They don't hardly make them like that anymore...

Over at the other blog, I posted a picture of my recently-acquired Remington 870 alongside a vintage Remington 10-A I've had for a couple of years.

Roughly a hundred years separate these two shoguns, although the 870 design, having debuted in 1950, is a classic in its own right.

The 10-A has a forend with a single action bar, and the bottom-ejecting action has a strange little side-hinged flipper that serves as a shell lifter. A Pedersen design, one tends to automatically assume this is an attempt to engineer around Browning patents held by Winchester on the Model 1897. The Model 10 was certainly more modern-looking than the exposed-hammer Winchester, while sharing with it a feature that has sadly vanished from most of our modern slide-action gauges:

To take down, flip out the latch at the muzzle end of the mag tube and give the tube a quarter turn and slide it and the forend toward the muzzle until they stop. Then give the entire barrel and mag tube assembly a quarter turn and pull it forward out of the receiver.

The above shotgun was bought for, like, a hundred bucks including tax back in the autumn of 2011; it's a little rough and the stock's in need of a bunch of Acraglass, if not complete replacement, and the barrel's been cut down to 18.5" from a full choke ~28" tube, so its collector value is just about nil, but it sure is neat. That takedown feature is just handier than a pocket on a shirt. Why don't they do that anymore?

Sunday Smith #51:.35 Semi-Automatic Pistol, 1919

The decades around the turn of the 20th Century were a time of technological change that is hard to appreciate even when reading about it on the screen of a smartphone. In a relative eyeblink, the world went from whale-oil lanterns and horsedrawn carriages to electric light and automobiles. Telephones, automobiles, radio, powered flight: A seemingly endless stream of inventions were changing the landscape of the world, and among those dazzling gadgets were self-loading firearms. Maxim guns were starring in the tales of colonial wars and, with the development of early self-loading pistols, anybody could have this kind of H.G. Wells technology right in their pocket!

Colt's was first off the block, licensing several designs from John Moses Browning, and their sales success had the other major manufacturers scrambling for a slice of the pie. Savage followed quickly, with an ingenious design by Elbert Searle that used a double column magazine and an ad campaign touting "10 Shots Quick!" Harrington & Richardson jumped in in 1912, licensing a design from English firm Webley & Scott.

Smith & Wesson wanted some of this action, too, but had the same problem that the others did: Patents. Colt's Browning patents covered a plethora of details, from the one-piece slide and breechblock to the method of attaching the grip panels to the frame with screws. S&W had two choices: hope to find a handy homegrown savant like Savage did, or shop overseas for a design to license, a la H&R.

Smith settled on a Belgian design, the Clement, and modified it to suit the U.S. market, adding a grip safety and other embellishments that they thought would help sales. Unfortunately, compared to the fairly simple designs from Colt and Savage, the Smith & Wesson was positively baroque, with a parts count nearly double that of its competitors. Further the control placements went beyond counter-intuitive and were actively user-hostile.

The grip safety was a tab on the front of the frame and for some users it took an active effort to disengage. The manual safety was a thumbwheel that protruded through the backstrap and could not be operated with the hand in a firing grip. The heel-mounted magazine release on the earliest ones moved not fore-and-aft like everybody else's, but side-to-side; this was quickly changed. Lastly, the light breechblock necessitated a monster recoil spring in this blowback design, and so a sliding toggle decoupled the breechblock from the spring so that the action could be manually pulled to the rear and them pushed back forward to chamber a round. Good luck not fumbling that under stress.

As though to hammer a nail into their own coffin, Smith & Wesson also designed a new proprietary cartridge for the pistol: .35 S&W Auto. Similar to the .32ACP, the slightly larger round was partially metal-jacketed, with a larger exposed lead driving band that would engage the rifling. The theory was that this would couple the reliable feeding of round-nosed FMJ with the reduced barrel wear of lead bullets. Since everybody else had standardized on the Browning-designed .32, S&W owners had a harder time finding more expensive ammunition for their complex, hard-to-use pistols. This was not a recipe for sales success.

The final straw was the on-again, off-again production of the pistol as Smith intermittently shut down production during the war years of '14-'18 to fill various foreign and domestic military revolver orders. When production resumed at a normal pace after the war, sales continued to be sluggish until the plug was finally pulled in 1922 after a production run of only 8,350. It would be another thirty years and more before Smith & Wesson dipped its toe in the commercial self-loading pistol market again.

Due to its rarity, the Smith & Wesson is among the hardest to find and most expensive of the early American self-loading pocket pistols. Colt's and Savages are out there in the hundreds of thousands, and the H&R and Remington competitors are five and eight times more common respectively. As a result, even a basket case of a Smith parts gun is a rare sight and usually has a price tag of a couple hundred bucks hanging off it, while a pristine example "in the box with the docs" will bring a thousand or more. The above example, from the middle of the production run, is in honest 95+% condition, showing only light handling wear and a pristine bore and unmarred breechface, was picked up for $600 at a gun show in Indianapolis in 2012.

Sunday Smith #50: Number 2, 1863

Smith & Wesson did not invent the metallic cartridge revolver but, by buying the Rollins White patent and manufacturing it on a wide scale, they did make the first commercially viable cartridge revolver in the United States.

The tiny Smith Model Number 1 sold like gangbusters, but there were those who wanted more. The Number 1 launched a tiny .22 caliber, 29-grain bullet, seated over 4 grains of black powder. While it beat a handful of nothing, there was obviously a market for a revolver that combined the ease of metallic cartridge reloading with a chambering that packed a bit more wallop. Enter the second offering from S&W, imaginatively labeled the "Number 2".

The Number 2 was a physically larger revolver than the Number 1; in the terms of the day, it lay somewhere between a pocket gun and a belt gun. The most common barrel lengths were five or six inches, which meant it could be carried in the deep pockets of a frock coat or in a small belt holster. It used a .32-caliber rimfire cartridge, launching a 90-grain bullet over some 13 grains of black powder, for a muzzle velocity of more than 800fps. This gave it a muzzle energy roughly equal to the modern .32 ACP cartridge, which fires a lighter bullet at higher velocities.

The timing of the Number 2's launch could not have been more propitious, coming as it did shortly on the heels of the shelling of Fort Sumter. Although it was never officially adopted by the U.S. Army, Yankee soldiers spent their own money ordering them to the point that S&W had to close their order books only a year or two into the war, and the revolver to this day is informally known as the "Old Army" model, despite its lack of official contracts.

Manufactured from 1861 to 1874, roughly 77,000 Smith & Wesson Number 2s were shipped from the factory in Springfield, MA. They represent a fairly obscure field of S&W collecting; pristine examples bring well into four figures, and even rough shooters will command prices not too far south of a grand. The pictured example, made in 1863, is practically worthless as a gun, missing a couple of parts, and was picked up for just over $100 at a gun show in Indianapolis in early 2011.

Incidentally, the existence of the Number 2 explains an oddity in S&W nomenclature: Having launched the tiny .22 cal Number 1 and the larger .32 cal Number 2, Smith realized that there was a market for a small vest-pocket sized gun that chambered a more formidable round than the .22 rimfire. They produced a five-shot vest pocket revolver chambered for a shortened .32 round, but since it was bigger than a Number 1 and smaller than a Number 2, the only way they could keep their frame size labels consistent was to dub it the Number One-and-a-Half...

Sunday Smith #49: .32 Safety Hammerless 1st Model, 1891

The real story behind the Safety Hammerless revolvers from Smith & Wesson is as hard to track down as many myths that predate the little revolvers by millennia. The popular lore is that Daniel B. Wesson was horrified by a newspaper account of a child who accidentally shot himself with daddy's revolver, and so he set out to design a safer handgun. An alternate explanation is that, with an increasingly urbanized population that was less likely to go openly "heeled", the American gun-buying public would respond to a small revolver with an enclosed hammer that wouldn't snag on clothing when drawn from coat pocket or purse, and which couldn't discharge if the hammer spur were struck on the pavement or bumped on the edge of the nightstand drawer.

Whatever the reason, the first S&W Safety Hammerless revolvers hit the market in 1887 in .38 S&W caliber. Officially termed the "New Departure", and known in popular slang as "lemon squeezers" for the grip safety on the backstrap, they were followed by a smaller .32 S&W caliber version the very next year.

The first .38 Safety Hammerless revolvers used a complex "Z-bar" latch that used lateral movement to unlock the downward-tipping barrel-and-cylinder assembly. This was replaced in the second year of production with a push-button mechanism that was shared by the first .32's as well. In an interesting note to our modern sensibilities, which are trained to flinch at the thought of lawyers, the "lemon squeezers" were originally shipped from the factory with a pin that could be used to disable the grip safety.

The push-button barrel latch was hardly a triumph of ergonomics. After all, as the shooter's support hand was trying to tip the barrel down for unloading, the tendency was to use the thumb of the strong hand to actuate the latch button, inadvertently applying enough pressure to hold the pistol shut. It was replaced in 1902 with a simple "t-bar" toggle that was intuitively operated by the support hand.

The Safety Hammerless top-breaks were wildly successful for Smith, continuing in production long after the more modern Hand Ejectors had supplanted the more conventional top-break revolvers. The .32 Safety Hammerless remained in production until 1937, and the .38 version wasn't discontinued until the eve of World War Two, in 1940. Even so, the concept of a small, pocket revolver with an enclosed hammer to avoid snagging on clothing is one that has yet to go out of style. It is interesting to note the similarities between the .32 Safety Hammerless 1st Model of over a century ago and the Model 432 .32 Magnum Centennial Airweight I carry in a coat pocket today. (The latter is the one with CTC Lasergrips...)

One of the most striking things about the old .32 top-breaks to our modern eyes is their almost lilliputian size. The cylinder of the .32 is about exactly half the length of the cylinder on a J-frame magnum, and the whole gun, 3" barrel and all, will lay in the palm of my hand without the barrel overhanging my fingertips, and I'm a long way from palming basketballs or playing concert piano.

The .32 Safety Hammerless 1st Model in the photos is in probably the most common configuration: Nickeled, and with a 3" barrel, the gun shows signs of hard use and a rough re-nickeling. I picked it up for a song, just barely over $100 at a gun show in late 2010, and the serial number dates it to the very early 1890s. It still times decently and locks up well, even though the bore is about as ugly as you'd expect for a well-used piece of its vintage. A nice one could bring four or five times that, easily, or more if it were in an unusual configuration.

Continental .32 Pocket Pistols, 1900-1914, Part II

A quick vignette of three more European .32 autos:

The top one, in the white, is an Austrian Steyr-Pieper M1908/34. Not content with the bizarre designs churned out by their native sons, Steyr licensed a design from Belgian gun maker Nicholas Pieper. Featuring a tip-up barrel (released by the lever above the trigger guard,) the mechanism was unusual in that the recoil spring was located above the barrel and pivoted with it, being fitted with a hook on the back to engage the slide. The example shown was made in 1920 and was issued to the postwar Austrian State Security Police.

The second one down is a Mauser M1914. A nicely-fitted pistol, the 1914 was a scaled up version of the company's M1910 .25 auto. An odd feature by modern standards was the removable sideplate in the frame, allowing access to the lockwork. The M1914 was a common substitute standard issue pistol in the imperial German army during the First World War, and the example shown sports military acceptance marks and came to America as a war trophy.

On the bottom is the one that started it all: The FN M1900, John Browning's first commercially successful self-loading pistol and the original home for the 7.65 Browning Automatic cartridge, now better known as the .32ACP. The pistol has several unusual features for a Browning design: The recoil assembly is above the barrel, rather than being concentric or located beneath it; also, the pistol requires tools, or at least a screwdriver, to disassemble for cleaning. The successors to this ur-Browning, the Colt M1903 and FN M1910, were vastly less baroque in their construction and seem quite modern by comparison.

The Thirty-Two and I.

At first glance, "early .32 Auto pocket pistols" seems to be a strange collecting niche. I mean, why? What's the fascination? How did I wind up here? Well, there are several reasons, many of which I didn't understand until I was halfway down the rabbit hole, so to speak: It wasn't until I'd already accumulated a few that I really began to grasp why I found them so interesting.

For starters, the .32ACP, or 7.65 Browning as it's termed across the pond, is a strong candidate for the oldest autopistol cartridge still in common use. John Moses Browning developed the round for his first commercially successful self-loading pistol, which went into production at Fabrique Nationale in Belgium at the close of the 19th Century, and it's been in constant usage ever since.

Further, it was one of the first “standard” pistol chamberings. It was common practice with early autos to design a new cartridge to go with a new pistol. With the strong sales success of the FN M1900 and its associated round, later manufacturers of small autos found it convenient to design their offerings around this already extant cartridge, assuring their customers of widely available ammunition.

Thirdly, the guns themselves are often very interesting from a mechanical standpoint. The early 20th Century was a time of rapid change and broad experimentation. Unlike today, when the self-loading pistol is a decidedly mature technology and most advances are incremental and usually revolve around new materials, the early 1900s were a time when the best ways to build a working pistol were still being felt out by trial and error and dozens of designs, ranging from the familiar to the baroque, were tried. Blowback, blow-forward, short recoil, long recoil, striker ignition, exposed hammers, enclosed hammers... all were represented somewhere.

Additionally, the very construction of the pistols approached the status of metalworking art. Casting, stamping, injection-molded plastic... none of these techniques had been applied to firearms production yet, and so everything is intricately machined from forged steel and often fitted to a level of precision that would satisfy a watchmaker. These are not characteristics associated with mass-produced items in our day and age.

Also, these pistols are tangible artifacts of a very different era. They are from a time when, through most of the Western world, there was nothing terrifically unusual about a gentleman owning a small pistol which he could slip into a coat pocket, should he feel the need for a little insurance. They are also from a time when a small, .32 caliber pistol was considered adequate for police, gendarmes, or even the military: The original .32 M1900 from FN was adopted as the official service pistol of the Belgian army.

Lastly, they are very accessible. Some of the rarer models, or guns in outstanding condition, may bring moderately high prices, but working examples of many of the most interesting ones can be had for $300 or less. Thanks to their durable steel construction, they are generally still quite functional. And thanks to the ubiquity of the .32 ACP cartridge itself, spending a pleasant afternoon at the range with one of these living fossils is well within the reach of most collectors.

Small-Frame Smith Top-Break Taxonomy:

Although Smith & Wesson introduced their centerfire top-break revolvers, complete with automatic simultaneous extraction and ejection, in 1870, they were only available as bulky holster pistols for over half a decade. It wasn't until 1876 that they brought a smaller model, suitable for concealed carry, to the market.

The smaller models, however, had much wider appeal on the civilian market and, in one form or another, continued in production long after their more martial bigger siblings had been discontinued. With the last .38 caliber models shipping in 1940, these little guns had been in production for over sixty years and hundreds of thousands had found homes, making them easily the most common and affordable antique Smiths on the market today, so a quick overview of the most common variants may be helpful.

The first to show up was the .38 Single Action. The earliest variants had the complicated rack-and-pinion ejection system of the bigger .44 Russian models, complete with its long underbarrel housing, earning them the nickname “Baby Russians”. There were obvious differences, however.

Their smaller size dictated a five shot cylinder, chambered for the new .38 S&W cartridge. Further, as a single-action pistol intended for boot or pocket carry, they lacked the usual trigger and triggerguard arrangement of the bigger guns, having instead a “spur” trigger; a protruding nubbin protected by flanges integral to the bottom of the frame.

In 1878, they were joined by the similar, yet even smaller, .32 Single Action. The .32 enjoyed a couple of mechanical refinements, namely a simplified and more compact actuation system for the ejector and a rebounding hammer that kept the firing pin from resting on the primer of the cartridge, both features shared with the larger New Model Number 3 .44 revolvers that debuted the same year. In 1880, these features were added to the latest version of the .38 Single Action.

LEFT: .38 Single Action 2nd Model (top), .32 Single Action (bottom)









The .32 Single Actions were discontinued in 1892, but the .38 received a conventional trigger and triggerguard in 1891 and remained in production until 1911.

Also in 1880, double-action variants of both the .32 and .38 were introduced. These are immediately distinguishable by their conventional triggerguard, with the trigger sitting about halfway forward inside the guard. The .32 Double Action remained in production until 1919, while the conventional .38 DA was discontinued in 1911.



RIGHT: .38 Double Action 2nd Model (top), .32 Double Action 4th Model (bottom)







In 1909, however, an interesting variant of the .38 Double Action was introduced, known as the “Perfected Model”. In addition to the topstrap-mounted latch shared with other Top Break Smiths, it had a knurled thumbpiece latch like the newer solid-frame Hand Ejector models. Because of this second latch, they were the only Top Break S&W revolvers with their sideplates on the right-hand side of the frame. The Perfected Model was discontinued in 1920.

The final variant of the small-frame Top Breaks is the “New Departure” or “Safety Hammerless”. These revolvers, in both .32 and .38 forms, are not actually hammerless, but rather feature an enclosed hammer, which makes them less likely to snag on clothing when drawn from concealment in a pocket or purse. In the rapidly urbanizing America of the late 19th Century, when gentlefolk were not prone to go about openly “heeled”, this was an important consideration.

The .38 Safety Hammerless debuted first, in 1887, followed by the .32 caliber version a year later. In addition to the enclosed hammer, which rendered them double-action-only, they also had a grip safety on the backstrap, which blocked the movement of the hammer unless depressed by a proper firing grip, which feature lent them the nickname “lemon-squeezers”.

The Safety Hammerless models were very successful. Almost a quarter-million .32 New Departures were made between 1888 and 1937, and by the time the last .38 shipped in 1940, over 260,000 of the larger model had found homes.

Thus, despite the more modern Hand Ejectors with their swing-out cylinders and more potent chamberings having been on the market since the last decade of the 19th Century, it wasn't until the eve of America's entry into the Second World War that Smith's last Top Breaks left the catalog. As a result, plenty of fine examples of these little revolvers are available for extremely reasonable prices and provide an inexpensive entry for the collecting of antique American handguns.

Below is a group photo with some additional identifying information:


LEFT COLUMN:

Top: .38 Single Action 2nd Model. If it were a 1st Model (aka "Baby Russian"), it would have a longer ejector housing under the barrel, coming to within an inch or so of the muzzle on this example. A 3rd Model would have a conventional trigger and triggerguard.

Middle: .38 Double Action 2nd Model. The sideplate (on the other side in this photo) would have had straight edges fore and aft if it were a 1st Model, whereas this gun's are curved. If it were a 3rd Model (or later), it wouldn't have the groove and second set of stop notches around the middle of the cylinder.

Bottom: .38 Safety Hammerless 4th Model. The upward-lifting latch distinguishes it from the 3rd Model, which used a central button, while the pinned front sight distinguishes it from the 5th Model, which used a front sight milled integrally with the barrel rib. The fact that this gun has been refinished is made obvious by the fact that the latch, trigger, and trigger guard are all shiny. On a factory nickel gun, they would have been blued steel. Also because whoever did it made the gun look like a bumper.


RIGHT COLUMN:

Top: .32 Single Action. Like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, the .32 Single Action hit the market in its final, mature form, already having a rebounding hammer and simplified ejector; thus there are no "1st" or "3rd" or whatever.

Middle: .32 Double Action 4th Model. This pistol is distinguished from the earlier 3rd Model by its round (rather than recurved) triggerguard, and from the 5th Model by its pinned, rather than integral, front sight.

Bottom: (This space awaiting a reasonably-priced .32 Safety Hammerless.)

Continental .32 Pocket Pistols, 1907-1912, Part I

Above are three representatives of the great diversity of early 20th Century European pocket pistols chambered in 7.65 Browning (or .32 ACP, as we Yanks term it.)

From top to bottom, they are a Dreyse M1907, a Frommer Stop, and an FN 1910.

Two are blowback operated, while the third is a locked-breech, long recoil design. One is striker-fired, one has an external hammer, and the third, an internal hammer. All three are single-action pistols. The Dreyse has a thumb safety, the FN has both thumb and grip safeties, and the Frommer has a grip safety as well as an external hammer which can be manually lowered to decock the weapon. All three saw service in various capacities with militaries and gendarmeries.

We'll be taking a closer look at these pistols over the next weeks.

Early American .32 Pocket Pistols: Part II

In writing Saturday's post about pocket autos, I spent some time examining the actual pistols as well as exploded drawings. I also looked at the drawings of the two early American autos of which I don't yet have representative examples on hand, the Remington 51 and the Smith & Wesson .35. Most pocket pistols on the market after World War Two sprang from one of three evolutionary families: The 1903/1908 Colt/Brownings, the Walther PP, or the Beretta. That's what makes a look at the pistols from the Cambrian Explosion of self-loader design so fascinating: All manner of solutions to the problem of constructing a reasonably powerful, pocketable, self-loading pistol were tried before the market was thinned to the few that survive today.

The Colt is easily the most familiar, and not only because Colt's made more than half a million of the things over forty-something years. The basic structure of the John Browning design is elegant in its simplicity and several basic features have been copied down through the years by numerous handgun manufacturers.

The Savage is probably the second best known, and it should be, with a production run of several hundred thousand guns in a little over twenty years. The brainchild of one Elbert Searle, it's another simple and elegant design, if a little odd to our eyes, being somewhat of an evolutionary dead-end. Blowback-operated with a slight mechanical delay, its double-stack magazine was futuristic for the time and it contained even fewer parts than the Colt, but a combination of constant redesigns, overproduction, and a slumping market put paid to Savage's pistol efforts.

The H&R took a fairly simple, if odd-looking, Webley & Scott Police Pistol design and, through conversion to striker-firing and addition of a magazine safety, managed to up the parts count to 49; over a dozen more than the Browning design and almost two-thirds more parts than Searle's little pistol. They can't have been making money on those, and the fact that they disappeared from the market so fast suggests that they weren't.

Smith & Wesson, like H&R a revolver company, shopped for an outside design as well, finally settling on the Belgian Clement. With controls that were counter intuitive (the manual safety was a thumbwheel on the backstrap that pretty much could not be operated with the hand in a firing grip), baroque mechanicals (a parts count that far outstripped even the H&R), and extremely complex construction, S&W hammered the last nail in the coffin by arrogantly designing their own pocket pistol cartridge in 1913, when the rest of the market had already settled on Colt's .32ACP. Smith's .35 cartridge got Betamaxed, and the gun itself sank without a ripple; 8,000 were made in an eight year run at a time when Colt and Savage were selling tens of thousands a year.

Remington was the last player to arrive, showing up in 1917 with a graceful, futuristic-looking pistol designed by the great John D. Pedersen: The Remington 51. But its graceful, futuristic-looking lines concealed a funky, floating breech/indirect blowback mechanism and complex innards; Browning's pocket pistol contained five springs while Pedersen's had seven (S&W's Clement clone had nine!) Despite the greater complexity, Remington attempted to undercut Colt's on price, selling its offering for less than sixteen bucks when Colts catalogued for just over twenty. Late to the market, the Remington autos didn't survive the Depression.

And if you think there were some weird ones on the domestic market, well, that's just the start...

Early American .32 Pocket Pistols: Colt's, Savage, and H&R

ABOVE: Early American .32 pocket automatics from Harrington & Richardson, Colt's, and Savage.

In the early 20th Century, American consumers were offered an alternative to the small revolvers and derringers that had been the standard in pocketable firearms for some fifty years: smaller versions of the new "self-loading" semiautomatic pistols.

In 1903, Colt's offered their .32 Automatic Pistol, known as the "Model M" or "Pocket Hammerless". Equipped with both thumb and grip safeties, it was not truly "hammerless"; rather, like Smith & Wesson's Safety Hammerless revolvers, it contained an internal hammer enclosed by the frame and slide which prevented snagging on clothing and allowed for a smoother draw. The pistol was in many ways an improvement over John Browning's first .32 pistol, the FN Model 1900, and it sold well, continuing in manufacture through numerous updates until 1945.

Wanting a piece of the lucrative new market and needing funding for their military trials effort, the Savage Arms Company of Utica, New York brought out their own .32 pocket pistol in 1908. Dubbed the Model 1907 from its patent date, the new design sold well and contained several novel features, including an external hammer-like protuberance that could be used to cock its internal striker, and a 10-shot staggered box magazine. Its advertising featured the slogan "10 Shots Quick" and made much of the pistol's ergonomics, claiming it pointed like "pointing your finger". However, despite celebrity spokesmen like "Bat" Masterson and "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and revised versions offered as the Model 1915 and 1917, production ended in 1928, and the pistol never attained the cult-like following of the prancing horses of Hartford.

Finding themselves late off the starting block, Harrington & Richardson took the sensible step of licensing a design from Webley & Scott, the famous English handgun manufacturer, although they redesigned it to use a striker-type ignition setup, which made for a more pocketable piece. Released in 1914, the H&R had a plethora of safety features, including both manual & grip safeties, a loaded chamber indicator, and the early production pieces even had a magazine safety. Far more complex than its competitors from Savage and Colt's, it was never a brisk seller, a fact that couldn't have been helped by its eccentric appearance. Manufacture ceased after 10 years and 40,000 units (as compared to over half a million for the Model M), although stock backlogs kept it in the catalog until the end of the 1930s.


(The definitive book on the Savage is Savage Pistols, by Bailey Brower Jr.; I spent a good couple hours nose down in my roommate's copy.)

Vintage "Assault Rifles"...

The Firearm Blog's recent pieces on early "high capacity" repeaters had a picture of a Miegs rifle which, while interesting, would be no more than an extremely rare prototypical footnote if it hadn't obviously influenced the later rifles built by the Evans Repeating Rifle Company out of Maine, which were a qualified commercial success.

The Evans were manufactured from 1873 to 1879, and roughly fifteen thousand of the helical-magazine repeaters found buyers during that stretch of time, and were even endorsed by "Buffalo Bill". As a result, they're not terribly uncommon at gun shows today if you know where to look, and while premium examples bring premium prices, serviceable shooters can be had for well under a grand. The .44 Evans cartridge hasn't been commercially loaded for almost a hundred years, but the black powder rounds can be formed by cutting down .303 Savage brass.

Of course, "high capacity" is relative to the time and place: While the user of a later Evans, which due to its longer cartridges held six fewer rounds than the early models, had twenty-eight times as many rounds on tap as a contemporary U.S. soldier (who used a "Trapdoor" Springfield), he only had twice the magazine capacity of a Swiss private armed with a Gew. 1869 Vetterli.

.32 Caliber: A rocket for the pocket...

When Smith & Wesson ushered in the metallic cartridge era in American handgunning, .31 caliber was already established as the de facto standard for repeating pocket pistols, with many thousands of Colt's Pocket Models and various small pepperboxes already on the market. It was only natural then, for Smith's second cartridge to be a rimfire .32; roughly the same size as the existing muzzle loading offerings.

RIGHT: S&W Model One-and-a-Half top break, in .32 S&W.





In the 1870s, the .32 made the jump to the centerfire era in Smith's tiny "Model One-and-a-Half", and when they went to solid-frame revolvers with swing-out cylinders, S&W retained the caliber, albeit with a lengthened case, as the ".32 Smith & Wesson Long".




LEFT: .32 Hand Ejector 3rd Model in .32 S&W Long.





When John Browning turned his attentions to self-loading pistols, his first commercial success in the arena was the Model 1900 produced by Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. It was a slim little automatic pistol that could fit easily into a coat pocket and although nearly everything else about it was new, the bore diameter was the old familiar .32; the bore size that had become popular with a muzzle-loaded lead ball seated over patch and powder now saw a pistol that used smokeless propellant to launch a jacketed bullet and then reloaded itself. Known as 7.65 Browning in Europe, the cartridge was sold as the .32 ACP (for Automatic Colt Pistol) in the USA, since its first appearance on these shores was in the Colt's 1903 Pocket Hammerless.



RIGHT: Colt's Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless in .32ACP.






.32, in both revolver and automatic formats, was very nearly the default bore size for pocket defensive guns for over a century and, as earlier competitors fell by the wayside, .32 S&W Long and .32 ACP became the default cartridges for .32-caliber pocket arms worldwide. Given that both revolvers and pistols of this type have been produced in nearly every country sophisticated enough to have an arms industry and even a few that aren't, there is no telling how many countless millions of these diminutive weapons lie forgotten in the sock drawers, sea chests, and sideboards of the world despite all the fantasy schemes of governments to control them; one may as well command the tide.




LEFT: Filipino blacksmith-made copy of S&W I-frame (top) and original S&W I-frame (bottom).





In addition to Smith & Wesson and Colt's (who called it the ".32 Colt New Police,) which were seen as the high end of the market, numerous other American companies manufactured .32 S&W Long revolvers: Iver Johnson, Harrington & Richardson, and Hopkins & Allen, to name but a few. Sold in hardware stores and via mail order, they were as common as Kleenex in purses and glove boxes.

During the early 20th Century, in addition to the well-known Pocket Hammerless model from Colt's, hundreds of thousands of which were manufactured over some forty years, pocket automatics in .32ACP were sold by Savage, Remington, and H&R; untold more were imported from Europe via regular importation channels as well as in the duffle bags of generations of American servicemen.

In postwar America, with the development of small .38 revolvers, often on .32-sized frames, and a general reduction in the pocket pistol market following the hostile legislation enacted in 1968, .32 in both "ACP" and "S&W Long" forms gradually became the caliber of the much-demonized "Saturday Night Special", found largely in extremely inexpensive revolvers and cheap cast zinc pistols. The fact that these guns served a valuable purpose in a market where a traditionally-made blued steel firearm, produced by union labor in New England and excise taxed to death, could cost half a month's wages for a night clerk went unmentioned.



RIGHT: The Beretta 3032 Tomcat, which hit the market in 1996, was one of a wave of new pocket pistols in .32ACP.






While .32 S&W Long lingers on mostly as a chambering for esoteric ISSF target pistols and a reduced load for various .32-caliber magnums, .32ACP has seen something of a revival in the last decades, with the reform of concealed carry laws and the introduction of truly tiny pocket guns from innovators such as Larry Seecamp and George Kellgren as well as established makers like Beretta. Whether the .32 will see its second century or not remains to be seen, but given its ubiquity, that would seem to be the way to bet.

Cold War Heaters: Polish Tokarev and Czech CZ-52.

With the turn of the 20th Century, self-loading pistols began to see greater acceptance in military and paramilitary forces worldwide. The czar's government in Russia, long dependent on foreign arms designs, turned to the Belgian firm of Fabrique Nationale when seeking a pistol for its gendarmerie, acquiring several thousand FN Browning 1903's.

The FN1903 looked similar to the Colt Pocket Hammerless so familiar to American collectors, but was physically larger, being chambered for a 9mm cartridge. Also used by Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, both of which bordered Russia, the sleek pistol still looks modern today. The czar's pistols sported a frame slotted for a combination shoulder stock/holster, and featured an enclosed hammer.

Later, in the wake of the First World War, Bolshevik forces in Civil War-torn Russia acquired many “Broomhandle” Mausers from a German arms industry desperate for foreign sales to make up for the loss of income caused by the Versailles treaty. The Broomhandles were chambered for the classic “.30 Mauser” cartridge, a high-velocity bottlenecked number more like a carbine cartridge than a normal pistol round.

These two historical facts may go some way to explain why, when the victorious Communists sought a modern self-loader to replace the M1895 revolvers in their progressive socialist armies, the winning design looked an awful lot like an enlarged FN 1903 with a partially-exposed hammer and chambered for a hot-loaded version of the old .30 Mauser round.

The Tokarev TT-33, as the definitive version was labeled, was a short-recoil operated pistol with no manual safety and a magazine released by a thumb-activated button. Among its innovations was the fact that the lockwork was mounted in a chassis that could be removed from the frame in a single unit.

After WWII, as Eastern Europe fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, the Russians pressured their new satrapies to adopt weaponry in common calibers. Most countries tooled up to produce copies of the Tokarev, but the Czechoslovakians, with a sophisticated arms industry of their own, turned out a unique pistol chambered for the Soviet cartridge.

The CZ-52 was also operated on the short-recoil principle, but instead of using the common Browning tilting-barrel method of locking as used on the Tokarev, it used a roller-locking setup similar to that used on the German MG-34 and MG-42 light machine guns of the previous war. Also unlike the Tokarev, it offered an external manual safety which could also function as a decocker. While the Tok had a 1930s deco look to its shape, the CZ's lines had an angular ray-gun look that wouldn't have been out of place in a '50s sci-fi movie.

ABOVE: Cold War Heaters. Polish Radom wz.48 (top) and Czech CZ vz.52 (bottom).

Both pistols became widely available on the American civilian market when the Warsaw Pact had its big Chapter 11 sale in the early 1990s, and their low prices made them popular for shooters and collectors on a budget. Surplus ammunition was widely available, and new-production commercial ammo could be had from sources as disparate as Sellier & Bellot and Winchester on one hand and MagSafe on the other.

The examples in the picture are a basic Czech CZ-52 and a Radom-made Polish wz.48. In fit and finish, there's really no comparison: The CZ is a typical rough-hewn phosphate-finished example while the Radom is an elegant, polished blue. In use, though, the CZ points more naturally for me, since Fedor Tokarev managed to mess with the natural pointing qualities of the Browning design. It also has a better trigger pull (although that's damning by faint praise.) Combine this with the fact that the Polish heater didn't seem to like the S&B ammo used in the tests, as evinced by ragged groupings and a vicious Type III malfunction that required a Leatherman tool to clear, and of these two examples, the Czech is definitely the more practical sidearm.

ABOVE: Leatherman Juice was needed to pry the mangled cartridge case from the grip of the Radom Tokarev. Don't leave home without it.

Also the Czech pistol has a positive safety (it's even right-side-up to American thumbs,) while the Tok's safety is a jury-rigged afterthought which only serves to block the trigger, added to satisfy BATFE requirements mandated by the Gun Control Act of 1968.




RIGHT: Actual high-speed competition shooter with the Czech ray gun.









Both pistols can still be found for prices in the ~$200 range, although the Radom-marked Polish Tok is a sure-fire future collectible compared to the relatively dirt-common CZ. Surplus ammunition can still be found, and the fireballing high-velocity cartridge makes for a fun afternoon at the range. Any collector of Cold War-era arms would be advised to snatch up a copy of one or both while they're still available for reasonable prices.

Sunday Smith #48: .38 Double Action 2nd Model, 1882

By the mid-19th Century, the battle for the title of America's premier handgun manufacturer was pretty much down to two contestants: Colt and Smith & Wesson. Smith stole a march on Colt with their purchase of the Rollin White patent for bored-through cylinders and even before its expiration had introduced a second generation of cartridge revolvers using the new centerfire cartridges, and with a top-break mechanism that featured simultaneous ejection of spent cases.

In 1877, Colt returned fire, so to speak, by introducing a version of their solid-frame revolvers that had double-action lockwork. In other words, the trigger performed the double actions of cocking the hammer and firing the piece. Current Smiths were all single-action, requiring the user to cock the hammer with his thumb for every shot.

In 1880, S&W offered double action versions of their own small- and medium-frame revolvers in .32 and .38 caliber. While the large-frame .44s and .45s are more romantic and tend to feature prominently in the Hollywood dramatizations of the era, these littler revolvers were actually far more common and were the workhorses of the company's lineup. Over 300,000 .38 Double Actions of just the first three variants were made, as compared to about a quarter million large-frame top-breaks of all types, including those for foreign military contracts.

Pictured above is a .38 Double Action 2nd Model from approximately 1882. The 2nd Model is distinguished from the earlier 1st Model by its smaller sideplate, which made for a stronger frame than the large, straight-edged sideplate of the earlier version, which is much rarer, only being made in 1880. In 1884, production shifted to the 3rd Model, which eliminated the unusual “freeing groove” on the cylinder, made necessary by the earlier model's double set of cylinder stop bolts.

The pictured revolver is in the most common trim for a .38 DA, with a 3.25” barrel, black hard rubber stocks, and the nickel finish that was vastly more popular than blued steel for 19th Century American pocket guns. It was acquired at a gun show in Louisville for $100, which is a very fair price. A really nice example might fetch four bills, and one in like-new condition with the rarer mottled red stocks could bring as much as $800.

Old-Fashioned Safety.

It's a commonly-held notion in the shooting community that various mechanical safety doodads and gizmos are recent additions to the American firearms scene, driven by anti-gun legislation and an industry fear of lawsuits. However a quick study of the past will show that it just ain't so.

As a matter of fact, even in the late 19th Century, safety was a big advertising point for firearms in a rapidly-urbanizing America: Both Iver Johnson and Smith & Wesson touted the safety of their small revolvers in advertising, and by the early 1900s, Iver Johnson was using "Hammer the Hammer" as an ad slogan.

When automatic pistols debuted on the commercial scene in the early 2oth Century, they were quite a novelty. The early full-size Colt holster pistols had a rudimentary safety in the form of a pivoting rear sight, but this was soon dropped and the pistols were without any safety at all other than the exposed hammer. Less expensive pocket pistols were another matter, with both of Colt's small pocket auto designs from John Browning featuring a thumb safety and a grip safety from the start.

Savage's Model 1907 .32 had a positive manual thumb safety as well as a mechanical loaded chamber indicator, which consisted of a pivoting tab that raised up to indicate a cartridge up the pipe. When Harrington & Richardson entered the pocket self-loader game in 1914 with its modified Webley design, the pistol sported not only a mechanical loaded chamber indicator, a grip safety, and a manual thumb safety, but also an automatic mechanical safety that prevented the firearm from discharging when the magazine was removed. Colt engineer George Tansley immediately came up with a magazine disconnect that was fitted to the company's Vest Pocket models just two years later.

The fad for the more Rube Goldbergian devices was a fairly brief one, however. Savage disposed of the mechanical loaded chamber indicator, and only the first series of H&R autos have the magazine disconnect. What caused the popularity in the first place?

Lacking a time machine and without reading any periodicals of the era (although the topic has intrigued me enough to want to dig further), I'm going to hazard a guess: In the early 1900s, self-loading pistols were a novelty; even people who had extensive experience with handguns had had all of that experience with revolvers. Compared to a revolver, the manner of clearing and safing an autoloader is not an intuitive process. Probably the single most common cause of negligent discharges among novice self-loader users is dropping the magazine after clearing the chamber, rather than before. They've seen the round fly from the chamber, and therefore the gun must be "safe", right? And in 1900, almost everybody was a novice self-loader user.

The solution, of course, is training and experience and not more complicated fiddly little parts on a gun, and for the most part magazine safeties went away. They remained popular in one segment of the autoloader world, however: Every day, police departments and military organizations around the world hand out guns to countless people, many with only the most rudimentary of handgun training. And at the end of their shift, these same people are expected to come back in and safely turn in an unloaded weapon without shooting themselves, their armorer, or their fellow gendarmes or gefreiters. In this setting, magazine safeties retain their popularity with many issuing agencies and armies, since sending all their personnel to Gunsite would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.

Of course the belief that mechanical gizmos can substitute for safe handling has penetrated various legislatures and courtrooms, and more and more guns are fitted with these Rube Goldbergian contrivances in an attempt to remain salable in as many jurisdictions as possible. We can only hope for a brighter tomorrow, when we look back on this era of mandating hardware solutions to software problems and laugh.

Sunday Smith #47: Number 1, Second Issue, 1866

The one that started it all...

As the first half of the 19th Century drew to a close, the Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company had a stranglehold on the revolver business in America, by virtue of holding the basic patents for the revolving pistol. The early Colt's revolvers were all percussion arms, in which the chambers were loaded with loose powder and ball, and fired by means of a percussion cap seated on an exterior nipple on the rear of the cylinder. A man by the name of Rollin White had come up with an idea for improving the basic design by using a cylinder that was bored through from end to end, but Colt's wasn't interested.

The firm of Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, who had already tried making lever-action repeating pistols, eagerly purchased White's patents and when Colt's patents expired, they were ready with a new pistol that represented a quantum leap forward.


The Number One.



LEFT: S&W Number 1, Second Issue, shown with modern reproduction of .36-caliber Colt 1851 Navy.





Daniel Wesson had come up with a diminutive cartridge that contained the powder, projectile, and priming compound all in a unit. Manufactured of copper, the Number One cartridge launched a .22-caliber bullet, and was prevented from sliding all the way through the cylinder by a rim at the rear. The rim was hollow, and contained the priming compound, which was detonated when the revolver's hammer crushed it on firing. The little bullet with only four grains of black powder behind it was no ballistic powerhouse, but it was so easy to use when compared to fumbling with loose powder and caps that it caught on like wildfire.

The pistol that fired the round was a seven-shot revolver small enough to fit in the hand. It was a single action, meaning that the hammer needed to be manually cocked for each round. After firing all seven, a small catch beneath the front of the cylinder was operated, and the frame hinged upwards, allowing the cylinder to be slid out the front of the weapon.

To eject the spent cartridge cases, the loose cylinder was punched down over an integral ejector rod mounted beneath, and parallel to, the barrel. Seven more rounds were then inserted, the cylinder seated back in the revolver, the barrel hinged back down until it latched, and the revolver was ready to fire again.



RIGHT: S&W Number 1, Second Issue, shown broken open for reloading.





From little acorns...

The Smith & Wesson revolver went on sale in 1857, and now the shoe was on the other foot. Rollin White's patents gave Smith a lock on the bored-through cylinder until 1872 and they made the most of it, vigorously pursuing companies that attempted to copy the design.

The first iteration, now known as the Model Number 1, First Issue, was made up through 1860, a production run of almost twelve thousand guns. In 1860, to speed production, the frame was manufactured with sides that were machined flat, rather than the previous ogive cross-section. This Second Issue was produced for the next eight years, to the tune of almost 120,000 copies; it was frequently found in the boots and pockets of Civil War soldiers.

In 1868, several more design changes resulted in the Third Issue: A fluted cylinder and round barrel, and a rounded "birdshead" butt that made the pistol less likely to snag in a pocket or purse. This final version stayed in production until 1881, by which time it was well and truly obsoleted by newer revolvers with features like automatic ejection and double-action lockwork. Still, over 130,000 found buyers over its thirteen-year run.


Number One today...

With about a quarter million sold, the Number One is a very accessible collector's item. Almost any gun show will have at least one, and copies in reasonable shape can be had for $200-$300 or so. The pictured example, a Second Issue, was picked up at the Fall 2009 National Gun Day show in Louisville for $200; since it was manufactured circa 1866, it is not recognized as a firearm under federal law. The barrel is steel, with a silvered brass frame and rosewood grips. The same gun in excellent condition would be well over a thousand dollars, and the scarcer First Issue variants can bring over seven grand at auction.

(Note that modern smokeless powder .22 loads would reduce these little guns to scrap in short order. Even with a clean bill of health from a gunsmith, they probably shouldn't be fired, and if the temptation is too great, then primer-only CB or Flobert-type cartridges should be used.)

Sunday Smith #46: K-22 Combat Masterpiece, 1955.

In 1940, Smith & Wesson released a .22 caliber revolver on their medium-size "K-frame" that was equipped with a taller rear sight and the new "short action" lockwork. Termed the "Masterpiece", its production was continued after the war.

The postwar "K-22 Masterpiece" contained everything Smith had learned about making an accurate revolver. The barrel featured an less tapered contour and had a serrated rib on top, which provided a glare-reducing sighting plane. The rear sight was of the micrometer style, click-adjustable for windage and elevation. The triggers were serrated and provided with an internal overtravel stop.

Built on a frame intended for .38-class cartridges, the K-22's were mild shooters and extremely accurate, as well as very durable. Starting in 1949, they were cataloged in two distinct styles: With a 6" barrel and a squared-off Patridge-style front sight as the "K-22 Target Masterpiece", and with a 4" barrel and a quick-draw ramp front sight as the "K-22 Combat Masterpiece". With the changeover to model numbers in 1957, these became the "Model 17" and "Model 18", respectively.

Popular with a broad cross-section of shooters, from competitive target shooters, to hikers, to casual plinkers, the 17 and 18 stayed in production for many years. The Model 17 remained in the catalog in one variant or another until 1999, while the 4" Model 18 was discontinued in 1985. The Model 17 was gradually superseded in the lineup by the stainless steel Model 617, but the K-22 Combat Masterpiece had no real official successor until it was recently re-released as a limited production "Classic Model".

The pictured revolver is a K-22 Combat Masterpiece produced in early 1955 (the upper sideplate screw was deleted in that year.) It was acquired at a gun show in Indianapolis in March of 2009. The asking price was in the mid-$500 range, which was pushing the envelope for what is an 85-90% gun at best. It shows wear on the ejector rod and front sight, and the target stocks are incorrect, but that last is easily fixed on Gunbroker or eBay.

The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 3rd Edition gives a value of $350 for a "Very Good" specimen and $435 for an "Excellent" example, but these values are a couple years old, which is an eternity in the volatile market of 5-screw Smiths. If I found a pre-'57 K-22 in good, shootable mechanical condition that didn't look like it had been dragged behind a truck for less than five bills, I'd probably jump on it.

As they say, you rarely pay too much; you only buy too soon.

Sunday Smith #45: .44 Hand Ejector 3rd Model, 1930

When Smith & Wesson released their .44 Hand Ejector in 1908, it was obviously their flagship handgun. Physically imposing and immaculately finished, most were chambered in a new cartridge called the ".44 Special", to distinguish it from the old, shorter .44 Russian caliber. Distinctive features that set the big .44 apart from its lesser brethren included a third locking detent for the cylinder assembly, mounted at the front of the crane, and a graceful-looking protective shroud for the ejector rod machined below the barrel.

A little over fifteen thousand were sold over the next seven years, making it one of the more sluggish items in the Smith catalog. And no wonder; this Cadillac of revolvers was priced at the princely sum of $21!

Its replacement, dubbed the .44 Hand Ejector 2nd Model, dispensed with the extra locking detent on the crane, as well as the complex and difficult to machine ejector rod shroud, and could be offered for only $19. Despite the ten-percent price cut, the new guns still remained slow-movers compared to their smaller brethren, but they had some fanatical devotees.

Like nearly every change Smith has ever made in a revolver, people almost immediately began complaining about the removal of the ejector rod shroud. While some claimed that it was just a place for mud to collect on a military or peace officer's gun, others claimed that it protected the ejector rod from bending should the gun be dropped or used for... um... Percussive Behavior Modification Therapy on an uncooperative bad guy.

The dealer Wolf & Klar in Fort Worth, Texas pleaded with Smith to do a run of the big-bore hand ejectors with the ejector rod shroud, offering to buy up to 3,500 of them. With such a huge offer on the table, Smith agreed, and thus was born the .44 Hand Ejector 3rd Model, sometimes known as the "Model of 1926".

Despite production of the 2nd Model continuing apace, and the two models sharing the same serial number range, the 3rd Models are easy to tell apart by the shroud under the barrel and the differently-shaped knob on the end of the ejector rod. Made famous by users such as Texas Ranger Captain "Lone Wolf" Gonzuallas, the distinctive lines of the taper-barreled, shrouded-ejector rod Model of 1926 were continued after the war as the Model of 1950 .44 Military and the later Model 21.

Less than five thousand of the 3rd Model guns were built between 1926 and S&W ceasing production for the war effort in 1941. Never cataloged as such, they remained a special order item and have gained almost cult-like status with Smith fans. When Clint Smith pestered Smith to bring back a classic big-bore service revolver, the Model 21 .44 Military was the first one he pestered them to resurrect. Part of the reason is that good originals have become so scarce as to be almost too valuable to shoot; a pristine Model of 1926, even assuming no special value modifiers, could be expected to bring $3500-$4000 at auction.

You can imagine my surprise when I saw the man walking through the gun show with a 4", tapered barrel with the distinctive half-moon front sight and shrouded ejector rod protruding from his hand. That's enough to set any S&W fan's gears to turning. "Whatcha got there?" I asked.

"Model 21," he replied.

Five screws. Pre-21, at least. It had a flaking re-nickel job and wore a cracked and yellowing set of godawful hollow plastic fake stag grips. It was all there, though, and seemed mechanically tight...

"How much you gotta get out of it?"

"Three-fifty."

Sold.

Endshake was in spec. Lockup was good. It carried up a little lazy, but that's to be expected and can be fixed. I even had a spare set of N-frame square-butt "Magna" service stocks laying around just waiting to replace the plastic ones.

Truthfully, I was so excited by the find that it wasn't until I got home and really looked it over that I noticed the mushroom-headed ejector rod and lack of both the sliding hammer block and alpha prefix on the serial number that indicated a prewar gun. According to the Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, the serial number dated it to 1930.

As a bonus, the bore was pristine, with good, sharp rifling and no pitting. This gun had been carried a lot more than it had been shot. Further, there was a partly-obliterated factory rollmark on the backstrap indicating the gun had been shipped to a police department. Which one will remain a mystery until I get the gun lettered by the factory.

With the model being so rare and highly sought-after, for a collector of my type, this is just the kind of gun I like to find; cosmetically flawed enough to make it affordable and mechanically sound enough to make it shootable. I think I need to look into a good holster for it. If it's good enough for "Lone Wolf" and Clint Smith, it's good enough for me.

Sunday Smith #44: .38 Military & Police Model of 1905 -4th Change, 1930

The late 19th Century was a time of great change in the small arms world. The U.S. Army, which had been using a solid-framed single-action .45 Colt revolver since 1873, adopted a new double-action sidearm in 1892. This revolver, also made by Colt, had a cylinder that swung out to the side for loading and chambered a smaller .38 caliber cartridge.

Within four years' time of the Army's changeover, Smith & Wesson had brought out their own line of revolvers with swing-out cylinders, albeit chambered in a lengthened .32 caliber cartridge, and they soon followed these up with an enlarged version. The target market of this bigger revolver was no secret: They were named the .38 Military & Police.

These early guns, easily distinguished from their later brethren by their lack of a locking lug under the barrel at the front of the ejector rod, were adopted in small trial-size batches by the Army and Navy in 1899. Although nobody realized it at the time, the heyday of the martial revolver in the US was drawing to a close, with the adoption of the first general issue self-loading martial sidearm in American service barely a decade in the future. That really didn't matter, however; the Smith .38 Military & Police was destined to be one of the most successful handgun designs ever manufactured.

They were chambered in a stretched .38 (which Smith called the ".38 S&W Special".) Although the new cartridge originated as a black powder design, it was loaded with smokeless powder shortly after its introduction and remains one of the most popular handgun cartridges to this day.

Noticeable changes were made to the gun in 1902, when a lug under the barrel with a locking detent for the ejector rod was added, and in 1905, when a screw was added to the frame in front of the trigger guard, bringing the number of externally visible screws in the frame to five. This is what has led to collectors referring to Smiths of this vintage as "five screw" guns.

Various small changes added up, and by 1915, the proper name for the current model was ".38 Military & Police Model of 1905, 4th Change". This iteration was immensely popular; between its inception and 1942, over three quarters of a million were made.

Available in barrel lengths of 2, 4, 5, or 6 inches, and with fixed or adjustable sights, a hobby could be made of collecting just this particular variant of the famous M&P alone. The above example, a fairly basic 5" model, dates to 1930. The photo does not do the condition of the revolver justice; the bluing is even and exhibits only minimal wear in the expected places, making it an honest 90-95% gun. It was purchased at a gun show in Knoxville, Tennessee in the summer of 2007 for $350. In today's market, in the condition it's in, it would probably bring $100 over that, maybe more. Excellent condition prewar Hand Ejectors remain solid investments.

Sunday Smith #43: .32 Single Action, 1883

Smith & Wesson first made their bones in the personal self-defense pistol market. With the purchase of the Rollins-White patents for a bored-through cylinder combined with the tiny rimfire .22 cartridge, Smith literally sold hundreds of thousands of tiny pocket revolvers.

As Smith entered the centerfire cartridge age in the 1870's, they first tried their toe in the military market with their No. 3 frame size in 1870, and then quickly followed on its heels with a "medium" frame .38 in 1876 and then a "small" frame .32 in 1878.

The original S&W revolvers were of a "tip-up" design, wherein the frame was hinged on the top. When the gun was shot empty, the shooter would trip the latch, hinge the frame upwards, slide the cylinder forwards off its pivot, and then punch the spent cartridge cases out with a built-in punch on the pistol's frame. With the new "break-top" design, the latch would be worked and the barrel and cylinder hinged downwards, causing an integral ejector mechanism to spit the empty shells out simultaneously.

Although the original 7-shot tip-up .22 revolvers stayed in production until 1875, the market was obviously ready for the new top-breaks. The original single-action Model One-and-a-Half Centerfires mere manufactured until 1892 in their original form (which required the hammer to be cocked manually for each shot) and the double action variant of the Model 1 1/2 .32 S&W top-break remained in production until 1937; a run of very nearly sixty years.

The smallest of Smith's top-breaks, the Model One-and-a-Half was chambered for a new cartridge, designated ".32 Smith & Wesson". The tiny cylinder held five of the rounds, which used nine grains of black powder to propel an 85-grain round-nosed lead bullet at just under 700 feet per second. With less than a hundred foot pounds of energy, the .32 S&W cartridge was no man-stopper, but in the days before antibiotics and effective anesthesia, most people would think twice before getting a hole poked in them by a bullet, no matter how slow it was traveling.

Given their near-ubiquity in the pockets, purses, and sock drawers of America, it is perhaps unsurprising that the tiny 5-shot .32's are some of the most affordable antique arms in this country to this day. The pictured revolver, a nickel-finished Model One-and-a-Half Single Action with a three-and-a-half inch barrel made in 1883, was purchased at a gun show in mid-2008 for under $200. A truly premium example of the breed might edge over $1,000, but as is usual with these kinds of guns, condition is everything.

The gun in question, purchased at a gun show in Indianapolis 125 years after it was made, is still quite functional and shoots as well as it did in the year of its birth, the same year the Brooklyn Bridge opened and Black Bart robbed his last stagecoach. Rarely is history more accessible than in these little pistols...