S&W Heavy Duty by King Gun Sight

[gizamo]

This gun started life as a Post War Transitional fix sighted Heavy Duty. Manufactured in early 1946, just after S&W finished up it's war time production. It still has the old style long action. Somewhere in it's history it was converted to a target gun. The parts changed were the front sight. A mirrored red dot King sight was installed. The rear Target sight was milled into the topstrap and mounted....Pretty much state of the art for the era...







I've been in a discussion with Hamilton Bowen about converting this to either .41 Special or .44 Special. Hamiltons work will not effect the work done 50 plus years ago by Dean King. Thought it would be pretty cool to have one of todays premier revolversmiths update a gun that one of the best vintage revolversmiths started....

Giz

 

[Jim Watson]

I wouldn't but then I don't see much sense in hardly any caliber conversion.

 

[19-3Ben]

.41 special?
You mean .41 mag that you would lightly load?

I don't know of any round called the .41 special.

 

[Old Fuff]

.41 Special is a wildcat, made by trimming a .41 Magnum case to .38 Special length. Works fine in a N-frame cylinder that isn't .44 Magnum length. Usually it's loaded to low-end .41 Magnum levels or less. It would be an "interesting" choice in this revolver.

 

[19-3Ben]

Interesting. Thanks for the tip. Never heard of it before.

So does it work using pretty much the same ballistics as a .40S&W then?

 

[gizamo]

.41 Special isn't that far off ballistically then .44 Special. Considering the .44 bullets diameter being in the order of .429". The .41 Magnum brass is shortened approx. 1/10 of an inch. And finding brass is easy for this wildcat.....Having the clyinder line bored to match the barrels throating area will increase the accuracy of the gun. I would have Hamilton regulate the sights. I would assume this gun would be a absolute tack-driver when done...

Giz

 

[19-3Ben]

That sounds like a really neat project. please keep us updated!!!