Is there a way to research a revolver without getting a letter from S&W?

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I just purchased a 15-3 off the forum that has a bull barrel installed. It looks like a good start on a PPC gun. It does appear to be stainless steel, the lettering is crisp, it is not nickel. It has case colored trigger and hammer, and a blued extractor star. Most all of it's collector value is gone due to the modifications that were done in an irreversable way. It is stamped 15-3, ser. # 13K51XX. The stampings you would expect on the stainless model are not there. I've been told that the gun is from 1967, and it would not be old enough to be one of the twenty built in stainless. Assuming I'm correct about it being stainless, is there any explanation for this gun. I can not imagine they would stamp 15-3 on a model 67, and back date the serial number. Is there anything I'm missing here?
 
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You can get the date of birth up here but for all the information you need the letter. That is unless of course you have the original box with the factory writing and codes on it about what it was and what options it had on it and that still won't tell you to who and where it was shipped and on what exact day.
 
The 13K serial number prefix would suggest a 1977 manufacture. I would not expect to find a "bull" or heavy barrel on a 15-3 but I do have a factory 4" heavy barrel on a model 15-5. It was made in 1986 during the (1982 to 1991) timeframe when the model 14 was discontinued and the model 15 had to fill the void.

I certainly can't explain the stainless appearance . . . unless it was hard chromed. It's interesting though that whoever did the work left the hammer & trigger case colored and the extractor blue . . . as you would expect to find in a nickel finish.

Please post pictures if you can and perhaps folks here can see something that will help.

Russ
 
The bull barrel is aftermarket, and the crane has been modified for a detent. It would be difficult to put the gun back original. The previous owner dated it 1967, is 1977 correct? Definitely stamped 15-3, forward rear sight screw is above the forcing cone.
 
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The bull barrel is aftermarket, and the crane has been modified for a detent. It would be difficult to put the gun back original. The previous owner dated it 1967, is 1977 correct? Definitely stamped 15-3, forward rear sight screw is above the forcing cone.

The 13K prefix would be 1977 . . . the 15-3 started in 1967 and went to 1977 when the 15-4 was introduced.

Yes, the barrel is definitely aftermarket but I can't tell you much from the picture about the finish. There was an Armaloy finish that looks a lot like yours . . . but I'm no expert.

Russ
 
I found the date section in the SCSW, 77 for sure. Armaloy was an aftermarket finish? Would it have been applied under the sideplate as well? I just did a quick study on Armaloy, thin chromium plating. That would explain why it is under the sideplate. Does it look like stainless though? Parts of this gun a abrasive blasted parts are polished. I can see how you could do that with plating, but side by side with a stainless gun it looks the same.
 
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I found the date section in the SCSW, 77 for sure. Armaloy was an aftermarket finish? Would it have been applied under the sideplate as well?

Armoloy is a hard chrome finish, and the entire gun would be finished with the hard chrome, including screws, pins, barrel, cylinder, etc., so the sideplate and entire frame would have the finish too.

As a side note, Armoloy is a very durable finish which resists rusting very well. I had a backup gun and an off duty gun done in Armoloy, and never worried about them rusting. I wish I still had them.:(
 
Have you tried sticking a magnet to the frame? A magnet won't stick to Stainless. It will to steel.
Just a thought.

Wing master
 
Wingmaster, have you actually tried that? It does not work that way... A magnet will in fact stick to stainless steel. Kyle
 
Have you tried sticking a magnet to the frame? A magnet won't stick to Stainless. It will to steel.
Just a thought.

Wing master

Wingmaster, have you actually tried that? It does not work that way... A magnet will in fact stick to stainless steel. Kyle

You guys are both right. The "stainless" steel used by gun companies would be more honestly marketed as stain resistant or something like that. For guns they need easily machined steel so they don't use the higher cromium stainless steels that a magnet won't stick to.
 
From what I can see in the pictures I think the side plate shows signs of buffing around the edges. That would indicate to me a re-plating job. There are numerous plating finishes and several look like stainless. With that PPC bull barrel on it I would bet it was stainless barrel, and they finished the blued gun to match the barrel. Should be a good shooter, most of the PPC guns would hold a > 3" group at 50 yards.
 
Make sure you check the mechanics, a lot of those serious PPC guys also had "training" guns, to keep the 10's of thousands of rounds off their "competition" guns.

Either way, a lot of the PPC guns have been shot to death........my dealer showed me a Model 10 that had been "PPC'd" and the price was right, I asked to check it out and the thing was totally loose. Endshake and sideplay galore, and it barely carried into lockup. That thing must have seen 100,000 rounds or more.
 
I have a mod. 49 that was hard chromed my favorite carry revolver. And i got it for a good price because it didn't have it's original finish.
 
So do the plated finishes like Armaloy accurately duplicate the look of a stainless S&W? I haven't seen any hard chrome plating jobs that could pull that off. Robar looks (is) like a paint finish, no mistaking it for brushed stainless. Nickel always looks a little gold-ish. I've found out the barrel is chrome-moly from Clark Custom, so I'm pretty sure the gun is plated. Wouldn't the plating fill in the lettering a bit? All the stampings remain crisp, even the S&W logo on the side cover.
 
So do the plated finishes like Armaloy accurately duplicate the look of a stainless S&W? I haven't seen any hard chrome plating jobs that could pull that off. Robar looks (is) like a paint finish, no mistaking it for brushed stainless. Nickel always looks a little gold-ish. I've found out the barrel is chrome-moly from Clark Custom, so I'm pretty sure the gun is plated. Wouldn't the plating fill in the lettering a bit? All the stampings remain crisp, even the S&W logo on the side cover.

Armaloy and similiar "flash chrome" finishes are famous for being extremely thin. They don't fill in lettering noticeably. Nickel is a different color but I have fooled myself into thinking a chrome plated 1911 was stainless until examining the inside of its frame. After realizing I'd too quickly jumped to the assumption that it was stainless I could see a very slight color difference. Some chromed revolvers look so much like stainless that threads claiming a non-stainless revolver is a rare stainless collectors item get repetitive.

Edit to add: The silver colored hammers and triggers formerly used by S&W were usually called "stainless" and a lot of us thought they were stainless before reading that they were flash chromed.
 
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