Please help me identify my gun

[Mike C.]

Please help me identify the approximate age and info about the life my new revolver has had.


It's a solid frame hand ejector, with no model number (only assembly number behind the yoke.


The serial number is printed in the opposite direction from what I expected. It's 88877, with no letters anywhere. It's chambered in .38 S.&W. Special & U.S. Service Ctg's, per the left side of the barrel.


Speaking of the barrel, it's 5" from the cylinder face to the tip.


It has fixed sights.


Further info, though probably not needed: it has a strain relief screw and is a 5 screw model with no Lanyard Ring.

 

[mh51]

Its a .38 M&P model 1905, 1st change. Made in the range from 1906-1909. Someone else maybe able to narrow it down. Only way to get an accurate ship date is to get a letter from the S&W Historical Foundation.
Nice piece of history!

 

[4K2022]

Nice, round butt. Old one for sure I’d have to call it a 1902.

 

[Truckman]

Likely its caretaker was a left-handed shooter...And if he was a poker player, those 8's over 7's were a pretty good hand to hold in any game......Ben

 

[RM Vivas]

1906 gun I'd say. Lots of character there.

Best,
RM Vivas

 

[Hawg Rider]

Welcome to the Forum! That's a nice vintage M&P revolver you have. I took the liberty of flipping the pics around for you for a better look. There were millions of M&Ps manufactured over the decades, so they are not rare or particularly valuable, but these early ones are pretty cool. Enjoy!

 

[gunbarrel]

HawgRider, meaning no disrespect, I was able to enlarge them a tad more on my phone. Touch them twice. Hope this is O.K.

 

[rct269]

Well, so far so good---you have two choices already: Post #2 and #3.

Take #2---and that "1st change" business is collector speak telling you they messed with some stuff inside---under the sideplate---all of which is itemized in some books you can buy (or borrow from a better library). Then too, you can ask about it here---and take your chances. (You'll get the answer here, but sometimes like this time you'll get more than one, and you're right back where you started.)

Ralph Tremaine

 

[Hondo44]

Welcome to the forum!

The serial number reads correctly with the muzzle to right until 1942. After that it reads with the muzzle to the left.

 

[JP@AK]

Call it what you like. When it left the factory, it would have been advertised as a Model of 1902. All of the round butt units were at that time (until WWI).

With that serial number, it probably left the factory in about 1907.

Pretty well preserved and seems to have its original hard rubber stocks.

 

[glowe]

The 1907 S&W catalog shows what the company called these revolvers (shown below). They were not yet Military & Police guns and you will not find that name used in catalogs until the 1910s. They were simply called 38 Military revolvers, Model 1902 or Model 1905. The introduction of the K frame revolver in 1899 was all about military contracts. They stated this in their 1900 catalog:

"This is a strictly military arm built to stand hard service"


1907 S&W Catalog

I prefer the company naming convention, but those who follow the books written by Roper & McHenry or Neal & Jinks will see a different naming convention based on engineering changes. "38 Hand Ejector, Military & Police Model 1905, First Change" applied to both round and square butt guns. Roper and McHenry wrote the first such book outlining all changes made through the early years of the K frame. The reason for the naming convention came from the fact that Roper was in charge of the Service Department and came up with a way to index parts by engineering changes. Apparently, the authors copied the labels on the drawers and devised the change numbers and serial number ranges for each such design/engineering change. Adopted by Neal and Jinks some 20 plus years later. Apparently no one found an engineering change for the square butt revolvers? Jinks did state that "the most important change made to the 38 M&P occurred in 1904 when the firm introduced the square butt configuration."

 

[DWalt]

Collectors often get out in the tall grass when discussing nomenclature and things like “changes.” All you really need to know is that you have a .38 Military, Model 1902. Its principal identifier is its rounded butt. The Model 1905 differs mainly in its having a square butt. Notice that yours has the so-called dual caliber barrel stamping. The “U. S. Service CTG” is actually a cartridge called the .38 Long Colt. It was an earlier and slightly shorter predecessor of the .38 S&W Special cartridge, and indeed it was the official U. S. Military revolver cartridge used from the early 1890s and remained in limited service even during the WWI period for some applications. It is a semi-obsolete cartridge today. As the only dimensional difference between the .38 Long Colt and .38 S&W Special cartridges is case length, your revolver can safely use both, but you are unlikely to find any .38 Long Colt ammunition today. That dual caliber barrel stamping ceased use at a serial number a little greater than 100000. A final item. S&W stopped using the 1902 and 1905 nomenclature for K-frame revolvers around 1915. Thereafter, all were called Military and Police (M&P) revolvers, either round butt or square butt.