate it and, in the final analysis, you'll be cool. K?

 

[DCW]

I can't think that there was any slide made in stainless that had the long 39 no-dash extractor. By the time the 539 and 639 came along, the short extractor designs were in use.

Exactly! Look at a 39's "PAT'S PENDING" and it'll be to the rear of the ejection port. That is one of the first things that caught my eyes on this slide because it's a primary test I use to gauge the COMPLETE authenticity of a model 39.

So then my eyes went rearward still farther and lo and behold, here's a long extractor! As does Bruce B agree, we know such does not belong on a shiny object - any shiny Smith & Wesson object. So, what's it doing on this shiny object?

"Of that there is no doubt" it's stainless and I stay with the observation if nothing else but because I've worked with, been around stainless so much in my life it's not hard to spot.

First and foremost, there's the chromium that stainless must contain for it to be "stainless steel" at all. Chromium, the stuff from whence "chrome" - real chrome - comes, shines regardless of whether it is buffed. Yes, it's a tad duller. But ounce for ounce it outshines carbon steel with nary an effort - outside of a slide or inside that same slide. And this one slide is shining in places wholly inconvenient to buffing . . . or "Mothers" products.

It was said long extractor that caught my eye and provided the first real clue that here was something more to this device than initially met the eye. It was something a gunsmith lovingly guided with careful hands, fine tools and sharp eyes.

As nearly any "expert" will say with either a hint of condescension or a guffaw, "The problem with the old 39 was the extractor. They too easily broke."

Exquisitely machined, the 39's long extractor is one of the greatest designs within a great design: Serving as its own spring, when that extractor - easily twice the width of that which would replace it - bit into brass it didn't let loose of it util it was ready to be flung three feet away.

But break they did, though such breakage as often as not came at the heel of the extractor where it keyed into a slot just ahead of a corresponding safety tumbler and tensioned all around it, not just itself.

Under heavy and constant strain, this area was a hand-fitted point that required a level of repetitive patience and expertise that even the best of gunsmiths were hard pressed to meet given the demands of the assembly line.

Its replacement in the 39-2 would be a measly sized piece of metal secured by a pin and rocked by a coiled spring that would rarely break, if ever at all.

With it, Smith & Wesson not only solved a problem caused by a rushed assembly and the want of not screwing up an entire, more costly slide, but they were able to speed the assembly line as well.

There being no inherent fault found in the want of producing something more simply and at a greater pace . . . unless lamenting an ever-declining need for men who as much crafted what their hands would touch as assemble pre-fitted parts.

On the matter at hand, there is a true gunsmith who recognized the elegance in design of that original extractor and who wished to take the time in its replication, knowing that if properly crafted, that extractor is the better for the jobs it performs, hands down.

Ah, not only does a week of earnest work beckon, but so, too, the dawn.

Later.

DC

 

[BruceB]

I'm not convinced that you have a stainless slide.

It exhibits all the features of the later production no-dash 39 steel slide, with the forward serrations, "Pat's Pending" moved to under the ejection port, the long extractor, and it still has the old style rear sight. I think a new stainless slide modified for a long extractor as you suggested would not have all those details.

Here's an old 39 no-dash thread with some examples of later slides. model 39 non 2 picture thread. The third post in that thread has a 39 only 100 #s away from yours.

 

[DCW]

A couple of observations, for what they're worth (not much!):

1. That gun was sold on GunPoker.com a few months ago.

2. The modification to the trigger guard is exactly how Bill Jordan modified the TGs on his revolvers.

3. I would be shocked--SHOCKED--if that slide is actually stainless steel. What makes you say "there is no doubt?"

Hey Kevin, I attempted use of that above link and I got an "It's available" as in "the domain is available for purchase" (for an amount I'm willing to spend on a gun but not for a domain).(Well, that particular domain.)

On Monday while picking up a transfer 39 "rescue" (if one can do so with dogs, why not mistreated 39's?) I proceeded to reveal some details of the 39 in question, telling him of the changes to the weapon, particularly with respect to the craftsman's attention to "snag free" efforts, then asked if he might know someone whose initials are "GPJ" and found under the lower left-hand grip.

He stopped his scribbling on my 33rd 2013 multiple-answer citizenry test, settled back in his chair and said, "George Paul Jones" and went on to describe Mr. Jones' work (primarily 1911's and of the same nature I'd described). I'm returning to the store with the Mystery 39 today.

Who would've thunk it? As fellow forum member dacoontz wrote herein, "It's a small world."

 

[DCW]

I'm not convinced that you have a stainless slide.

It exhibits all the features of the later production no-dash 39 steel slide, with the forward serrations, "Pat's Pending" moved to under the ejection port, the long extractor, and it still has the old style rear sight. I think a new stainless slide modified for a long extractor as you suggested would not have all those details.

Here's an old 39 no-dash thread with some examples of later slides. model 39 non 2 picture thread. The third post in that thread has a 39 only 100 #s away from yours.

Bruce B I like the "old 39 no-dash thread" suggestion, one of the style of suggestions I hoped would be passed along by longer-standing members would remember having seen or in which they participated. Indeed, yet another thread about the Illinois State Police's use of the 39 is invaluable historical reference due to the participation of one of their members. Such threads feed my love of learning as few other things can.

With apologies to the thread for going waaaay off-topic: I noted you're a "Coastie" (if you'll forgive the informality). A late, former very good buddy of mine, Ned Wagner, one of the gentlest giants I've ever known, served in Vietnam on a PBR.

For years people had the gall and audacity, whether officially or otherwise, to challenge his Vietnam service even though he was a well-respected bank president.

He's been gone for more than twenty years now but I still miss him, terribly so.

Nevertheless, know that I appreciate your sacrifices, Sir.

 

[flagman1776]

The extractor absolutely defines the slide as early pre or 39 no dash. I happen to own a NIB 39 no dash. It's quite apparent your 39 was customized... and then some sort of hard chrome finish applied. There were several who did this kind of work back in the day & it not unusual for it to be mistaken for a Stainless part. In the era before SS gun making, this was the finest finish that could be applied to a handgun. I'm too forgetful now but Armaloy was one brand name. You have a fine custom gun.

 

[dogsoldier]

If memory serves me, S&W made a VERY limited number of STAINLESS double-stacked, M39-based 9MM autos (Hushpuppy) during the Vietnam War (so stainless slides DID exist prior to M639/659). They were suppressed and intended for VC canine eradication.

 

[kwill1911]

If memory serves me, S&W made a VERY limited number of STAINLESS double-stacked, M39-based 9MM autos (Hushpuppy) during the Vietnam War (so stainless slides DID exist prior to M639/659). They were suppressed and intended for VC canine eradication.

There were exactly 18 of those, none of which have ever been seen in public hands and which had other modifications which would have made it impossible to convert into the slide we see on the pistol in question. Good memory but I don't think it's relevant.