I finally was able to shoot a few rounds out of the old Smoth 1937 I picked up a few weeks back. I'm happy to report it seems like it'll work just fine! Apparently the deep stamp on the bottom of the bore doesn't affect accuracy to any horrible degree. I'll be the first to admit I don't shoot N frames well, and I was shooting with the cruddy fixed sights at a dark indoor range.

Here's the first twelve rounds through it, 230 gr factory hardball

Then six rounds of 200 cast swc. I'll call the vertical stringing my fault with the sights. Looks like it does ok with cast

It has some odd coloring to the CCH on the hammer and trigger, not sure what's up with that.

It also has the rounded top strap and Eagle over G2 stamps on it, so I'm assuming it's an earlier production gun, maybe a WWI left over?

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Did you look at the serial number and research the manufacturing date?

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Of the Troops & For the Troops

groups, especially for a small dent in the barrel.

Yes sir, it has the crest on the side plate. I have not looked into the serial number yet. I have the SCoS&W and looked at ot real quick, but I didn't see if I could find a closer DoM

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Not a thing wrong with the way that gun shoots, especially with cast bullets. My 1917 won't do any better than that, and it is mechanically very good. Put some better stocks and/or a Tyler adapter on it and go to town!

Is there a number between 1 and 25,000 on the backstrap? There were two runs of 25,000 made for the Brazilian Navy, one before WWII and the other after WWII.

The pre-war handguns were all new production and were numbered between 1 and 25,000.

The post-war handguns used up all the old left over 1917 parts, plus some new parts as needed. I have one of each.

My post-war Brazilian has a 1917 barrel and frame, with latter production cylinder and crane. No number on the backstrap.

I never get tired of the slender barreled N-frames.

Mine is several orders of magnitude below that. Interesting to note the backstrap numbers. Mine is 4427 and, until now, I assumed it was a rack number or such.

In addition to the cosmetic challenges, it has a couple of mechanical issues as well. I knew that going in but bought it anyway because the price was reasonable and it had an aftermarket 'Wondersight' type adjusto-rear mounted on it. I need to clear a couple of other projects off the bench and see if I can make that'un shoot again.

No backstrap number in this one. It's serial number is 166XXX, so that puts it in the run of 1917's and well before the first run of 1937's. Actually reading further, I see it lists a last serial number of 169959 in January 1919, so I'd say my gun was made late 1918. It has the rounded top strap and round bottomed rear sight notch. Barrel, cylinder and extractor star all match the frames serial number as do the smooth wood stocks. Eagle over S2 stamps are on the bottom of the barrel, rear of the cylinder and inside the crane cutout on the frame.

I'm trying to decide between a Tyler T-Grip or a set of Herrets for it and shoot the heck out of it!

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Oh, and I just pulled the side plate and lubed the old gal up with some Mobile1 and she's even slicker than before! Just put it on my Lyman digital trigger gauge and six pulls on single action averaged at 3 lbs, 6 oz

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