A couple weekends ago I bought a 4013 at the gun show. It was on the table of a dealer I'd bought from before who usually only has new guns. It had the factory box, (3) mags, but no papers, was in good shape showing little use & with a good finish. Being a near identical "smaller brother" to the 4516-1 I got a few months ago I was immediately attracted to it, plus it had a fair price. I didn't try to remove the slide (good thing, because this is the hardest slide stop to get out) because they were really busy, but from what I saw it looked good. After a minute, I realized that it also had night sights too. In checking the box's label's details it dawned on me that it said "Used Gun" on the factory label ?? Then I recalled something I had read before mentioning these guns.
Did some searching & found a few posts on "Used Guns" but it seems there are several different ideas on why these guns are so labeled. Some reasons suggested are: demo gun, training aid gun, surplus from cancelled contract, or returned from a law enforcement agency for any number of reasons. It wouldn't seem as likely, but I image a situation could arise on an individual's sale that the factory would offer to take the gun back, in exchange for another gun, to satisfy a customer. Apparently, once the gun is "refurbished" for resale, they stamp a "U" on the trigger guard.
The "Used Gun" label was placed over the original factory label & didn't have all the info normally on one. I tried my trick of heating up the label with a hair dryer to separate the two. It almost worked but the top label slowly started to split & then the bottom label's glue softened up to where it started lifting up too so I removed them both from the box. Between what I could see from where I separated the labels & holding the composite up to the light to read thru them, I was able to see that the original label said: Fixed Sights, "03", Spec Ord#: 5143 (May-1995), & Prod Code: 108524. The Used label doesn't list the Spec Ord#, or anything about the sights, & the Prod Code is 608524. I believe this Prod Code# is for "Used Guns" only. Since neither label mentions Night Sights, I'm assuming they were added when it was refurbished. The rear sight appears to be the (taller?) .478" one of the two listed. The year code on the rear night sight (all three are very dim) is "95" so (again I'm assuming) it seems everything happened in the same year the gun was originally made, 1995. Looking at the S&W parts catalog, the Night Sights are listed as an optional item with a combined total of $180. No idea what they charged extra over the base gun price originally though.
Being the later version of the 4013 produced (Rev.4, "03") it has the double/nested springs & (R3?) wider hood. Disassembled the gun & it cleaned up easily & everything looked good with little visible wear. Added a set of Hogue grips, replaced the hammer & firing pin springs with some new ones from Wolff, that I already had. Will have to order new recoil springs though. Took it to the indoor range & it ran flawlessly with the various reloads (three different type bullets & four different powders) on-hand. It even liked the 170gr LSWC load using Longshot that my 4006 was finicky with. Accuracy with this, as in my 4516-1, was very good for a compact. They're very surprising guns! And at just 27oz. empty, it's a good carry weight.
So all in all, it's another happy addition to my, apparently, growing 3rd Gen collection.
If anybody knows more, or has first-hand info about these "Used Guns", chim in.
.
4013 left side
(-01a)
.
4013 "U" stamp
(-04a)
.
4013 rear view
(-03a)
.
4013 box label
(-01a)
.
Did some searching & found a few posts on "Used Guns" but it seems there are several different ideas on why these guns are so labeled. Some reasons suggested are: demo gun, training aid gun, surplus from cancelled contract, or returned from a law enforcement agency for any number of reasons. It wouldn't seem as likely, but I image a situation could arise on an individual's sale that the factory would offer to take the gun back, in exchange for another gun, to satisfy a customer. Apparently, once the gun is "refurbished" for resale, they stamp a "U" on the trigger guard.
The "Used Gun" label was placed over the original factory label & didn't have all the info normally on one. I tried my trick of heating up the label with a hair dryer to separate the two. It almost worked but the top label slowly started to split & then the bottom label's glue softened up to where it started lifting up too so I removed them both from the box. Between what I could see from where I separated the labels & holding the composite up to the light to read thru them, I was able to see that the original label said: Fixed Sights, "03", Spec Ord#: 5143 (May-1995), & Prod Code: 108524. The Used label doesn't list the Spec Ord#, or anything about the sights, & the Prod Code is 608524. I believe this Prod Code# is for "Used Guns" only. Since neither label mentions Night Sights, I'm assuming they were added when it was refurbished. The rear sight appears to be the (taller?) .478" one of the two listed. The year code on the rear night sight (all three are very dim) is "95" so (again I'm assuming) it seems everything happened in the same year the gun was originally made, 1995. Looking at the S&W parts catalog, the Night Sights are listed as an optional item with a combined total of $180. No idea what they charged extra over the base gun price originally though.
Being the later version of the 4013 produced (Rev.4, "03") it has the double/nested springs & (R3?) wider hood. Disassembled the gun & it cleaned up easily & everything looked good with little visible wear. Added a set of Hogue grips, replaced the hammer & firing pin springs with some new ones from Wolff, that I already had. Will have to order new recoil springs though. Took it to the indoor range & it ran flawlessly with the various reloads (three different type bullets & four different powders) on-hand. It even liked the 170gr LSWC load using Longshot that my 4006 was finicky with. Accuracy with this, as in my 4516-1, was very good for a compact. They're very surprising guns! And at just 27oz. empty, it's a good carry weight.
So all in all, it's another happy addition to my, apparently, growing 3rd Gen collection.
If anybody knows more, or has first-hand info about these "Used Guns", chim in.
.
4013 left side
(-01a)
.
4013 "U" stamp
(-04a)
.
4013 rear view
(-03a)
.
4013 box label
(-01a)
.
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