Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns S&W 29-2

I would have offered $900 but would definitely go to $1100 (or maybe a little more) if necessary.

I have a 4 inch nickel M57 would like to find a 4 inch nickel M29 to go along with it. Someday the stars and bank account will line up and I'll find one.

Ain't that the truth, i.e., you have to have good luck in finding a nice one at exactly the moment you have spare money that's not designated for something else more important.

No I didn't... I really had no clue what the value was at the time .. now I do... lets just say ...I Stole IT
even a blind squirrel will find a nut now and again

plab

Plab: You are welcome and indeed your Model 29 does have the "target trigger, target hammer and target stocks (the "3 T's")" so it can be called "target model" if you wish.

Others: I heard from a "Hollywood type" that Clint Eastwood actually was "packin" a 41 Magnum during filming - that was declared to be a "44 Magnum revolver" in the movie.
The rumor was they could not readily obtain a 44 Magnum - IDK?
I look down the bore every time I watch the movie and I think I agree with that "rumor" though.
By the way the movie cost $4,000,000.00 (four million dollars) to make and initial theater release brought in $36,000,000.00 (thirty six million dollars) for the producers!
Thus some sequels.

I used to buy and sell S&W Model 29's VERY regularly!
Never was much for shooting them just seeking "profits".
I am down to just 5 Model 29's today some of which are new unfired in presentation boxes.
(2) Model 29-2's with 8 3/8" barrels
(1) Model 29-2 with 6 1/2" barrel (nickel plated)
(2) Model 29-6's with 6" barrels
Long live the pre-lock Smith & Wesson revolvers!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

This is for you, Plab:

Nice piece. My first handgun was a nickel 8 3/8" M29-2 that I bought in 1978 at age 17. I paid $360 for it NIB. The only shop around without a mark-up. Some years later I had the barrel cut to 5". Some years later (~1994) while cleaning it I noticed what appeared to be a small "chunk" missing about mid-way down the barrel. I called S&W and they asked me to send it in. A week or so later I received a call from one of their 'smiths advising that the barrel was defective and needed to be replaced but the only 5" barrels were the DX lugged ones. I advised that I was fine with that barrel. A few weeks later it arrived. Beautifully re-nickeled, interchangeable front sight with three blades. Just excellent service.

Too bad they ruined the .44 Magnum mystique associated with the Dirty Harry movies in Magnum Force, when a group of hotshot, Colt Python aficionado, rookies (turns out they were actually the bad guys in the movie) asked Harry, while shooting at the indoor police range, what load he carried in his revolver, and he told them "a light Special load for improved controllability."

Who's genius idea was that? Of course it makes perfect sense from a practical standpoint, but the mystique was kind of ruined for anyone who had any clue what he was saying.

PS. If I had to speculate, he (i.e., the writer for the Harry character) likely meant a 200 grain .429 caliber bullet in a .44 Special case, loaded to around 1,000 fps muzzle velocity.

PPS If you pay attention, you will notice that all the bad cops in that movie carried four inch blued Colt Pythons. Standard issue on the LAPD at the time was the .38 Special, S&W Combat Masterpiece.

Had one of these but gave it to my nephew for christmas.

My first 29-2 (and first Model 29) was a 6.5". I have put many thousands of rounds through that gun. For a long time it was my only centerfire revolver, so it filled a lot of roles.

After years of reading articles by Ross Seyfried, John Taffin, Elmer Keith, etc, I contemplated for considerable time on what would be my ideal "Perfect .44".

I finally decided to have it built.

My favorite 29-2 is my 5" that was built from an 8 & 3/8ths" gun. The barrel was cut back and set up with the same interchangeable front sight system as the Classic/DX revolvers. The wide serrated trigger was narrowed and polished.







From experience I found that the 5" was the sweet spot.

4" barrels were outstanding for a gun carried on the belt in a traditional holster. There was no reason to go shorter either as it did not gain you anything. With a 4" gun, with typical .44 Mag loads, recoil was still quite considerable. The sight radius was a disadvantage as compared to a 6.5" gun, but with practice you could still turn in some good accuracy.

The 6.5" guns, without question were the tops (for me) for hunting. Bear in mind that this is all in the pre-red dot sight days. As far as iron sight shooting, the 6.5" barreled Model 29 was perfect for getting optimal accuracy, especially at any decent distance. The downside was that it was not great for a belt carried gun, and getting into and out of a pickup truck on a regular basis. Great for hunting, but not great for a daily carry type gun.

The 5" gun was the ideal spot between. It was short enough, that when paired with a high quality holster like a 55BN from Milt Sparks, it was comfortable to carry all day on the belt, and was not a hinderance getting into and out of vehicles. The sight radius was such that I definitely shot it better than a 4" gun. As far as recoil goes. That extra 1" of barrel was notable. The 5" barrel really is the ideal barrel length for N Frames for me. It may not be for others, for various reasons such as height, or build or other reasons, but for me, it is perfect.

Ted, makes you wonder why S&W didn't produce more of them with 5" barrels

True.

However, they tend to just go with market demand, versus what aficionados want. Popularity, and optimal can be two quite different things.

Think about this in reference to concealed carry handguns;

The hardest part of a handgun to conceal is generally the grip/frame, as the slide is usually carried inside the waistband (IWB).

Logically you would want a compact grip that was large enough to fit just about everyone, combined with a longer slide/longer sight radius, since the slide is going to be concealed inside the waistband anyways.

In a Glock, that would be a Glock 19, with a Glock 17 slide.

So what does Glock do?

The exact opposite.

They bring out the 19X.

A Glock 17 frame, which is the hardest to part to conceal, combined with a Glock 19 slide (with its shorter sight radius).

It was an instant success and sells like crazy! People love it.


Popularity vs practical from a logical standpoint sometimes take very different paths.

Nice mods, and nice gun. Seems pretty ideal.

I've been making precisely that argument for years.

Bought my first model 29 in 1967 for $125 used when new ones were $165 in the presentation box. Took me 3 months to pay it off working for uncle Sam & a part time job in Texas. Since that time I've owned & traded lots of them but a 5" gun has always eluded me. In the mid 70's I had a 4 digit Ruger #1 in 45/70 & Jed Wilson, sheriff of Lemhi county, Idaho wanted it really bad & said he might be willing to trade his factory 5" S&W 44 for it.
I drove to Salmon a few days later, spent part of the day with Elmer Keith out in his trophy room & bought another book then drove over to Jed's place & he opened a huge foot locker/safe he had in a back bedroom & pulled out an ivory stocked 5" model 29. These were special order guns, I think from some hardware store in Ohio, might be wrong on the store.
Anyway at that time ivory wasn't bringing the crazy prices it is now but still it added quite a bit to the gun & after quite a bit of back & forth Jed decided he might be better off keeping the 44. I wanted it really bad but he made the right choice. About a year later that gun & many others were stolen & his son, who was a Salmon cop got in a shoot out with the bad guy, maybe a story for a later time. Even Elmer got involved a bit.

Dick

Mackay: Popularity vs practical from AN EXPERIENCE standpoint sometimes take very different paths. Fixed it for you.

Two guns were built and used for the movie Dirty Harry.

One was a 6.5" and the other is an 8 3/8". Which is used throughout the film was dependent on the director and how he wanted the shot to look.

Nice gun.

Congrats.

Dick, please tell the rest of the story about the shootout with the bad guy.

I have been after Dick to write a book, if even a compilation of all his short stories for at least 10 years. Probably more like 15 years now. He is a wealth of knowledge and has been doing what so many only talk about, handgun hunting on public lands, and doing so successfully. Stories like the one above are only icing on the cake!