Inherited This .38 Special CTG From My Dad

[LEO918]

Stay thirsty my friend.

 

[The Hairy Beast]

Oh- ignore the beer in the background.

How can one ignore a Dos Equis? Now I'm thirsty, be right back! [/QUOTE]

Fair enough, then ignore the Coleman flask.

 

[Hawg Rider]

Actually a 5-screw???

In all the excitement discussing the grip modifications, no one corrected The Hairy Beast in his description of this revolver...this is a 5-screw, not a 4-screw. Isn't that a screw I see in front of the trigger guard, and 4 on the frame? Nice old six shooter, cherish it and pass it down to the kids.

 

[mkk41]

Cool and interesting old CTG!

 

[C Broad Arrow]

How can one ignore a Dos Equis? Now I'm thirsty, be right back!

Great piece of history, and as the ad says,"Stay thirsty my friend!".

 

[mjr]

That's really a fascinating modification--and your photos are excellent, BTW. Do you have any idea when this conversion was done?

 

[Dpris]

Rubber Stamp:
There is no such thing as a "CTG" Model. CTG is an abbreviation for cartridge. The barrel stamping is the caliber, not the model.
Denis

 

[The Hairy Beast]

Great gun and history; and it sure looks like the frame modification was done by a very skillful person. Question: did the modification eliminate the strain screw (it appears to be presently shimmed), or was that feature not present in these early M&P's?

No, there's a strain screw. Looks like they drilled and retapped the hole after adding the steel. Here's a closeup of the butt. You can see the screw. It's not apparent in the disassembled shots because I took the strain screw out accidentally when disassembling the grips.

 

[The Hairy Beast]

In all the excitement discussing the grip modifications, no one corrected The Hairy Beast in his description of this revolver...this is a 5-screw, not a 4-screw. Isn't that a screw I see in front of the trigger guard, and 4 on the frame? Nice old six shooter, cherish it and pass it down to the kids.

No, there is no screw ahead of the trigger guard, that's the first thing I looked for after reading the other CTG posts on this forum. I'll post a pic later, the gun's not handy right now.

 

[The Hairy Beast]

That's really a fascinating modification--and your photos are excellent, BTW. Do you have any idea when this conversion was done?

I've done some research and I'm re-thinking the provenance of the weapon. I now believe the mod happened in the late 1950's. My grandfather was a founding member of the NH chapter of the NRA and sometime around 1959-60 they were offered a deal from either the Army or maybe it was Smith & Wesson, to purchase WW1 Springfield rifles for practically nothing. They came packed in Cosmoline. We know my Grandfather purchased one 30.06 and so did my Uncle. I think he may have bought this revolver as well, because it's a Springfield too. So my guess is he modified it then, because my Uncle had the 30.06 he purchased re-blued and fitted with a hunting stock. It would make sense that Gramps sent the handgun along to have that refitted with a new butt at the same time, either because he'd just bought it or because he wanted to spruce up his old Army pistol.

 

[The Hairy Beast]

No screw ahead of the trigger guard:

 

[walnutred]

Outstanding revolver. If we were taking bets I'd put my money on the modifications being done pre-WW2 and maybe pre-WW1. Either way the worl was done by someone who knew how to use a file.

 

[mg357]

Nice s&w revolver

 

[Mk VII]

Large numbers of Springfields remaining in the Ordnance system were sold off to NRA members through the DCM in the 1950s and for some years they were very common and were endlessly modified for sporting purposes.
I doubt this revolver came out of the DCM as well, but it may indeed have been acquired around the same time and then 'modernised', it appears to be well done by a competent operator.

 

[Göring's S&W]

In all the excitement discussing the grip modifications, no one corrected The Hairy Beast in his description of this revolver...this is a 5-screw, not a 4-screw. Isn't that a screw I see in front of the trigger guard, and 4 on the frame?

As the hairy beast said, the gun is actually a 4 screw. It is referred to as a pre 5 screw 4 screw by collectors. We knew the gun was not a 5 screw since the 5 screw frame first appeared with the 1905 variation of the M&P, and so before then, they were 4 screw frames.

Do you think the wood grips are actual S@W grips from 1905 or later? If I hadn't been told to remove them I would have assumed they were original.

Well the one give away is that for the 1902 M&P, all were round butt. So since the grips are square butt, they automatically came from a later gun. I had a pic on my other computer that showed the K frame grip types through the years. Your gun originally had hard rubber, or it could have had special order grips such as mother of pearl, or ivory. For the 1905 square butt guns, DCWilson is correct. The first type of grip on the 1905s were the non-medallion, concave type, followed by your type, the large recessed medallion, followed by convex non medallion, and so on and so forth. I want to say that the recessed medallion grips first appeared around 1914 or so but I am not sure of that. They surely were gone by the 1920s as DCWilson pointed out. I have a pair on a 1905 M&P SN 253XXX which SN to the gun.

In addition, your gun was only made for a few years, with only 28,645 made, which is not very many for an M&P. I would venture to say there would be a considerable attrition rate for these given the purposes that many of these guns were bought and used for.

 

[JP@AK]

I want to say that the recessed medallion grips first appeared around 1914 or so but I am not sure of that.

About 1910 is the consensus. 1911 at the latest.
My 1902 Target is wearing a pair (non-original) and when Roy lettered the gun, he mentioned the stocks being post-1910.
Jack

 

[The Hairy Beast]

As the hairy beast said, the gun is actually a 4 screw. It is referred to as a pre 5 screw 4 screw by collectors. We knew the gun was not a 5 screw since the 5 screw frame first appeared with the 1905 variation of the M&P, and so before then, they were 4 screw frames.



Well the one give away is that for the 1902 M&P, all were round butt. So since the grips are square butt, they automatically came from a later gun. I had a pic on my other computer that showed the K frame grip types through the years. Your gun originally had hard rubber, or it could have had special order grips such as mother of pearl, or ivory. For the 1905 square butt guns, DCWilson is correct. The first type of grip on the 1905s were the non-medallion, concave type, followed by your type, the large recessed medallion, followed by convex non medallion, and so on and so forth. I want to say that the recessed medallion grips first appeared around 1914 or so but I am not sure of that. They surely were gone by the 1920s as DCWilson pointed out. I have a pair on a 1905 M&P SN 253XXX which SN to the gun.

In addition, your gun was only made for a few years, with only 28,645 made, which is not very many for an M&P. I would venture say there would be a considerable attrition rate for these given the purposes that many of these guns were bought and used for.

Thanks, now all I have to do is find bullets that fit it. Already discovered that .38 special rounds won't do. There were about 20 boxes of .38's in the safe (dated late 1950's) and none of them were of any use, although they did fit the 1956 pre-27 Not A HighwayPatrolman .357 I found in the collection.

 

[JP@AK]

Huh? They won't fit, how? They should chamber just fine. Are they too big around? Are you sure they are .38 Special and not .38 S&W?
This is puzzling.
Jack

 

[The Hairy Beast]

Huh? They won't fit, how? They should chamber just fine. Are they too big around? Are you sure they are .38 Special and not .38 S&W?
This is puzzling.
Jack

No, they are .38 special and they are too long. Can't close the cylinder.

 

[JP@AK]

Have you run a cleaning brush and patches through the charge holes? Perhaps they are just gummed up. That could be from shooting the old Colt's cartridges through it and not cleaning it thoroughly afterward.
I'd clean it carefully before I did anything else.
JP