Whats this revolver and whats it worth?

[Radagast]

What the serial number does tell us is that it is almost certainly a British Service Revolver made under commercial contract in .38 S&W as per Saxon Pig's pic. It was manufactured in 1940 or 1941 when most of S&Ws production was going to the British Empire.
Maximum value is around $150. I wouldn't buy it.

 

[Radagast]

Notes:
No locking lug under the barrel can result in a sprung crane - I sprung the crane on a Model 60 with a lugless custom barrel with 5 rounds of .38 Special +P.
The base of the .38 S&W case is wider than the .38 Special case, so chambers that have been bored through to accept the .38 Special will bulge the bottom of the case and potentially split them.
Its a surplus gun that survived 5 years of war and has been refinished, If there are no other markings than the ones mentioned then its been heavily buffed, I would say ground down, as there should be .38 S&W markings on the barrel, and lots of British proof & ownership stampings.
Again, I wouldn't buy it, but if it tickles your fancy then $150 is the maximum value I would put on it.

 

[old gun]

What gun is this?

I can understand why a .38 S&W cylinder and barrel might not give a .38 Special cartridge fired through it after the .38 S&W cylinder was modified to accept the .38 Special cartridge much accuracy, but it has been stated that reaming out the .38 S&W cylinder ruins the accuracy of .38 S&W fired from the altered gun too.

Why is this? Aren't the chambers still sized for the larger diameter .38 S&W bullet? Isn't there a stop in the normal .38 S&W chamber that prevents loading a .38 Special cartridge, and isn't it just that stop what is reamed out of the chamber?

I ask this because I have a pre-victory HE in .38 S&W in which the chambers will not accept a .38 Special cartridge, but also have another pre-victory with a Parker-Hale front sight change that will. The only difference I can see, besides the replaced front sight, is an area beginning before the ridge in each chamber that's function would appear to be to stop a cartridge with a greater OAL than the 38 S&W, that is ground down along with the ridge, that would then allow a .38 Special to be fully loaded in the chamber.

I guess the assertion is that the ground down segment is what ruins the .38 S&W's accuracy, is that correct?

 

[Jim Watson]

The theory on accuracy is that the original cylinder delivered a .361" bullet into a chamber throat hopefully the same size or only slightly larger which lined it up with the barrel. That is the recipe for revolver accuracy.

Reamed out to .38 Special means the .361" S&W bullet has to "jump" through about .4" of Special chamber at .380" or so before it gets to the throat. This is not good for bullet alignment and uniformity.

Shooting Specials, at least the bullet goes straight from case to throat but now is undersize, a .357" bullet going through a throat meant for .361", with potential for distortion and misalignment. Not to mention the extra .006" of chamber diameter letting the brass bulge.

All that is somewhat theoretical.
Have you SHOT those guns? Or plan to?
Sign on a compressive strength machine in the concrete/ceramics lab next door to my old phostphate fertilizer lab: "One test beats a thousand expert opinions."

 

[old gun]

What gun is this?

Thank you for your response. I have not fired either but intend to.

Of course at one time I intended to be retired by the age of twenty & one.

The idea of firing a 200gr round from a .38 S&W has some appeal for me, so I guess I'd better find a place to shoot before I run out of gas.

Luckily, though not a sharpshooter, I can still see, although I had to sell fourteen assorted firearms to pay for my new lenses.

If the reamed out .38 S&W/.38 Special shoots better than the original, historic, relic, I'll plan a trip to Reno.