Sunday Smith #53: .32 Hand Ejector Model of 1896

.32 Hand Ejector Model of 1896

Smith & Wesson had first made their name with the tip-up line of rimfire revolvers. The tip-up locking mechanism had inherent weaknesses and was replaced by the famous line of auto-ejecting top-breaks that served in militaries around the world and occupied far more coat pockets in the Wild West than Peacemakers did belt holsters.

The top-break latching mechanism on the pocket guns went through several changes to strengthen it before winding up with the familiar "T"-shaped lifting toggle, but no small toggle could be as strong as a solid frame, and in the last decade of the 19th Century, Smith followed Colt onto the market with a solid-framed revolver utilizing a cylinder that swung out to the side for loading and unloading.

The ejector in the new revolver differed from the automatically-operated ones in the top breaks by being a plunger worked by the shooter; hence the new design's designation as the "Hand Ejector" models.

The first one on the market was a pocket-sized gun chambered for a new .32 caliber cartridge known as ".32 S&W Long", which utilized a longer case to prevent the new cartridges from being loaded into older .32 top-breaks. The fluted cylinder had the patent dates and manufacturer's name roll-marked between the flutes rather than atop the barrel; a quirk shared with the contemporary .44 top-break "Favorite" and no other Smith.

The cylinder stop/rear sight can be seen atop the frame, as well as the rollmarks on the cylinder. If you embiggenate, you can barely make out the faint outline of the steel shim above the stop notch.

This revolver was the forebear of all future S&W revolvers: If a .500 S&W Magnum X-Frame is the Death Star, then this is Anakin's pod racer. The cylinder stop is in the top of the frame, a pivoting piece with the rear sight machined into its upper surface. A throwback to the cylinder stop used on the old .22 tip-up guns of the 1860s, it is lifted out of engagement with the cylinder by a wedge shaped portion of the hammer as it's cocked. The corresponding notches in the cylinder had hardened steel shims inserted so that they wouldn't peen up as the stop bolt dropped into the notch on the turning cylinder.

It looks weird with no thumb latch.

There's no familiar cylinder latch on the left side of the gun. Instead, the knob on the end of the ejector rod is pulled foreward, and this pulls the cylinder pin out of its hole in the breechface, allowing the cylinder to be swung out. This arrangement meant that the only thing holding the cylinder in place was the base pin and the stop bolt. Future developments added an underbarrel lug that engaged a detent in the end of the ejector rod with a plunger, necessitating the now-familiar side-mounted cylinder latch.

A comparison of the arrangement of the sideplate screws of the first .32 Hand Ejector and a 1970s-era Model 31-1 in .32 S&W Long.

The arrangement of the sideplate screws is unusual, with two screws above the trigger: One to hold the front part of the sideplate on and the other of which served to retain the cylinder yoke in the gun. Modern Smiths use a single, long screw to do both jobs.

Less than 20,000 were made before it was replaced in 1903 with a new .32 Hand Ejector that was almost fully modern in construction, the odd little lungfish of a gun was never screamingly popular, although it did see service with some police departments, including Philadelphia and Jersey City. Its successors, though, would be some of the most prolific and frequently-copied handguns on the planet.