I've added a few more pics to this post and thank all of you who've made comments or sent me a pm on this odd ball of a 29-1. Today is the 20th anniversary of my becoming a S&W forum member so I wanted to make a posting for no other reason, really, than I'm just glad to still be here 20 years later! As for S179706, I've had to accept that there is no definitive answer(s) but there are a few possibilities that others who know have suggested could have been what happened with this particular revolver. Here are a few:
1. The unfinished serial number frame could have been set aside in the frame department and was found a couple years later and it was just put back in production and finished. The problem with this thought is the gun's serial number suggests a gun produced in 1958 on a 4-screw frame. This gun is a three screw,
2. It could have been a blow-up, or a seriously damaged frame sent back to the factory where the company policy was to rebuild the revolver in the Customer Service Department. There, they would stamp the original serial number on the revolver to keep from going through the red tape of registering the revolver. Maybe?
3. S179706 was a replacement gun for an earlier 44 magnum with the same serial number that was taken out of service for whatever reason. But if this was the case there would have been another invoice for the original gun being replaced and the one dated in 1962 is the only one that's turned up.
The gun has all the earmarks of a 1962/63 29-1 in every way except for the forward barrel roll markings which were made in the S170000-S206000 range beginning in 1958. All 29-1s to date don't show up until the S219xxx-S230xxx range and were produced from 1962-63 in less than a year before the first 29-2s rolled off the line.
I've put S179706 alongside S228956 for comparison purposes. Notice the frame numbers are only 111 guns apart, (30311-30422). S228956 shipped in Sept,1962, three months earlier than S179706. That's not unusual though.
Could this be a cobbled together gun to fill a one-gun order? Maybe, we all know by now that S&W didn't throw anything away so to fill the order they had to go scrounging for the parts. Whatever the reason, the gun is what it is and has been fun to speculate on.
Thanks for any further thoughts if you have them.
Chuck
1. The unfinished serial number frame could have been set aside in the frame department and was found a couple years later and it was just put back in production and finished. The problem with this thought is the gun's serial number suggests a gun produced in 1958 on a 4-screw frame. This gun is a three screw,
2. It could have been a blow-up, or a seriously damaged frame sent back to the factory where the company policy was to rebuild the revolver in the Customer Service Department. There, they would stamp the original serial number on the revolver to keep from going through the red tape of registering the revolver. Maybe?
3. S179706 was a replacement gun for an earlier 44 magnum with the same serial number that was taken out of service for whatever reason. But if this was the case there would have been another invoice for the original gun being replaced and the one dated in 1962 is the only one that's turned up.
The gun has all the earmarks of a 1962/63 29-1 in every way except for the forward barrel roll markings which were made in the S170000-S206000 range beginning in 1958. All 29-1s to date don't show up until the S219xxx-S230xxx range and were produced from 1962-63 in less than a year before the first 29-2s rolled off the line.
I've put S179706 alongside S228956 for comparison purposes. Notice the frame numbers are only 111 guns apart, (30311-30422). S228956 shipped in Sept,1962, three months earlier than S179706. That's not unusual though.
Could this be a cobbled together gun to fill a one-gun order? Maybe, we all know by now that S&W didn't throw anything away so to fill the order they had to go scrounging for the parts. Whatever the reason, the gun is what it is and has been fun to speculate on.
Thanks for any further thoughts if you have them.
Chuck
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