It may have been made for Lend-Lease shipment, but S&W made it, and they were proud of it. The British revolvers of the time, the Enfield, were chambered for the cartridge the British had adopted in the 1920s, the. The production of revolvers by S&W for the British was easy. Meanwhile, the British had also been busy. But the need for wartime production rates and a more durable finish soon had the revolvers sporting parkerized finishes and plain wooden grips. The first production batches shipped to eager military buyers were simply the same M&P revolvers that S&W had been making, in the same high-polish blue, because that’s what they made. They were set up to make revolvers, and there were plenty of uses for firearms that didn’t necessarily call for something chambered in. Smith & Wesson didn’t drop everything and begin making 1911s, machine guns and artillery pieces. (I’m sure the next time we have a big war, we’ll have the exact same problem.) With all the services mobilizing and expanding, we needed guns. Oh, we’d been here before-the one they had called The Great War. Both have seen honest wear since then.Īt the start of WWII, we had a problem. 38 Special and started with a high-gloss blue finish. Below is the pre-war revolvers S&W made for its customers. The top revolver is the Lend-Lease Smith & Wesson Victory in. Of course, there are other collectible handguns as well, such as the ones made for Allied use in World War II. They’re the hot, sexy redheads of the handgun world-and good for those who have them. Ones made for Commonwealth often have markings from British services.As well as the flaming bomb ordnance mark and the inspector’s initials.U.S.-purchased guns have “US Government Property” roll-marked on the topstrap.They have a “V” prefix in the serial number.A wartime version of the original Model 10, the Smith & Wesson Victory model is a class WWII collectible.

Value of guns by serial numbers