S&W .38 Special CTG Question

[crackerlawyer]

Guys-

My great uncle just gave me his daddy's old revolver. I've read a bit on this website about other searches, but don't own the S&W magazine. Can someone tell me generally what era it's from. Last patent is shown as June 5, 1917 and serial number is 318XX. It's nickel-plated. My great uncle said something about it being a .38 special on a .44 frame. As a lifelong hunter, I'm still not sure what that means. Any help is appreciated.

[crackerlawyer]

Sorry-

Here is a pic to help.

[crackerlawyer]

The hammer and the trigger on mine are not plated, nor are they stamped with the serial number.

[Webleymkv]

Sounds like you may have a S&W 38/44 revolver. The 38/44 was available in two basic configurations: the Heavy Duty which had fixed sights and the Outdoorsman which had adjustable sights. These revolvers were built on S&W's N-Frame (their largest at the time and the same frame that was used for revolvers in .44 Special, .44-40, .45 Long Colt, .45 ACP/Auto-Rim and later .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and .44 Magnum). These revolvers were inteded to be used with the old .38/44 cartridge which was basically a .38 Special loaded to very high pressures and velocities (in modern terms it would be a +P+ loading).

The large N-Frame was used because it was felt at the time that the smaller K-Frame which was normally used for standard .38 Specials was not robust enough to handle the new high pressure loading.

The .38/44 cartridge was relatively short-lived because while the pressure and velocity was very different, it was dimensionally the same as a standard .38 Special and could be fired (though not safely) in any so-chambered revolver. The solution to the problem was to lengthen the case to prevent it from chambering in older, smaller guns.

S&W and Winchester did just that as well as to load it to even higher pressures and velocities in 1935 and the result was the .357 Magnum cartridge in the S&W Registered Magnum. When S&W went to model numbers in 1958, the 38/44 Heavy Duty became the Model 20, the Outdoorsman became the Model 23, and the .357 Magnum became the Model 27.

The 38/44 guns are very strong and extremely overbuilt for today's comparatively puny .38 Special ammo. Assuming an example is in good, working condition, it is one of the few .38 Special guns that I would have no qualms about shooting the LEO overrun .38 Special +P+ ammo that pops up for sale every now and then, much less any other commercially produced .38 Special ammo. It used to be relatively common practice to ream the chambers of 38/44 S&W's and thusly "convert" them to .357 Magnum. While this is normally an extremely bad idea, the big 38/44's seemed to handle it fairly well although doing so today would undoubtedly ruin and collector or monetary value associated with the gun.

[Rich Miranda]

Webley jumped on this and his answer is good (no surprise there).

Basically, the .38-44 is a more powerful .38-sized cartridge. The higher pressures required a stronger-framed gun and so they used a .44-sized frame, hence the .38-44 name.

Nice old gun!

EDIT: I guess it appears as though your gun may not actually be a .38-44, but still a nice old gun

[crackerlawyer]

Thanks a ton. Does the serial number give you any clue as to when it was made? I am going to send the letter to S&W, but was curious in the meantime.

[Mike Irwin]

Not an N frame .38/44.

Are you sure about that serial number?

I'm thinking that there should be SIX numbers, not 5.

What you have appears to be a pretty standard Military & Police K frame, which later became the Model 10.

The serial number, if truly 5 digits, isn't right for a .38/44, which started at roughly 35,000.

The patent date also doesn't match up with a 5 digit K frame, which would have been manufactured sometime in the 1902 to 1905 time frame.

Also, all of the prewar .38-44s had shrouded ejector rods, yours does not.

[crackerlawyer]

The top of the barrel says patented Feb 6. 06, Sept 14. 09 and Dec 29. 14. The butt of the gun is stamped Jun 5, 1917. The serial number is the same in 3 places- inside of the grip with the nickel plating, the inside of the cylinder and the underside of the barrel.

[Webleymkv]

OK, the gun in your picture is definately not a 38/44. The 38/44's had the shrouded ejector rod while the pictured gun has the unshrouded type. The picture looks like a standard S&W Military & Police. The Military & Police revoler was introduced in 1899 in .32-20 and the .38 Special Cartridge was introduced around 1905. Your revolver is built on S&W's K-Frame, which was their middle-sized frame at the time (they later introduced another slightly larger medium frame, the L Frame, in the 1980's). The M&P was, and is to this day, an extremely popular revolver and has been in continuous production longer than any other handgun. When S&W transitioned to model numbers, the M&P became the Model 10. Other K-Frame .38's include the Military & Police Airweight (Model 12), K-38 Target Masterpiece (Model 14), and the K-38 Combat Masterpiece (Model 15). If your revolver has a model number stamped on the frame under the crane, it's a post-1958 model and, according to S&W, safe to use +P ammo in. If it does not have a model number, +P ammo is not reccomended.

[crackerlawyer]

What is +P ammo? I shoot a lot of rifles and shotguns, but not handguns. Thanks.

[crackerlawyer]

When did they stop making the 5 shots like this one?

[Webleymkv]

What is +P ammo? I shoot a lot of rifles and shotguns, but not handguns. Thanks.

+P is an abbreviation for "plus pressure". This means that the cartridge in question may be loaded up to 10% over the maximum standard pressure. SAAMI officially recognizes +P designations in .38 Special, 9x19, and .45 ACP. The reason to load the ammo to higher pressure is an attempt to achieve higher velocity.

When did they stop making the 5 shots like this one?

Whoa, your gun is a five shot? If so, it's definately not a Model 10/M&P as those were all six shot. The only five shot .38 Specals that S&W has ever made were built on the J-Frame (their small frame). The first J-Frame .38 Special was the Chief Special (later designated the Model 36) which was introduced in 1950. However, a Chief Special should not have the old-style "mushroom head" ejector rod, the fourth sideplate screw, nor the pinned "half-moon" front sight which are all present on your revolver. Are you sure that your gun is indeed a .38 Special? I suspect that you may have an older I-Frame (a shorter small frame that pre-dated the J-Frame) chambered for .38 S&W which is an entirely different cartridge. .38 S&W is an older cartridge which is shorter, less powerful, and uses slightly larger diameter bullets than .38 Special (.38 S&W uses .360" diameter bullets while .38 Special uses .358 diameter bullets) and the two cartridges are in no way, shape, or form interchangeable.

[Mike Irwin]

Oh bloody hell!

Look at the cylinder flutes!

That's DEFINITELY a 5-shot .38 S&W built on the I frame.

[crackerlawyer]

It's definitely a 5 shot and a .38 Special. I'm sorry- I thought I put that in my first post. So, you are saying it's an "L" model from what era. 40's or 50's would make sense...

[Mike Irwin]

Cracker,

No, it can't be a 5-shot .38 Special. It has to be a .38 Smith & Wesson, an earlier cartridge.

The gun is far too early to have been a .38 Special, and is the wrong frame size. S&W's I frame, on which 5-shot .38s were built, was too small to chamber the .38 Special.

Smith & Wesson didn't start making 5-shot .38 Special revolvers until the 1950s with the introduction of the J frame.

Your gun, with the hammer and front sight style and the type of ejector rod, was made at least 20 to 25 years before Smith & Wesson introduced a 5-shot .38 Special.

What, if anything, is marked on the SIDES of the barrel.

[carguychris]

Folks, I think this gun is an I frame .38 Regulation Police. The June 5, 1917 patent date is stamped on the bottom of all .38RP and .32RP stocks (aka grips).

If the gun is indeed a Regulation Police, the serial number should be stamped on the forestrap (front of the grip frame) and the backstrap should disappear behind the stocks halfway down the grip frame. If the stocks are removed, you'll see that the backstrap is rebated to allow the stocks to fit over it. The revolver should have the words ".38 REGULATION POLICE" stamped on the left side of the barrel, but the only hard-and-fast rule about features on S&W revolvers is that there are no hard-and-fast rules.

Crackerlawyer, can you post close-up pictures of both sides of the barrel? Does the gun have the serial number repeated on the bottom of the barrel above the ejector rod? And what makes you so sure that it's chambered in .38Spl?

[Mike Irwin]

"but the only hard-and-fast rule about features on S&W revolvers is that there are no hard-and-fast rules."

Uhm, yeah, there are some hard and fast rules about S&W revolvers. You just need to know what they are, like "no 5 shot .38 Specials made on the I frame."

I've seen literally dozens that people have claimed are ULTRA TURBO RARE ONE OF A KIND I FRAME .38 SPECIAL!!!!!!! with price tags to match the capital letters...

Only problem is... a micrometer doesn't lie, and every one has either turned out to be a fake or a gun that has been very poorly cobbled together by some home gunsmith.

[Webleymkv]

The only other explanation that I can think of is that the gun isn't a S&W. I suppose it could be concievable that it's some sort of Spanish copy (those crazy Spaniards were quite notorious for counterfeting S&W's decades ago).

[crackerlawyer]

Y'all were right. It's not a .38 special. It says .38 S&W. So, now all I have to do is figure out when it was made. I guess the best way to do that is through Smith & Wesson.

[crackerlawyer]

On the barrel, it reads "Regulation CE (or CL)", then the next line down says "38 S&W CTG." Can you find the year made with the serial number I gave above?

[Radagast]

crackerlawyer:
You have a prewar .38 Regulation Police manufactured between 1917 & 1940 in the serial range 1 to 54474. The Standard Catalog of S&W notes that serial number 47440 shipped in January 1938, but gives no further details.

If you want an actual shipping date and address you can contact Roy Jinks the factory historian at S&W and pay $50 for him to look up the original shipping records and send you a factory letter detailing what he has found.

I would only do this is if the gun has great sentimental value, as it will not lift the value of your gun by much as a) there isn't great collectors interest in the small S&Ws and b) your gun may have been refinished, which lowers its value in the eyes of a collector.

Just guessing, I would say your gun dates to the early to mid 1920s. Production of firearms, as with everything else, was slowed by the great depression, so the majority of the production run probably occurred prior to 1930. By the mid to late 1920s S&W had adopted a Made in USA stamp on the right side of the frame, which is missing from your gun. Assuming the Made in USA stamp was not buffed out when the gun was refinished, 1917 to 1927 is the likely time period.


The markings on the barrel should be:
Regulation Police
.38 S&W CTG

What you are probably reading is:
Regulation ce
.38 S&W CTG

Which makes me think your gun has been refinished at sometime in the past, with the 'Poli' being buffed out.