S&W 6944 with stainless slide

[halbstarke]

Hi I am new here and wanted to see if I could do research on a 6944 I recently bought. It is serial # TVD057_. This serial # is higher than listed 0558. The pistol is alloy black frame and has a stainless slide. The TVD prefix must mean something. It is also stamped DSC Prescott Az on the frame- maybe Davidson's in Prescott Az? Guy who sold to me got it in Pa. years ago.
Any info appreciated-thanks

 

[HCH]

You either have a rare, priceless S&W variant or a gun cobbled together with spare parts. It just doesn't add up.

Forth digit is type of material

3 = aluminum frame, stainless steel slide
4 = aluminum frame, carbon steel slide
5 = carbon steel frame and slide
6 = stainless steel frame and slide
7 = stainless steel frame, carbon steel slide
0 = Aluminum/Scandium alloy

 

[t-bird]

Hi I am new here and wanted to see if I could do research on a 6944 I recently bought. It is serial # TVD057_. This serial # is higher than listed 0558. The pistol is alloy black frame and has a stainless slide. The TVD prefix must mean something. It is also stamped DSC Prescott Az on the frame- maybe Davidson's in Prescott Az? Guy who sold to me got it in Pa. years ago.
Any info appreciated-thanks

Would love to see some pics of your 6944.

 

[pmosley]

Mine has verbiage to the effect that the that the frame and slide must match - this is written on both components. Does yours have this statement one both, one or neither?

 

[BLUEBELLYYANKEE]

halbstarke,

We gotta see pictures of this one! Please post a picture of each side of the gun.

 

[halbstarke]

I can take pics on Wednesday night and post them. Batteries dead. I too wondered if a stainless slide was swapped (cobbled) onto this gun. I will ask the seller about it, older guy-he is from NJ then PA to Il. Came to deer hunt here till the end. I also thought it might be a special order for a police dept. or something like that. I have gun buyers guides and I was not able to find it so it led me to this forum. I got it for a sweet 250 so he could buy a Beretta P40 Storm. Was dirty but I had a smile as I disassembled and cleaned it up. The bore is very good. He sold it to me after I returned from a gun show in central Illinois. What a day.

 

[halbstarke]

The numbering system you refer to is model numbering. 6944 is 69=9mm double stack, compact(first two digits:caliber code); 4= standard DAO (third digit: size and action type); 4= Frame and finish (fourth digit: finish and material) so should be alloy black. But fourth digit refers to frame not the slide and stainless is an alloyed steel. (keep dreaming huh?)

 

[halbstarke]

pics 6944

Here are the pictures. Lets see how I did figuring this out.





Take a look.

 

[Forsmithers]

It looks like someone refinished the slide. The stock slide on a 6944 is blued (black) since it is a carbon steel slide. It does not appear to be one swapped from a 6946 which would have had had a stainless steel slide. That finish would have been the dull/matte finish from being blasted with glass beads. The laser engraved instruction on the slide that the slide and frame model need to match is also missing and was probably blasted off when it was refinished.

 

[halbstarke]

I found the laser engraving.

Thank you for your post Forsmithers you made me think. I went to pictures of 6906 and 6946 handguns. I looked at several of each online. I found no laser engraving to be seen on any of their slides. I guess this is because laser engraving on stainless steel is marking and maybe not actually engraving. The use of lasers for engraving has changed a great deal in the last 10 years. Stainless is shiny so maybe not done on the slide where you can see it. I took the gun apart and on the underside of the slide, under the barrel the slide is laser marked in about #10 font: "MOD.6944" as plain as day. Quote marks are mine not part of the marking. The slide does have a soft satin finish on the outside but on the inside the illegitimate son says 6944. Thanks for your help!

 

[BLUEBELLYYANKEE]

I bet that is the original slide and it is not stainless steel but is actually carbon steel that is in the "white". "In the white" meaning it has all of the bluing removed and is ready to be re-blued. Any way to get a snapshot of the inside of the slide showing the marking? Does the inside of the slide show any dark or blued areas indicating it was blued at one time?

Here are three photos of a 6944 with the markings from the factory. This is the verbiage that pmosley mentioned in post #4. In the last photo of the inside of the slide there are no markings what-so-ever like many 3rd gen guns do have. It is my belief that since the left side of the slide is marked "model 6944" there was no need to mark the inside of the slide with "6944".

Try a little water on a spot to see if it starts to rust. If it is carbon steel it won't take long.

What you have is very interesting indeed.

 

[halbstarke]

I can run my finger nail over the # and do not feel texture. It says Mod. 6944. I have refinished guns before both hot and cold bluing, vapor too. I am pretty sure it is stainless & the guy who sold it to me said so too. When he took it to a gun shop to try and sell it they said they could not find a gun like it with a stainless slide. My dad and brother are retired tool and die makers. I have been around a good deal of machine shops too. The stainless has a small whitish stain spot on the right muzzle end in the previous pic. Stainless is not impervious just resistant. The only rust I saw any where was on the edges of the sights but I cleaned that up when I got the gun home. The sights are carbon steel ergo rust. In side where you see the MOD.6944 the inner area is a thin dark matte used in machining and making marking possible. If the gun slide was made white the solution probably would have taken care of the inside too.

 

[halbstarke]

 

[BLUEBELLYYANKEE]

The picture of the inside of the slide showing the gold colored "mod. 6944" etched on top of the dark colored steel tells me it is not stainless steel but rather regular steel instead. The gold color of the etching has always been a hallmark of the etching on blued guns and the stainless guns always have black or charcoal colored etching.

Maybe someone polished off the bluing on the exterior of the slide? If so the real mystery would be why "mod. 6944" is etched on the inside of the slide instead of on the left side of the slide like every other 6944 I have seen.

Anybody else out there have a 6944 with the etching inside the slide?

 

[skjos]

I'm guessing this 6944 was part of a special run exported out of the country to support a foreign law enforcement agency. It's serial number (TVD057x) is outside the range of those know to exist (TFB0047-TFB0558) and "DSC Prescott AZ" is simply the import mark to bring it back into the country. The internal slide making could have been a production change by S&W on the later model run. As far as the slide material, it looks like carbon steel to me.