Posted on 08/12/2008 3:43:29 AM PDT by Pistolshot
Posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 12:09:16 PM by Jack Black
Among the many excellent handguns available perhaps none is so beloved by so many as the classic Smith & Wesson N-Frame.
The N-Frame is the biggest traditional frame size available in a Smith & Wesson handgun. It dates back to early in the last century when it was offered as a military and police pistol in various guises, including the legendary Triple Lock. Originally offered in .38 Special and other old-school calibers it began its rise to flagship and icon with the introduction of the .357 magnum. One can argue, did the calibers make the gun or did the gun make the calibers? Following on the great and popular .357 - THE standard police caliber for much of the 20th Century - the ever popular .44 special was "magumized" and turned into the legendary .44 Mag. Filling the percieved gap between these two the .41 Mag was introduced and quickly became a cult favorite that some feel is the "just right" size for the N-Frame. The older but still popular .45 Colt and .45 ACP have continued to be chambered in the N-Frame as well.
Aside from being chambered in a variety of the most popular and very powerful handgun rounds generally available the N-Frames have achieved their popularity in part because of the wide variety of configurations they have been offered in. Major variations include he square and round-butt frames, blued and stainless finishes and barrel lengths of staggering variety. These include 2.5", 3", 3.5", 4", 5", 6", 6.5", 7.5", 8.3" and 10", with the four and six inchers being the most popular.
Recent years have seen some innovations and deletions in the product line. All N's are now round butt, but square butt grip styles are still available. Blued guns have mostly disapeared, although the occassional special edition will still feature Smith's beautiful bluing. Rubber ergo grips predominate.
Perhaps the most controversial feature is the inclusion of an intergal lock behind the cylinder release. Many old time users dislike the presence of this rather unnecessary feature, somewhat forced on S&W by a combination of bad laws, Clinton-era threats and ever increasing litigation threats from land shark lawyers everywhere.
The N frame has moved from ubiquitous police side arm to being more often owned by civilians. It remains a perennial favorite of hunters as backup, and the choice of a surprising number of individual citizens for both open and concealed carry.
The N-frame lost it's position as the biggest and baddest handgun a while ago. Smith finally bowed to the inevitable and introduced the super-jumbo sized X frame and the awesome .500 magnum.
But the N-frame remains what it has been since it's introduction. A supurb, large but not bulky, handgun, built to excellent standards of fit and finish and chambering a variety of useful and powerful cartridges. As long as a need for such a gun exists the big N-frame will no doubt continue to find favor.
That is a beaut !
You’re makin’ me smile here!
29-3 Lew Horton 1 of 200 made in 1983.
29 No dash (1960). I've got a 29-1 that I can't find pics of... probably because a previous owner kept it in the glove compartment...
Here's a couple 1917's for you.
I saw a 44 Mag a couple months ago that was stamped Mod 57 under the crane. A look up of the serial showed it was made at the time of the first Dirty Harry movie. My guess is that Smith diverted a number of .41 mag frames into .44 production because of demand.
Which range to you frequent? I'll buy every single one of them.
Mrs. L and I LOVE the N frame S&W's. I'd love to run across a used one in .41 mag.
Mrs' favorite sidearm is the 4" 629 she 'liberated' from me.
L
Not quite. At least one of the stand-in guns used by Clint Eastwood in the first movie was probably a 6½-inch barrelled M57 in .41. But there were at lest three guns so used, a common practice in filming in which production cannot be delayed for want of a single unique prop.
Sreenwriter and later director John Milius, who was brought in to rewrite the original script for "Dead Right," the original working title of the film, after Frank Sinatra and several others turned down the lead role, and Clint Eastwood took the part after insisting that the setting of the film be changed from New York to San Francisco, has one of the guns used in the film by Eastwood. It was Milius who added the *most powerful handgun* lines and *go ahead, make my day* lines for his lead character. And his souvenier of that filming is indeed a genuine, 6½-inch barrelled, 4-screw M29.
It's been suggested that maybe some of the shooting scenes were done using a 6-inch barrelled S&W M25 in .45 Long Colt, allowing the use of Hollywood "4-in-1" blanks, long a staple of Hollywood's cowboy films. Either .41 or .44 Magnum blanks would have required custom loads, an additional budgetary item of which there would have been a record kept. There may havce been an M57 used for the shooting of some of the film's publicity stills, from where some of the rumored *Dirty Harry used a .41 stories* came from.
Now look at the holes in the end of the cylinder in the following pics: .41, or a .44/.45? I've owned three M58 Smiths and two M27s, and I don't think that the gun in the top pic is a .41.
Of the six inch model 29's possibly the best one was one I got from a dealer who bought a bunch of odds and ends at a police auction. This particular one had a broken rear sight which I had repaired on the spot at a gun show..
After they went to the full length underlug I never bought another one, just didn't like the look.
Is your 29 a four-screw frame, or a later 3-screw? I've seen one, an 8 3/8-inch barreled version, that was a 5-screw like the old M1917s and M27's, and had a 3-digit serial number. It belonged- and still does- to one of the three real-world cops who was the model for the Harry Callahan character, a SF region DEA agent who was the only one of the three who really used a S&W M29. The real-life SF cop who was involved in the 1975 apprehension of Sara Jane Moore after she attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford in SF used a .357 Colt Python, also used in two other fairly famous/notorious SF gunfights in which its owner prevailed, and the personality of SFPD Inspector Dave Toschi of the SF Zodiac investigations.
.500 Magnum? How about .600 Nitro?
Just returnin the favor
The 629 in 5” is my favorite trail gun. And it’s best to handload the round down a bit to get the best combo of punch and control.
That snub nose must kill your hand and wrist every time it’s fired.
Concur. I grew up shooting semiautos and revolvers both, with about all the free .45 M1911 hardball I wanted and all the empty .38 special brass I could carry on my bicycle. So far as revolvers went, I had a couple of .38 caliber k-frame Smiths to pick from, a couple of Webleys, an M27, a .45 M1917 and my maternal grandfather's .455 triple-lock that had the cylinder replaced with one that took .45 ACP with halfmoon clips and had the barrel shortened to about 4 inches. I was a reasonably good shot with most of them, but when it came time to purchase my own .45 revolver for myself, it was a surplus M1917. My first M1911, a former Argentine M27, came along about four months later. In November of that year, president Kennedy was killed in Dallas, and that was the end of the mail-order purchase of guns in the U.S. and those long rides I had on my bike to our nearest Railway Express Agency office, the UPS or FedEx of that day.
I haven't had a 686 or "Mountain gun* come my way yet and don't really plan on it. If I get one of the new *safety hole* Smiths, it'll probably be the one of the new M1917s or the 3½-inch M21 .45 version, unless I happen to find a good Brazilian M37/M1917 at a right price. The last pretty good one I ran across was at the Kull & Supica online auction, my bid didn't get it.
If I want a full-length underlug, I'll get a Python or Diamondback.
The pic is my Model 24, it had a hammer spur and a worn blue finish when I bought it. Now the spur is gone, it's been hard chromed and sports meprolight night sites. Mmmmmm
Is the 625 rated for .45 Super?
Very festive.
OTOH, I have decided to pick up a new X-Frame in .460 with a 5" ported barrel to use when traveling on vacations thru bear country with my family and the family dogs. The 460 uses the 45 Colt, 454 Casull and of course the hard hitting 460 itself. Actually, I think the 454 Casull has much more recoil than the 460, but maybe that's my own perception. Can you post a pic of that 460 with the five in barrel? I still can't get the knack of posting pix here, even after all these years.
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