Revisiting the Smith & Wesson Heritage Model 24 by Mike Cumpston. Photography by Mike Cumpston. October 4th, 2005 In the Spring of 2001, Lew Horton Distributors and the Smith and Wesson Performance Center announced the Heritage Series.
- Smith And Wesson Model 25-15 Review Guide
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- Smith And Wesson Model 57 Classic Review
Smith And Wesson Model 25-15 Review Guide
Smith & Wesson’s.45 Colt ClassicModel 25By John TaffinNot by any stretch of theimagination would anyone ever consider me a connoisseur of music but I do have someof the best; namely about two dozen cassettes and CDs by Johnny Cash, CharlieDaniels, Don Edwards, Tennessee Ernie, Frankie Laine, Bob Wills, and of courseMarty Robbins. And these same few artists are played over and over and over.Gunfighter Ballads is in a cassette in the 4x4 pick-up and on a CD in thehouse; the strains of 'Big Iron', 'El Paso', and'They’re Hanging Me Tonight” are heard the most and now I know how MartyRobbins felt as he saw his “pretty Flo” run off with the handsome youngstranger.My Flo and Ihad been together for years and I thought we had an understanding but when Iwent to pick her up for our weekly date I was instead greeted by her bigsister. She gave me the news my Flo had indeed gone off with a handsome youngstranger.
“He is younger than you, a world traveler, much better looking, and Ithink she was quite smitten with his Hawaiian shirt.' I just stood therecrushed, filled with grief and anger and thought about following them until Irecalled the words of Marty Robbins after he caught up with them, “They’ll buryFlo tomorrow but they’re hanging me tonight.”Then for the first time Itook a look at big sister. She appeared to have a few miles on her anddefinitely more experience than my Flo; she was taller and a bit heavier, andactually appeared to be, as some would say, very well put together and wellendowed. I forgot all about my Flo for the moment as I said, “Say Darlin’, areyou doing anything tonight?” What a time we had! She was almost more than Icould keep up with and I forgot all about my Flo.
Almost.The story is a parable andsome may have already discovered its meaning. My Flo is the.44 Special, bigsister is the.45 Colt, and the handsome young stranger is my “friend” MikeVenturino. When Smith & Wesson announced the line of Classic sixguns thisyear editor Jeff John thought it would be a neat idea if Mike and I did anarticle together on the.44 Special and.45 Colt editions. But who was to getwhat?
Mike got there first and jumped on the.44 Special; young guys are likethat! I was willing to let him have first choice; old guys are like that.Actually Mike and I are good friends, both of us consider the.44 Special,well, special, we help each other find.44 Specials, and I just recently boughta 5” Model 1926 from him. (If he was a REAL friend he would lend hisprofessional photographer Yvonne to me for photos!)In realitythe.45 Colt is also a special favorite of mine just slightly behind the.44Special. Currently my meager (as in, I have way more than I need but certainlynot as many as I want) collection of sixguns is slightly tilted in favor of the.45 Colt by about the same margin as the last two presidential elections.
Smith Wesson 659 9mm Review
Icurrently have two custom.44 Special sixguns being built by Alan Harton andJack Huntington and I just found a.45 Colt Bisley Model back east so the racewill become even tighter. Also in reality I have said several times I couldeasily live out the rest of my life shooting nothing but the.44 Special whenit comes to big bore sixguns; the same thing could be said about the.45 Colt.All this brings us to the Smith & Wesson Classic.45 Colt.While Mike isenjoying the reincarnation of the.44 Special 1950 Target/Model 24, my Classicnever really existed and is actually a hybrid. It has the longer cylinder ofthe later.45 Colt Model 25-5 matched up with the slim barrel profile of the.45 Auto Rim/.45 ACP in the 1950 Target/Model 26. Wherever it came from it isdefinitely welcomed. Back when the original classic N-frame sixguns were beingmade they had 6-1/2” barrels. This was true from the original Triple-Lock throughthe next three.44 Hand Ejectors, as well as the.38/44 Outdoorsman, the.357Magnum, and the original.44 Magnum.
This barrel length is to the doubleaction Smith & Wesson sixgun what the 7-1/2” length is to the singleaction; perfect in looks, at least to my eyes, and perfect in balance, again atleast in my hands. For some unknown reason when the.41 Magnum was introducedthe barrel was 6” and then in 1979 this was standardized and then came theheavy underlugged barrels on nearly every S&W sixgun; bad moves! Sometimeafter this in the 1980s the round butt button was found on the machinery,locked on, and suddenly all N-frames lost the square butt configuration;another very bad move. If anything these should have all been offered asoptions not standard equipment.
The non-heavy underlugged 6-1/2” length cameback with the.44 Magnum 50th Anniversary Model and to whoever decided to putit and the square butt back on all the Classic Models I say a hearty Thank You!The.44 andthe.45 have followed two somewhat parallel paths with very little crossover.Smith & Wesson started it all in late 1869 with the introduction of thefirst Model #3 American which also happened to be the first big-borecartridge-firing revolver. The Russians were a major market for the Model #3and had Smith & Wesson change it from the.44 S&W American with itsheeled bullet to the.44 Russian with a bullet of uniform size. Smith &Wesson would go on to produce the.44 Russian in the Model #3 Russian, NewModel #3, and their double action top breaks. In 1907 Smith & Wessonlengthened the.44 Russian to the.44 Special and chambered it in theTriple-Lock, or First Model Hand Ejector. There would be three more HandEjector Model.44s prior to the introduction of the.44 Magnum. More than45,000 were produced in total with less than two dozen.45 Colts found amongthe Triple-Locks and about 725 in the Second Model HE series. When Smith &Wesson brought out the 1950 Target in.45 it was in Auto Rim/ACP with the.45Colt being found very rarely.Meanwhileover at Colt they also started with a.44 in both their 1871-72 Open-Top andeven the original Single Action Army.
Smith And Wesson Model 57 Classic Review
However, the United States Army sent Coltback to the drawing board with a request for a larger caliber and the result wasthe now legendary.45 Colt of 1873. From that time until the eve of World WarII Colt would produce over 357,000 Single Actions with just over 500 of thembeing.44 Russian and/or.44 Special. Approximately half of those SingleActions were in.45 Colt and as late as 1955 Elmer Keith said if confined tofactory sixgun loads only he would go with the.45 Colt.Smith &Wesson eventually chambered their 1955 Target in.45 Colt and it is a buyerbeware situation as several of these had over-sized cylinder chambers; some ranas large as.456” or even more. In the late 1980s Smith & Wesson gotserious about producing quality.45 Colt sixguns beginning with the Model 625stainless steel heavy barrel. These were followed by blued examples and alsothe Mountain Gun.
Every one of these I have examined adhere to tight toleranceswith properly sized chamber throats. The latest.45 Colt from Smith &Wesson is the Model 25 Classic and they really did it right on this one withall six chamber throats being a uniform.452 inches.The chamberthroats are not all they got right on this modern Classic.
A year ago my grandfather passed and left me with with quite the collection of revolvers - firearms that I know very little about. While the rest of the family fights over his money, I've gone about the business of cleaning and preserving his collection for myself and others to enjoy.Back story out of the way, I'll have a number of questions, but will start with one on the Smith and Wesson Model 25, of which my grandfather had quite a few.The barrel reads 45 CAL. Am I correct in guessing that this means.45 Long Colt? Sadly, the few.45 Long Colt cartridges I found among his reloading bench had swelled and would not load in the cylinder so I could use them as a measuring stick. It's.45 ACP,it will have printed.45 Colt if it is not.45 ACP.No such cartridge exist called '.45 Long Colt' it is a wrong statement.In the old days the military was using.45 S&W in the Schofield and.45 Colt in the 1873 Colt SAA during testing.The.45 S&W was a shorter cartridge than.45 Colt.It is a improper/informal moniker that had been applied to the.45 Colt.It's just.45 Colt,nothing else.Few people out there still want to call it.45 Long Colt it just does'nt exist in the books only in peoples heads.No headstamps on cartridges say.45 Long Colt never did never will. First, thanks for the replies!The other Model 25 he had own clearly say 45 Colt CTG on the barrel, and with the information I've learned, I know that this means it's the.45 Colt (formerly Long Colt )I can't post a picture yet of the particular revolver I was referring to in the post, the cylinder doesn't look like it has the cut made to accommodate the moon clip. Does this mean it can only fire those.45 ACP rimmed cartridges I've only heard about but have never seen in stores?When I get home from work, I could post a few pictures of the cylinder if it would help somehow.
Quote:I have five model 22/25/625 for the.45acp in moon clips and none of them have a recess cut into the rear of the cylinder. Apparently this is something unique to the.38/.357 cartridge case.Man, I really blew it on this thread. Apologies to all. Note to self: have your morning coffee before posting.The pics posted above are of a.38/.357 that was machined by TK Custom to accept moons. The cylinder is countersunk specifically so rounds can be shot and ejected with or without moons.Below is a pic of my 625 - not the best pic, but you can see it's not countersunk, either. I'm no model 25 expert, but I used to own a model 25-5, which was chambered in.45 Colt.not.45ACP. The specific model of your revolver should be stamped into the frame, in front of the cylinder.
Perhaps, this might assist you in determining the exact caliber of the gun.I've also never had a revolver that requires moon clips, but from what I understand, those are required for proper head spacing of the cartridge in the cylinder. If the moon clips are not used, the cartridges 'flop around' and are loose, as there is no rim on the.45ACP to hold it in place.
I'd think that that could be an unsafe condition, should the cartridge fire.Of course, if I'm wrong, I'm sure that someone more knowledgeable than I will soon step up with more correct information. The.45 ACP cartridge, as is the case for most cartridges designed for use in autoloaders, headspaces on the case mouth. Your Model 25 should have a 'step' machined into each chamber that the case mouth will rest on to provide proper headspacing.
I just tried dropping some.45 ACP cartridges into my M25-2 cylinder and they all headspaced correctly, sticking out just enough to provide room for a moon clip, the purpose of which is to provide a means of extracting fired cartridges, not for headspacing. You can fire your M25 just fine without a moon clip, but you'll need to use a dowel or the equivalent to poke each fired cartridge out afterwards. FWIW, my 25-2 is the most accurate revolver in my collection and quite likely the last one I'd sell.Some folks love moon clips and some hate 'em. I fall into the latter camp, so I load up.45 AR for my M25 instead of.45 ACP. I have the 25-5 in.45 Colt, a 25-2 in.45 Auto Rim (which can fire the.45 ACP and works better with the 2 round, half moon, or full moon clips), and a 625 (maybe 625-2) that is chambered as the 25-2. The N-frame is the same size, but the cylinders on the 25-2 and 625 are much shorter than the 25-5. The cylinder on the 25-5 fills the window of the frame, the ACP guns cylinders are about a 1/4' shorter with longer forcing cones.On some 25-2's, with the right ammo, and hard primer, when firing, the impact will drive the cartridge far enough into the chamber to not fire.
Most prevalent with tight tapper or roll crimped ammo that may have a short case length. True the.45 ACP headspaces on the case mouth, but remember that on the 1911 type pistol the firing pin has the capability to protrude much further from the breech face than the firing pin on the revolver and the case is held against the breech face by the extractor. Quote:Now I'm worried again - when I got the pistol home and put a few.45 ACP in the cylinder, they sat flush. Just tipping the pistol let the rounds slide out without any effort at all.
Does this mean that I can't use moon clips at all, or am I misunderstanding what is meant by head space?That's interesting. Here's an equivalent photo of how the cartridges sit in the cylinder of my 25-2. They're pushed fully forward, headspacing on the case rim, and you can clearly see the space that would be occupied by the moon clip, or by the thicker rim of a.45 AR cartridge:Your cylinder appears to be bored differently, and may be relying on the moon clip for headspacing as well as extraction, which would work well enough as in that case the clip is, in effect, causing the rimless.45 ACP to headspace in the same way a rimmed cartridge would. If that's the case, as Jeff OTMG indicated, without the moon clip you may have misfires if the firing pin isn't long enough to ignite the primer, but I don't otherwise see any particular hazard in firing the gun that way if it does in fact fire.Your unfired rounds should come out of the gun with the same effort it took to put them in - what makes extraction more difficult is the brass expanding when the round is fired.
It it's not fired, the brass hasn't increased in diameter. I understand why people can hate moon clips.The steel moonclips are hard on the fingers to load and need a demooning tool to unload the empties.I use moonclips for my S&W 22-4 and Colt 1917 Army.I have mostly switched over to polycarbonate moonclips-they are flexible and very easy to load/unload by hand,but for defensive use,I'd stick to steel clips that you load once and leave that way because steel clips can occasionally deform during unloading.The polycarbonates are excellent for range use. TK Custom full moon clips, loading tools, moon clip holders, etc.If you should decide to shoot that gun with.45 Auto Rim ammo instead of.45 ACP in full moon clips.45 Auto Rim ammunition(lots of choices)(200 grn JHP)(160 grn DPX)(230 grn LRN reloads $410 for 1000)(lots of choices)Tuff Products Quick Strips & ammo pouches for.45 Auto Rim ammo:The HKS 25M speedloaders fit an N-Frame Smith &Wesson Revolver in.45 Auto Rim (Like an S&W 25 or S&W 625)(I have an S&W 625.
I don't know if I will EVER carry it for defensive purposes, but I just ordered a bunch of accessories so I can use speedloaders and.45 Auto Rim ammo instead of.45 ACP ammo in full moon clips, in case I wanted to do that. For no logical reason. This email link is to reach site administrators for assistance, if you cannot access TFL via other means. If you are a TFL member and can access TFL, please do not use this link; instead, use the forums (like Questions, Suggestions, and Tech Support) or PM an appropriate mod or admin.If you are experiencing difficulties posting in the Buy/Sell/Trade subforums of TFL, please read the 'sticky' announcement threads at the top of the applicable subforum. If you still feel you are qualified to post in those subforums, please contact 'Shane Tuttle' (the mod for that portion of TFL) via Private Message for assistance.This email contact address is not an 'Ask the Firearms Expert' service. Such emails will be ignored. If you have a firearm related question, please register and post it on the forums.