Help with another identification please

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tro55

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Hello all,new here so thanks for having me.I had this 38 in my safe about five years and just started admiring it couple days ago.I'm sure you guys can help me from browsing so far. Would like to know model and year and all around info.Maybe an approx value.
Heres what I know. 38 s+w ctg, ser #688719, 4" barrel,matching #s on frame,barrel and cylinder. Did not check grips.Has a lanyard loop. Just inquisitive about it,as its pretty good shape.Thanks for looking. Tro.
 

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Welcome to the forums from the cotton and peanut covered plains of the Wiregrass! That is a WWII .38 Military & Police British Service Revolver likely shipped in 1940. The grips are from the 1920's. It was originally chambered for .38 S&W but likely has been reamed for .38 Special. If you can chamber a .38 Special round, it has. If you don't have a cartridge to test with, post a picture looking into the cylinder from the rear with lighting in front so we can see into the chambers. We can usually tell if it has been modified.

BTW, it has a 5" barrel measured from front of cylinder to muzzle.
 
Wiregrassguy said:
Welcome to the forums from the cotton and peanut covered plains of the Wiregrass! That is a WWII .38 Military & Police British Service Revolver likely shipped in 1940. The grips are from the 1920's. It was originally chambered for .38 S&W but likely has been reamed for .38 Special. If you can chamber a .38 Special round, it has. If you don't have a cartridge to test with, post a picture looking into the cylinder from the rear with lighting in front so we can see into the chambers. We can usually tell if it has been modified.

BTW, it has a 5" barrel measured from front of cylinder to muzzle.
Click to expand...
I'm, curious. What's the give away that it's a British service revolver? I am always amazed at how easily you can identify these sort of old revolvers.
 
from what I learned browsing here,the barrel is 4"( I did measure)and shows in a pic 38 s+w ctg,which means a 38 s+w cartridge w/matching serial.Both s+w38 and 38 special work in it.I fired it when I got it and have the ancient ammo with it.I will pull the grips if I must But I truly believe it to be original.
 
If it chambers BOTH cartridges it has been modified. I have heard that a small number of the BSRs were made with 4" barrels but I can't remember where I heard that from. Could be B.S. A fair number of them were cut down to 2" barrels but I have never heard of one being cut down from 5" to 4". The exact positioning of the markings on the barrel might tell the tale in that regard.
 
tro55 said:
from what I learned browsing here,the barrel is 4"( I did measure)and shows in a pic 38 s+w ctg,which means a 38 s+w cartridge w/matching serial.Both s+w38 and 38 special work in it.I fired it when I got it and have the ancient ammo with it.I will pull the grips if I must But I truly believe it to be original.
Click to expand...
If it shoots .38 Special, it has been modified which is kinda sad, but common....It looks like it may have been refinished long ago. Look closely for import marks, but it probably came back across the pond in the 1950's/60's
 
I could not get a true serial lookup,don't yall think this is just a US 38 s+w m+p from late 20's to 30's according serial. The group said the public could buy m+p anytime. What year does the serial suggest? And what model is it?
 
Here are some KNOWN BSR's with serials around yours and ship dates. Note the first 2 are documented with 4" barrels.

Serial 686697 .38 M&P, 3rd Model (1905), 4th Change .38/200 S&W (200 gr. bullet) 4 Blue 5/3/1940 Only marks is ''BNP''
Serial 686718 .38/200 British Service (1905-4th) (K-200) .38/200 S&W (200 gr. bullet) 4 Blue 5/3/1940 Pre-Victory model; lanyard ring; British proof marks on frame, cylinder & barrel; checkered diamond silver medallion stocks
Serial 690876 .38/200 British Service (1905-4th) (K-200) .38 S&W (200 gr. bullet) 7/8/1940
 
You guy making me believe.Took grips off,very faint pencil marks that look like V1194 but its a stretch. But the frame by the bottom has a B stamped on it.Also under the trade mark r/s I see EG US Pat OFF. Interesting.
 
tro55 said:
I could not get a true serial lookup, don't yall think this is just a US 38 s+w m+p from late 20's to 30's according serial.
Click to expand...
Not with that cartridge stamp. The M&P wasn't produced for the .38 S&W until that move was necessitated by the needs of the UK.

Guy's serial information in Post #12 is icing on the cake.
 
They were just about at the end of commercial production by 1940, but I found a 38 M&P Target (below) that shipped in August 1940, #696317. Stocks are not matching, and from an early post-WWII gun. Your stocks are from another gun as well.

There were a few different calibers of the same K frame in that time period. The factory just started production of their first K22 Masterpiece revolvers in 1940, but it was a short production run. They were in serial number range 682420 to 696952. Only just over 1,000 were made.

IMG_20221124_153700.jpg
 
There were a couple of outfits, Parker Hale being one of them, that did really good conversions of those revolvers, including sleeved cylinder bores. All of those I have seen photos of had ramped front sights like the one above.
 
So in summary,according to the 688xxx serial this a BSR that was reworked before coming back to states? Someone put 20's stocks on it? What model and year can I say it is. Now in post #15 the serial is in range of that K22 masterpiece.Is it worth getting factory letter?
 
.38/200 British Service Revolver (Model K200)
Caliber: 38 S&W with 200-grain bullet. Double-action revolver built on the square butt K-frame with 5-screws. It is identical to the .38 Hand Ejector 1905 4th Model and the Victory Model in a different caliber. It is available with 4", 5", or 6" pinned barrel lengths, and a six-shot fluted cylinder at a nominal length of 1.56". It is available in bright blue, sandblast brush blue, or sandblast Black Magic finish. It has a 1/10" round-blade front sight and notch-cut rear service sights, with a square butt frame with checkered diamond walnut grips and S&W monograms for the commercial version, smooth walnut without monograms with lanyard ring for the military service version.

Supica, Jim; Nahas, Richard. Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 5th Edition (p. 573). Gun Digest Media. Kindle Edition.
Click to expand...

1940
 
Very cool information,funny my pics make it look rough.In hand it looks to be the sandblast black magic in good condition for age.Thank you Guy and all who helped.How about a value?
 
I have personally not seen one, but as I previously mentioned, early in the war the Brits were buying up whatever revolvers they could find, even sometimes from US retailers and distributors. In some cases, they would buy commercial M&Ps chambered in .38 Special, then just run a .38 S&W reamer into the chambers. Very simple. You may very well have one of those rechambered commercial .38 Special M&Ps bought in the US by the British Purchasing Commission in 1940.
 
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DWalt,the barrel on mine doesnt show special,just 38 s&w. 4" serial matching.
Rebcop,only mark I see is B on frame under r/s grip.Would that be proof?
Are the sizes different between 38/200,38 s&w and 38 special. DWalt said special reamed to S&w? It is s&w!
 
tro55 said:
Are the sizes different between 38/200,38 s&w and 38 special. DWalt said special reamed to S&w? It is s&w!
Click to expand...
.38/200 and .38 S&W are the same cartridge with different weight bullets. They are a shorter but larger in diameter cartridge than .38 S&W Special. In order for .38 Special to insert into a cylinder originally chambered for .38/200/S&W, the shoulder in the chamber has to be moved toward the front of the cylinder. That is done by reaming the chamber deeper.

The .38/200/S&W cartridge was the British military cartridge. If the British accquired .38 Special-chambered guns, they would have to ream the chambers larger in diameter so their cartridges would insert.
 
Just to clarify ammunition terminology, the .38 S&W cartridge goes back well into the 19th Century, and is one of the earliest American center fire metallic cartridges of the black powder era. It has a slightly larger case diameter than the later .38 S&W Special cartridge, which also has a longer case. The two are generally not interchangeable in the same chamber. The early .38 S&W cartridge in the USA was usually loaded with a 146 grain lead bullet. After WWI, the British decided to replace their .455 military revolvers with something smaller. So what the British did was to take the American .38 S&W cartridge and substitute a 200 grain lead bullet for the old American 146 grain lead bullet. And they then renamed the cartridge as the ".380 Revolver, Mark I." It was NEVER officially called the .38/200 by them. Later on, the laws of armed conflict were rewritten and codified under the so-called Hague Convention. Thereafter, the use of expanding lead bullets in warfare was verboten, as being "too cruel." To comply with The Hague Convention dictates, the 200 grain lead bullet was then replaced by a 178 grain FMJ bullet, and, in time for WWII, the cartridge was renamed by the British as the ".380 Revolver, Mark II.". The Official Commonwealth military nomenclature for the S&W M&P revolver of WWII was actually the "Pistol, Revolver, Smith and Wesson, No. 2," No. 2 meaning .38 caliber. Not sure what the Tommies called it unofficially. Could have been .38/200, could have been K-200, maybe even others. Probably not the Victory Model, which was also unofficial.
 
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tro55 said:
DWalt,the barrel on mine doesnt show special,just 38 s&w. 4" serial matching.
Rebcop,only mark I see is B on frame under r/s grip.Would that be proof?
Are the sizes different between 38/200,38 s&w and 38 special. DWalt said special reamed to S&w? It is s&w!
Click to expand...
What I do not understand is why the barrel apparently lacks the normal factory-applied caliber stamp on its side. I cannot think of a good explanation unless S&W was somehow supplying such barrels to British armories. Never heard of that.
 
DWalt said:
What I do not understand is why the barrel apparently lacks the normal factory-applied caliber stamp on its side . . .
Click to expand...
Just noticed this. The OP's first post shows the barrel and it is stamped. His picture is below. I thought all guns in the
early shipments to the UK and Commonwealth countries early in the war were Lend-Lease? If so, since they were to be returned to the US, were the normally not proofed?

647720-a9707b0afa3d569d31d4e8aaef9ec10e.jpeg
 
I dont have much money in it,gonna get a letter cause I want to. No markings on it at all except B under R/S grip. With Glowes chart looks like more 4"ers went to africa than UK. We're all over the place with my 688xxx serial.
 
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