Help with 5 Screw ID

[louisianacook]

Hi Everyone,

I just inherited a pretty rough 5 screw from a family member that passed away...

I tried looking it up in the book, but came to no solid conclusion.

It appears that it was re-plated at some point by the finish of the hammer and trigger...

S/N is 8529XX

It also has some British proof marks and "ENGLAND" stamped on the cylinder. Appears it is all matching gun by the numbers on the cylinder frame etc.

Please take a look at the pics, and thanks in advance!

Lee

 

[louisianacook]

Last Pic in the series.

 

[P&R Fan]

Looks to be a Military and Police (Pre M10) from about 1941 or 1942.
The "England" marks may mean it was a lend-lease gun. I may be wrong on that and if so I'm sure I will be corrected.

 

[Art Doc]

Looks like a British proofed Military and Police from 1939-1940. The guns built for Great Britain were mostly 5" guns in 38 S&W but they were buying whatever they could get and this looks like one they bought.

The ejector rod looks funny for some reason.

Poorly nickel plated. It was originally blued.

 

[louisianacook]

I was curious about that as well. After flipping through the S&W catalog I didn't see another like it. Yeah, shame it was plated, but I'm planning on shooting in any case. Is modern, non+P .38 Special ammo ok for this gun?

 

[DCWilson]

Modern .38 Special ammo will be fine as long as you stay away from the hotter loads or +P cartridges. (The gun would not explode if you shot the heftier rounds, but as a steady diet they could stretch the metal a little and beat up the gun a little more than it is already.

The ejector rod is OK except for the fact the knurling has been almost completely polished off the knob.

Interesting that it is a .38 Special revolver that seems to have gone to England, where the .38 Special was not accepted as a standard round. Look in the cylinder and see if there is a faint ring a little bit behind the ledge for the length of the .38 Special cartridge. That would indicate that an existing .38 Special gun was modified to fire .38/200 British military cartridges. (This seems to have happened on rare occasions; usually it went the other way.)

With that serial number the gun would have shipped in 1941.

Let me see if we can exclude a remote possibility. Is there a letter S on the butt in front of the serial number? It may be separated by several spaces and look like a separate marking. And is there a hole in the butt where a lanyard loop would have been mounted?

 

[Art Doc]

+P is a mild load. If you want to pay for it go ahead and shoot it.

Don't make me go through all this again...

 

[louisianacook]

I didn't recall seeing an "S" or any other prefix on the butt. Ill take a pic of the butt area, maybe I missed something.

Thanks for the confirm on the .38 special loads. I'll definitely stay away from the +P stuff.

 

[louisianacook]

Here are some additional pics of the cylinder gas etchings and the butt area. Looks like a lanyard ring was attached at some point no?