King Plain Ramp pinned on?

[Maxadur]

My apologies to Dan M for using his picture, but his great pre-27 illustrates my question: the Baughman sight appears integral to the King plain ramp, and the ramp appears to be double-pinned to the barrel. Is this correct, and if it is, can someone tell me when the manufacturer began machining the barrel, ramp, and sight in one piece?

Thank you kindly, Gerry

 

[Maxadur]

My apologies to Dan M for using his picture, but his great pre-27 illustrates my question: the Baughman sight appears integral to the King plain ramp, and the ramp appears to be double-pinned to the barrel. Is this correct, and if it is, can someone tell me when the manufacturer began machining the barrel, ramp, and sight in one piece?

Thank you kindly, Gerry

 

[Maxadur]

OK, Here's the picture..........

 

[29aholic]

I think they started maching the pins flush close to the time they started model marking guns. Then at some point in the 60's (maybe early 70's) the ramp becam a machine part of the barrel and the blade was pinned in. When the P&R era ended the whole sight became a machined part of the barrel.
On the pinned sight guns it may also have been limited to those models that could have come with optional sights. The reason I say that is my 1961 M-28 the ramp and sight blade is a machined part of the barrel, but my later 27-2 and 29-2 guns the blade is pinned to the ramp (70's guns)

 

[Doc44]

The ramp was forged with the barrel and the front sight blade pinned to it with a single pin on the Model 29 with a 6 1/2-inch barrel in around 1967 at serial number S270000 (estimate).

The change was made on 4-inch and 8 3/8-inch Model 29-2s in 1972/73.

I suppose the change for the other models was also made in the late 60s, but that is a guess on my part and probably depends on the production volumes of each model.

Bill

 

[Gun 4 Fun]

On my '68 made M-57 the blade and ramp are definately all one piece, and it is pinned to the barrel rib with two pins. Is/was this a common practice also? On my '68 made 27-2, the ramp is pinned to the barrel via two pins, and the blade is pinned to the ramp via one pin.

 

[Doc44]

G4F...Yes, that is how S&W made their front sights (ramp and blade one piece (for the model 29, 57, 19, 53, at least) pinned to the barrel with two pins on N/K-frame target revolvers until the ramp was forged with the barrel and the front sight blade pinned to it with a single pin...late 60s to early 70s).

The .357 Magnum and 1950 Target revolvers had two piece front sights. Blade and ramp separate, pinned with a single pin, ramp pinned to the barrel with two pins...sometimes polished flush to the rib, sometimes left exposed...like on Dan's .357. This is why you had a choice of any blade on the .357 Magnum. You could pin any blade to the ramp. Hope this makes sense

.

Bill

 

[Gun 4 Fun]

It made perfect sense Bill. I thought that I had read that here before, but wasn't sure. There are so many variables with Smith, I find it hard to keep it all straight sometimes.

This really is an interesting place to hang out.

 

[DHENRY]

In my experience, the protruding, rounded sight-base pins seem to be most-prevalent on the 1953, 1954 and 1955 .357's.
Roy explained the difference in the 'flat pin' vs. 'flush pin' as simply a random change in the sequence of fitting/polishing the separate sight-bases.
Don