New to Me Pre-war .22/32 Kit Gun (NOW WITH MORE PHOTOS)

[DCWilson]

EDITED 7/11/2009: FACTORY LETTER SHOWS THIS GUN WAS SHIPPED TO ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH IN NEW YORK CITY ON JUNE 14, 1940. IT WAS ONE OF TWO IDENTICALLY CONFIGURED KIT GUNS THAT WENT TO A&C IN THAT SHIPMENT. THE WHOLESALE PRICE WAS $20.95 PER UNIT.

EDITED 4/30/09: NEW PHOTOS POSTED LOWER ON THIS PAGE.

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I never thought I'd lose my heart to something this small, but once I saw it I had to have it. Today I gave them their money, and I get the gun in 10 days. California!

.22/32 Kit Gun, Pre-war. S/N 533556. Four inch barrel. Silver medallions on diamond RB grips. Backstrap is non-rebated.

I would call this 98%, but I am not a professional rater and would entertain other opinions. There is a little muzzle wear, and there is a light turn ring. Everything else looks extremely fresh to me. This gun has apparently been fired very little.

Crummy lighting, I know. These are horrible direct-flash grab shots from my pocket camera. I'll put up better photos when the gun is in my possession.

An uncommon gun in great condition -- what's not to like? This one blew a huge hole in my 2009 acquisition budget. But I can be a whim buyer, and this one told me it wanted to go live at my house. I didn't feel like arguing.

No box, alas. I know it was shipped in June, 1940. Not bad shape for a nearly 70-year old gun.

David Wilson

(Edited for typos and punctuation, and for picture update message.)

 

[Hendricks]

Great gun. It,s a shame there not cheep.

 

[BlackAgnes]

Looks like a very good find! Mine has the rebated frame and is in similar condition. I think these pre-war Kit Guns are excellent investments, and fun to own, too!

Tim

 

[Nimrod44]

Very nice, mine is ser# 533480 but not near as nice as yours. Congrats on a neat gun.

 

[Jebus35745]

Nice catch. I never saw a pre-war kit gun at the shows. Would be a nice addition to any collection. Larry

 

[j38]

Nice find, David! Just think about what was going on in the world when that little kit gun was going out the factory door...

I would say your estimate of finish couldn't be far off. That's a real sweetheart of a gun. Enjoy.

Jerry

 

[DWFAN]

They kinda stole my heart on a few occasions also. You bought one so now you are doomed. The I frame was probably the most popular concealed carry gun in it's time. I'm sure someone will let me know how many were produced.

Enjoy them they're fun.
DW

 

[mikepriwer]

Here is a couple more pictures of 22/32 Kit guns. This first one was made up for
Congressman Cecil King:

This next one I spotted in the on-line auction catalog:

Both of these guns have the NRA, or step-out, front sight blade.

Regards, Mike Priwer

 

[digi-shots]

David,

Nice find! I think I'm going to have to find one to add to my collection.

Linda
S&WCA #1965

 

[DCWilson]

Originally posted by DWFAN:
I'm sure someone will let me know how many were produced.

I can't tell you about I-frames in general, but I looked into the pre-war Kit Guns. There weren't many. SCSW says that the 1935-1941 Kit Gun production went out under the serial numbers 525670 - 536684; at most, that's 11,014 units.

But I have looked at several reported serial numbers for these pre-war kit guns, and at least two numbers in this range are on revolvers with six-inch barrels. That should make them Large Frame Target models rather than kit guns. It's tough to do statistics with small sample sets, but two out of 18 surveyed guns suggests that about 10 percent of the serial numbers may be on .22/32 LFTs rather than KGs.

I have looked for but not found any Pre-war KGs outside of the range printed in SCSW.

But with respect to the published range: I have not yet seen a record for a known gun in the 525xxx, 526xxx, 527xxx or 528xxx serial number ranges. Nor at the other end have I seen a recorded serial number in the 535xxx and 536xxx ranges. Were these ranges even used? If not, there might be only 6000 numbers used out of this entire range, and if one tenth of them do not have the defining four-inch barrel, the total production of what I would consider a Pre-war Kit Gun could be only 5400 or so.

Since these seem to have been considered knockabout guns -- throw it in the tackle box, stuff it in the carrypack with the cooking utensils and camping tools -- I would not be surprised if a lot of them got beat up, badly rusted, or even lost overboard.

So if there are only 2000-3000 of these prewar KGs left for interested collectors, I can see why the prices run $3000 or more for a really good specimen and over $1000 for a lowly "frankengun" made of parts with mismatched serial numbers.

I haven't done any number crunching on the postwar transitional models. And I also haven't looked at the J-frame KGs because I consider them a different animal, though they inhabit the same ecological niche as their pre-war predecessors. I am really just trying to understand the few pre-war KGs made in the late 1930s and early '40s. My interest is completely self-serving since I now own one of these guns.

If anybody has a .22/32 numbered in one of the unpopulated ranges I mentioned above, please let me know. Also, let me point out that the 529xxx unit I know about was shipped in 1936, supposedly the first year; could the company really have sold 3000 units of this model in its first year of production? If so, where are they?

David W.

(Edited 4/30/09 to correct error in earliest known S/N and restate possible maximum production.)

 

[BlackAgnes]

Mine is Serial # 5312XX and was shipped August of 1938.

I think you're on the right track, David, regarding the paucity of these guns. I've been haunting gun shops and gun shows for 40 years, and mine is the first pre-war kit gun I'd ever seen in the flesh;I found it last year.

As to just where these guns are, your observations regarding their intended use and the mishaps that would naturally befall them is compelling. Also, the factory may have made far fewer than the serial number ranges suggest.

Interesting. I imagine that anyone with first-hand knowledge about production numbers of these guns is long dead.

Tim

 

[DCWilson]

Yesterday I picked up the gun described in the original post in this thread, and it is in better condition that I had recalled. What I remembered as slight defects from my inspection in the dark shop turned out to be mostly grime and dust. A simply oily-cloth wiping took these presumed blemishes right off. I actually think this can be considered a 99% gun.

A slideshow, and then some comments:

Yeah, I know. I have to set up a real light box rather than continue improvising with overhead fluorescents. That's going to be one of my summer projects.

The action on this gun is a little stiff; the DA pull is harder than I think it ought to be. Grime and dried-up lubricants are likely to be the culprits. One of these days soon I will take the side plate off, clean everything out and re-lube it.

The gun has been fired, but I can't imagine more than a box of .22 LR ammo went through it, if even that much. The barrel and chambers, which are shiny and unpitted, had been adequately cleaned after firing; but there was carbon residue at both front and back faces of the cylinder and on the frame near the forcing cone. This cleaned right off with a nylon bristle brush.

The finish is a beautiful high-polish black in good shape everywhere except for some thinning at three and nine o'clock near the muzzle. The bluing on the ejector rod, which tends to get scratched up on these guns, is in excellent shape.

These Pre-war Kit Guns are extremely uncommon. Some collectors have pointed out to me in private emails that we have more Registered Magnums that we do Pre-War .22/32 Kit Guns. Some have suggested to me that fewer than 1000 of this particular model were made, and even fewer of the post-war transitional Kit Guns. I'm keeping an open mind about that; it seems to me we may be seeing a situation in which a larger production run (say 5000 total) was followed by a higher than normal loss rate. By "loss" I mean not just really lost, like fell out of a pocket in the woods or succumbed to neglect. I suspect that several hundred are just "locally lost," hidden away in a trunk with Great Grandfather Alfred's wartime memorabilia or stored in the attic with the unsorted boxes that nobody really looked in after Aunt Mabel's estate was settled in 1965.

I continue to collect serial numbers for these prewar guns and invite forum members to share information about their Pre-war Kit Guns with me -- anything between S/Ns 529000 and 535000 is of interest. Even guns in this range with six-inch barrels are of interest because they might be converted Kit Guns if they are not (as seems likelier) target frame .22/32s that slipped into the Kit Gun serial number range.

There are also known pre-war "honorary kit guns." These are guns that were originally six-inch target (Bekeart) models, but were factory fitted with a shorter barrel at a later date. These can be identified because their serial numbers lie outside the range I mentioned above.

I can't believe my good fortune in stumbling across this gun. It just goes to show that you need to look at the consignment shelf of every gun store you pass -- especially the small privately owned operations.

David Wilson

 

[RKmesa]

David:

Very nice gun and the stocks on that particular gun are stunning...

 

[29aholic]

Very nice David

I believe your rating is pretty close.

Is your front sight marked Kings by any chance?

I know of one in the 54XXX range that has two barrels, a 4" and a 6", with the 4" on the gun. Both barrels number to the gun. One barrel has a King sight on it. I would rate it at just under yours. Best I can remember it has hard rubber grips on it. Now you got me thinking

 

[DCWilson]

Originally posted by 29aholic:

Is your front sight marked Kings by any chance?

It's not marked as a King sight. This looks like the standard company-installed Patridge sight that I see in photos of other pre-war KGs. I haven't actually held or even seen any KG other than mine, so I guess there could be subtle differences that I don't know about.

David

 

[DCWilson]

And a final note on this gun for the time being: I just took the sideplate off for probably the first time since it left the factory and cleaned out the dust and crud embedded in a thin hard matrix of dried pre-war lubricants that covered most of the interior surfaces. The shiny parts are now shiny again, the moving parts move without the drag they evidenced two days ago, and the whole thing feels a whole lot better. The SA trigger pull is still light, but now the release is positive rather than sticky; the DA trigger pull is still heavy, but the feel is spring heavy rather than drag heavy.

Happy!

David W.

 

[smithman29]

DCWilson: Thats got to be the finest pre-war .22 kit gun I ever laid eyes on. Congratulations on an outstanding find.
My own example, #5311XX, probably rates around 85% original bright blue, having seen substantially more use than yours. It has a few different features from yours. Its backstrap is rebated and it wears square bottom Regulation Police type diamond walnut stocks with silver medallions, like Black Agnes' pictured example. Patent dates located on top of barrel differ as mine reads FEB 6, O6; SEPT. 14, O9; DEC. 28, 14. Also its substantially smaller diameter S&W logo is located on the left side of the frame below the cylinder latch instead of the larger one on the sideplate like yours. I do have the same Patridge front sight as yours. Also the action is very tight and stiff as you describe.
Seems odd that S&W would make so many changes on this low production madel in such a compressed timeframe.
Anyway thank you for your excellent post with its super detailed pictures as I always enjoy reading about this model.

 

[Hammerless-12]

DCWilson, That sure is one beatiful revolver. You can really take excelent pictures also. Good to see your post. Take care from Iowa.

 

[renaissance7697]

What does the "32" in 22/32 stand for ?


[email protected]

 

[Nimrod44]

It's built on a .32 frame. The first ones were 6" guns called .22/.32 Targets, then they offered a 4" that was known as a Kit Gun. Someone please correct me if this isn't right.