Old M&P What's it worth?

[gunny4053]

A LGS has a firearm I might be interested in moving to my safe and I'm curious about it.

It appears to be an M&P, 6" pencil barrel, 1/2 penny front sight

(for lack of a better description), 38 S&W CTG on the barrel,

Cal 38 SPL on the frame, ser# 8831xx appears on the butt

and the back of the cylinder, it has a lanyard loop on the

butt,

sports what appears to be smooth service grips with no

medallions, the last patent date appearing on top of the

barrel is DEC.25.14, and it has an import mark on the right

side forward portion of the frame shown as FTR\MA55.

The guy at the shop seemed to think this may have been a British lease gun from around WWI. The timing and cylinder lockup is very good and the bore is clean, the finish is very good as well but, I think it may have been refinished (finish is a black oxide type finish with very little patina), with the only down side being the red nail polish someone put on the front sight. For $349, would it be worth sticking away for awhile?

Thanks for anything you can tell me.

 

[DCWilson]

The guy at the shop called it correctly. That's a British Service Revolver that probably shipped in 1941 before the US was formally involved in WWII. The finish is probably original. S&W made a lot of "parkerized" revolvers during the war, though it was their own process that they called black magic. The earliest BSRs (1940) were simply blued, but as the war advanced the company resorted to the more utilitarian finish.

The British guns chambered the .38 S&W round, not .38 Special. They called it the .38/200 as it came with a 200 gr. lead bullet. After the war, many of thse guns were converted to .38 Special and reimported to the US. The conversion often consisted of boring out the chambers a little deeper to take the longer cartridge. But since the .38 Special is of slightly smaller diameter than the .38 S&W, this left part of the case length not tightly supported, and .38 Special cases can swell or even, at worst, split when fired in converted revolvers.

Your gun was converted, so look into the chambers to see if they were sleeved before being bored for .38 Special. If you see two case-length rings, the original chambers were simply lengthened. You can still shoot .38 S&W in these guns safely. If the chambers were sleeved, then you can shoot .38 Special, and .38 S&W probably can't even be chambered any longer.

These military guns are sold in the $200-400 range depending on condition. The one you are looking at may be at the high end for a converted gun.

If you look up "Victory models" and "Pre-victory" in the forum search engine, you will find many threads about these guns. A six inch barrel is a little unusual. Most of the BSRs were five-inch guns, and the American models in .38 Special usually had four-inch barrels.

 

[gunny4053]

Thanks, Dave
It looks like they have it priced within reason and know what they have. I'll stop in there Monday and measure the barrel to make sure I got that part right. I may even make an offer and see where that leads.

I really am drawn to this gun, and if I could find an era and type correct holster, it would make an interesting conversation piece. Maybe a nice weekend shooter as well.

Thanks again
Dave Hanna

 

[Art Doc]

Bear in mind that if you don't load your own ammo the 38 S&W can be a bummer to shoot because the factory ammo can be hard to find and is not cheap when you do.

BTW- Does it look a little like this one?

 

[mikepriwer]

In my view, this is not a gun to put in a safe. Being a modified pre-
Victory, it has no significant collector value. If the chambers were
bored deeper, to accomodate 38 special, then its only a fair-to-midling
shooter, as it will probably exhibit problems with case expansion or
splitting.

Save your money, and find a decent Victory - preferably a Navy - and
that will be worth putting away.

Mike Priwer

 

[Texas Star]

I agree with Mike. These re-chambered guns are not collectible, and a postwar .38 Special is a better gun choice.

BTW, if you find a four-inch or six -inch British gun, it was probably originally blued, as were contemporary five-inchers.
Some were refinished after the war.

My brother had a six-inch 38-200. Nice gun, with a commercial finish. Those guns made prior to April, 1942 also had the usual checkered S&W grips with a silver medallion. They looked just like commercial guns, except that they had lanyard rings in the butt.

After April, 1942, only five-inch barrels were shipped, with dull gray finishes and more tool marks and with smooth walnut grips. (The Commonwealth Pattern M-37 web holsters were made for five-inch barrels.)

In his excellent WW II books, former paratrooper Donald R. Burgett mentions meeting a column of British tanks in Normandy. He said that the crews carried these S&W revolvers, which were probably more common than Webley or Enfield .38's. (Alas, that particular column later stopped to brew tea without taking adequate precautions, and a German attack slaughtered them.)

In all, well over 568,000 were made, although many have been destroyed or altered. A really nice one in original shape is a collector's gun. Both S&W collectors and British martial arms collectors might be interested.

But as shooting guns, their low power and the high cost and limited availibility of ammo place them below the same model originally made in.38 Special, and there are so many of those around that it's unwise to buy a converted UK example.

For roughly the same price, you can buy a used Model 64 that is not only a .38 Special, but stainless.