The Army trials of 1906 to select a new military handgun & cartridge is described in many gun books. Too much to go into details here. Many gun makers ( Colt, Luger, Savage, S&W, etc. ) entered their handgun designs. S&W entered their new N frame .44 military design, aka " Triple Lock" in a new caliber to meet the trials specs. of .45 caliber. S&W called it the .45 S&W Special. Rounds are known with 4 different headstamps. Mostly made by Frankford Arsenal. I believe maybe two dozen, or so, guns were made up, of which two were submitted to the trials. One was destroyed in the rust test and the other was returned to S&W after the trials. Known Army records of the tests did not list serial numbers of the guns submitted. S&W did not win the competition. Originally S&W apparently planned to sell the guns commercially in .45 caliber, if they won the trials & were selected for the Army contract, and therefore made up a batch of boxes with the .45 Special labels, which are seen in collections today. How many of the .45 T-Locks were sold, or given away, I don't know, however I have personally observed two examples, Serial numbers 2 & 9. Ed.
