L frame history

[barretcreek]

https://revolverguy.com/the-smith-wesson-l-frame-story/#more-8202

Found this while searching for something else.

[Allen]

Good write up. Very interesting. I've heard of and seen Smith's on GunBroker that were greatly discounted due to cracked barrels at the forcing cone. Now I see why.

I've noticed the flats on K frame barrels but didn't think anything of it as far as structural weakness.

Thanks for posting.

[Art]

Excellent article about a largely unknown period in law enforcement firearms history, and its relation to the introduction of the "L" Frame.

I worked as an LEO through the history described in the article 1972 - 1998 and would like to make a couple of observations:

When my agency decided that duty ammo was also going to be training ammo in the mid 1980s the change was not smooth at all. At first we used the +P+ .38 Special "Treasury Loads." Then the powers that be decided that all revolvers, both privately owned and government issued would be .357 Magnums and a switch to .357 Magnum ammunition would be made. The original ammunition issued was the extremely hot Remington or Federal 125 gr. SJHP at about 1450 fps from a 4" revolver. As the article says problems started happening with S&W K frames pretty quickly. We expended a lot of this ammo in qualification and training and my personally owned "Smith," a 3" Model 13, had the barrel crack at about 3,000 rounds about 2,000 of which were the hot 125 gr. Magnums. The 'gubmint solution was to go to a reduced velocity 125 gr. load (no longer available) or the 110 gr. Magnum at a bit under 1,300 fps. I don't know if these really solved the problem but at that time I was carrying a 3" Model 66 and it never seemed to have a problem with them, but I was near the end of my career at that time so it didn't have the round count trough it the Model 13 did. By the mid 1980s, however, L Frame revolvers were becoming more and more common with the LEO in the know revolver guys, uniformed or plain clothes.

Interestingly, the change from .38 Wadcutters to "Treasury Loads" to hot Magnums didn't have much effect on qualification scores after the troops got used to it. I shot about 90% with Wadcutters and about 90% with hot Magnums after a pretty brief period to adapt. Everybody else had similar results, ie that their scores, high, low or in between, didn't vary much.

My carry gun is a Model 640 snubby I bought in 1998. It has somewhere between 700 and 900 110 gr. Magnums through it along with thousands of rounds of assorted .38s without a hint of trouble. This, I imagine, is probably due to it having no cut on the bottom of the barrel and very little of the barrel protruding through the frame.