The Model 52 is a purpose-built target pistol that Smith & Wesson built on the Model 39 frame. It is chambered for a very specific flush-loaded 148gr .38 Special wadcutter loading, to be used in bullseye pistol competition. It was first introduced in 1961 as a double action pistol, and replaced by the single-action-only Model 52-1 in 1963. It remained in production until 1993, with a few internal improvements in 1970 making it the 52-2. Ultimately, the production tooling wore to the point of needing major refurbishment which wasn’t worth the cost. The style of 3-gun bullseye pistol competition that the Model 52 was designed for was no longer popular, and so S&W chose to drop the gun form production.
Revolver
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Competition
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carbine williams
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I think what really killed it off was most competitors starting using their 45’s in centerfire instead of a 38. I shot one for a while in centerfire, but ultimately switch to a K-38 and ultimately an L frame for centerfire. I also ended up using a S&W revolver in 45 as well. However I started with a K-22 in 22 and switched to a Model 41 for 22. Very accurate pistol, but I always got higher scores with a revolver.
Yeah, in the bad old days, revolvers invariably beat autos for accuracy, and to tune up an auto back then to give equivalent accuracy…rare snd expensive.
I’m glad you mentioned the Smith 45 revolver. For bullseye, they made the 1950, and released s heavier barrel model as the 1955.
I have 2 1950s, they are my favorite guns. Used ‘em for years shooting ICORE, Steel Challenge, and various falling steel matches.
Go get a job, you bum! Love your brother
had one you needed to reload, flat faced .38 reloads were hard to find.
How many were made?
GunBroker.com has a number of them. Price is from $1,000 to $2,000. I am a bit surprised the price is that low. But as Ian noted, not much of a market for them these days.
AmmoSeek.com shows .38 Special wadcutter rounds, from several manufacturers. But who knows if their quality and consistency is up for serious competition use.
To the best of my knowledge it was the only competitor to the marvelous Colt 1911, in. 38 WC as well.
I always thought this would be a good “survivor weapon” in some End of the World story, so revolvers and autos could use the same ammunition. Reports I have seen say it was a real Tack Driver.
I suspect End of the World would be reloading .38 Special with black powder
Why not, it’s older brother is the .38 long colt.
These were really lovely pistols.
I just wish that S&W put the same effort into the rest of their automatic line that they did these flagship models. If they had, maybe those would still be in production…
Took me hours with stones to get all the burrs out of my Model 559, before it would function properly and reliably. It should have been fully functional out of the box, but it was not.
I bought my 645 used, but still needed to attack its grip front-and-backstraps with emery paper. The checkering on both would draw blood shooting without gloves.
Fortunately, it had been fitted with Pachmayr neoprene grips by some prior user. I’ve seen the composition (“plastic”) grips on 659s cause cuts requiring stitches when firing full-power 9 x 19mm. The .40 S&Ws were even worse, in spite of anemic .45 ACP target wadcutter level loads.
I’d sort of like to have a 1006, but it would definitely need some work around the grip before I’d take it out to a range.
cheers
eon
If S&W had put half the effort into the automatics that it did the revolvers, I think they’d still be making them. As it was, they half-assed the production values on them, and that was a major reason they didn’t sell.
My stepdad had a very nice 39-2. It was not actually all that good a pistol; the Browning Hi Power that I replaced my 559 with was manufactured a hell of a lot more carefully, and it did not require anything in the way of work. It just fired reliably and accurately out of the box.
No S&W automatic that I ever experienced managed that feat. Some became quite serviceable, with massaging and breaking in, but… Holy hell, was that initial few hundred rounds a pain in the ass. Especially the stainless steel versions, for some reason. I don’t think they accounted for galling, properly, on a lot of those. Friend of mine was a huge advocate of lapping them all in with extensive use of polishing pastes, and his ritual of going through them for massive numbers of slide actuations while they were filled with abrasive pastes of successively finer grits seemed to do those guns some good.
Ridiculous to have to do to a new handgun, though.
One of the first firearms articles I read as a kid was a piece gushing over the Illinois State Police adopting the S&W 39. Somewhere in there the author allowed how the pistol had a few bugs. I especially recall an anecdote of a slide returning to battery just sailing off downrange. Even young and dumb as I was I wondered at what was getting called ‘progress.’It got me in the habit of putting an ear to the ground before buying. About the worst I ever heard about anything JMB was ‘it’s boring.’ That is what a pistol is for: to pacify excitement in the environment, not provide mechanical drama
Extractor cutting through whole serrations is novel. Is it a flat spring bar ?
Couple of points:
Given the timeframe in which production ended, it wasn’t a big surprise. S&W was busy making interesting decisions at the time that ultimately ended in the “Smith and Wesson must die” movement…And for most practical purposes, the brilliant overseas visionaries managed to do that and sell off the remaining company.
HBWC, not just wadcutters, but the hollow based wadcutter bullet. Swaged soft lead puttering along at around 700-750fps pushed along by a small charge of fast pistol powder.
In the early days of IPSC, a few competitors tried these chambered in .38 Super- gaming a whole different system with the same gun.
Some of the more successful ones dug out pre-WW2 National Match Colt 1911A1s in .38 Super and beat most everybody else.
Their “secret”? Replacing the original Colt .38 Super barrel (that headspaced -inconsistently- on the cartridge’s semi-rim) with a Bar-Sto Precision stainless-steel barrel with a chamber cut to headspace on the case mouth like a .45 ACP or 9 x 19mm.
Today, most self-loaders in .38 Super headspace by the Bar-Sto method rather the original Colt technique.
clear ether
eon
Bet you can’t make these as good these days, they have the look of something made by folk using a tool for this bit, another for that bit, something else for another bit – The putting it all togerher. As oppose CNC, modern… Stuff. If I was an American, I think I would buy that as my only gun and be well happy with it with a big smile on my face, at all times, for evermore.
“Let everyone go to his private shelter
Empty the streets
There to find the city of the dead
May the Blessing of the Bomb Almighty
And the Fellowship of the Holy Fallout
Descend upon us all
This day and for evermore”
My favorite song from Orbital – Desert Storm !
Like it, new to me (Heard of Orbital vague) and “Apt” very apt, for my comment, be like super smug. Smug. Bit Basement Jaxx later, maybe’ish. Smuuuggg.
Nice.
Who saw that pet cat see off that Black Bear in some Canadian garden, I think the Bear might have thought it was a Skunk and thought “Avoid Chemical warfare” but that doesn’t explain the Cat which did sort of look Skunkish, it well went for it – Did it think it was a Skunk. Odd world, who knows.