I bought my Model 58 while a college student in August, 1978. NIB, blue finish, SN# N270873, for what was then MSRP which came out to $183.75 including about a 6% sales tax. I mentioned earlier that I planed to have a .45 Colt built out of it by adding a 6-1/2 inch 1955 Target barrel, the cylinder re-chambered and the top strap milled for S&W's adjustable rear sight. You couldn't buy a D.A. .45 Colt made by S&W at the time. Luckily, the .45 Colt M-25-3 was introduced a bit afterward, and I kept the M-58 the was it was.
I became a deputy sheriff in 1981. Our issue gun was the .38 Special Model 15, but you could provide your own S&W, Colt or Ruger in .38 or .357 if you wanted. While the K-frame Models 19 and 66 were the most popular choice, quite a few deputies carried the Model 28 Highway Patrolman, just as big and heavy a gun as the M-58. The captain over the detective division carried a 6-1/2 inch Model 27.
After a year or two, several of us who followed the officer survival movement began trying to convince the Sheriff and the administration to allow us to carry bigger bore revolvers. S&W was then making suitable guns in .44 Special, .45 Colt, .45 ACP, .44 Magnum and, of course, .41 Magnum. More importantly, Winchester, Federal and Remington were making ammunition in these calibers suitable for law enforcement, such as the Silvertips, and lead hollow point semiwadcutters. The department armorer was already trained to maintain the N frame, so that wasn't a hurdle. We proposed that deputies carrying anything other than .38 or .357 would be obligated to provide our own qualification and duty ammo, subject to any specification the department might issue. Nobody wanted to carry .41 and .44 Magnum full-charge hunting ammunition.
The armorer/firearms instructor for the department would put on practice shoots on Wednesday afternoons. One Wednesday, I took my Model 58, a .44 Special Model 24-3 and a .45 Colt Model 25-5 to the shoot, with appropriate ammo. Our 50 round course of qualification was fairly easy and I had time to shoot it twice, using the .41 and the .45, while a pal shot my .44 Special. We all shot perfect scores.
We had hoped our demonstration would get the armorer behind our proposal; if nothing else, it would save the department the cost of the ammo that big bore adoptees would otherwise shoot.
Our plan went nowhere.
My standard mid-range .41 Magnum reload was a cast 212 grain SWC over 8.0 grains of Unique. Sometimes I loaded and shot Speer's 3/4 jacketed 200 grain hollow point or 220 grain soft point. Those were excellent bullets. I also loaded various 210 grain jacketed hollow points over a full charge of H-2400 or W-296.
I never was able to qualify with and carry any of the .40+ caliber guns, but one winter, mebbe 2 winters, I packed the Model 58 in a shoulder holster under my winter duty coat to finish off injured deer hit by vehicles. There was also a horse (the owner wanted it euthanized after it was hit by a truck) and a very large cow Shiras moose. The full power handloads put their slugs right through the horse and moose skulls.
I was NOT asked to finish off the two heavily damaged trucks that hit them.
Skeeter Skelton was somewhat involved in getting the .41 Magnum produced. He wrote that he, Bill Jordan and Elmer Keith envisioned a .40 or .41 caliber cartridge housed in a frame sized in between the large N frame and the smaller K frame, perhaps the size and heft of the L frame Model 686 produced 20 years later. But that was a bit too financially weighty for the times. So, S&W used what they had.
I need to dig my M-58 out of the safe and go shoot it. It's probably been 20 years since it roared.
