.38 Hand Ejector Target Model

4. .38 Hand Ejector (1899)
The .38 Hand Ejector Military and Police Model of 1899 (its full factory title) was the first Smith & Wesson Model K (K-Frame) revolver and was also the first gun ever chambered for the .38 S&W Special cartridge. It is the earliest S&W model that remains in continuous production today (with refinements and improvements, of course). If that's not enough to earn it a place on this list, consider that S&W's sales of K-Frame guns, all models, still exceed the combined sales of all other handguns the company has ever produced.

The term "Hand Ejector" refers to the solid-frame, side-swing cylinder design, which requires the shooter to use his hand to push the ejector rod to free the fired cases from the chambers (as opposed to the automatic-ejection system of the top-break design). It would eventually replace the top-breaks entirely because it could handle more powerful cartridges in a smaller form than the older system. The Hand Ejector was developed largely in response to the accelerating development of smokeless-propellant cartridges during the 1890s.

That being said, it is interesting to note that the smaller S&W Model I (I-Frame) five-shot hand ejectors for .32 S&W Long were introduced first, in 1896. (Reason: the K- and I-Frame models were both designed at the same time in 1894-95; the engineers simply signed off on the I-Frame first for production.) And it is important not to forget that the original .38 Special cartridge was a blackpowder load and not smokeless. The Model K was first intended to fire the .38 U.S. Service cartridge (.38 Long Colt), but D.B. Wesson wanted the S&W side-swing gun to be more powerful than its rival's namesake, so he suggested the case be lengthened to allow its powder charge to be increased from 18 grains of fine blackpowder to 21.5 grains and upped the standard bullet weight from 150 to 158 grains--creating a "magnum" .38 Long, if you will. When later loaded as a smokeless round, the new case allowed room for considerably more powerful charges, which led to the .357 Magnum, and so on.

It is often asked why S&W was later than Colt in offering double-action revolvers and solid-frame side-swing revolvers when it earlier had so little trouble in staying ahead of its rival with the original cartridge guns. The historian will answer: Monopoly inhibits creativity. Having beaten Colt to the cartridge era and developed a superior product in its large-frame top-breaks compared to the solid-frame SAA, S&W saw little reason for major changes until it was forced by the market success of alternative ideas. After being beaten, Colt was hungrier and became more aggressive. The ebb and flow of different competing companies taking turns playing lead and catch-up is a characteristic of the firearms industry (indeed all industries) even today.

.44 Hand Ejector, First Model

5. .44 Hand Ejector First Model (1908)
The first 20th-century gun to make it to this list is the legendary .44 Triple Lock, the first S&W Model N (N-Frame) and last of the original solid-frame hand-ejector styles introduced. With it came yet another new S&W cartridge: the .44 S&W Special, a longer case version of the .44 Russian with a heavier blackpowder charge of 26 grains and a standard 246-grain bullet.

Offered in .38-40, .44-40, and .45 Colt chamberings as well as .44 Special/.44 Russian, this First Model was produced for only seven years, but it laid the foundation for all the powerful large-frame, big-bore S&W revolvers that followed. Its important aspect was its strength. In fact, it was stronger than it needed to be. The nickname "Triple Lock" referred to a cylinder latch built into the swing-out yoke and barrel shroud, in addition to the conventional S&W Hand Ejector latch points at the rear of the cylinder and front of the ejector rod. This device was costly to produce and was eliminated from the design in 1915. The barrel shroud would come back by customer demand in the Third Model (1926), but yoke latch points would not be resurrected (save for some modern S&W Performance Center specialty guns). And if the later successes of Phil Sharpe and Elmer Keith in safely uploading the .38 Special and .44 Special cartridges to previously undreamed-of power levels in N-Frame revolvers is any indication, not really necessary.

.22/32 Kit Gun

6. .22/32 Target Model (1911)
The .22/32 Target Model was S&W's first revolver to fire the .22 Long Rifle cartridge and is second only to the K-Frame .38 Special M&P in maintaining a continuous line of production through a variety of specific models, variations, and barrel lengths all the way down to the current stainless-steel Model 63. It originated with a San Francisco S&W dealer named Phil Bekeart, who in 1910 special-ordered 1000 revolvers chambered for the .22 LR with six-inch barrels and adjustable target sights built on the "heavy" (for a .22 rimfire) .32 Hand Ejector frame--hence the long-standing ".22/32" and "Heavy-Frame Target" labels in S&W's small-frame .22 revolver nomenclature. The four-inch version, the .22/32 Kit Gun introduced in 1936 ("Kit Gun" as in fishing or hunting kit and not "kit" as in to be assembled), has proven one of S&W's most enduringly popular items and has served as model for dozens of imitations and similar configurations from competing manufacturers. It's a true continuing classic.

7. .357 Magnum (1935)
Any list of significant S&W handguns that did not include the original N-Frame .357 Magnum would not have much legitimacy. With almost double the velocity and three times the energy of its 1/8-inch shorter parent .38 Special, the original .357 Magnum (launching a 158-grain bullet at 1515 fps) was at the time the most powerful handgun cartridge in the world. The load came from police requests for a more powerful .38-caliber cartridge than the .38 Special. S&W initially responded to the requests with the hot-loaded .38-44 S&W Special but then superseded that with the longer case .357. The S&W gun was originally available from the factory on individual order in any barrel-length from 31/2 to 83/4 inches with a choice of seven different front sight styles and matching rear sight, the new S&W Magna grip (with grip adaptor, if desired), and presighted with any ammunition out to 200 yards. A numbered S&W "Registration Certificate" carrying the customer's name and the gun's specifics was available at the customer's request.

.357 Magnum

The .357 Magnum changed the world's concept of handgun power and range. But from another perspective, there was nothing really new about it. As I've already noted, S&W had been in the practice of making guns for longer, more powerful versions of existing cartridges. The original S&W No. 1 (.22 Short) was merely a longer, more powerful Flobert (.22 BB Cap). The .32 S&W Long was an 1/8-inch longer and more powerful .32 S&W; the .38 Special was a longer and more powerful .38 Long Colt; the .44 Special was a longer and more powerful .44 Russian. And there were others. The thing most notable about the .357 was the magnitude of its leap (and the resonance of the new "Magnum" label), which was made possible by the capabilities of the N-Frame design and the greater power allowed in existing-dimension cases due to the smaller volume of smokeless propellant compared to blackpowder.