Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns S&W Highway Patrolman

Bought these the other day. The Smith was a Police Officers gun. It's got some holster wear and the grips are beat up a little. I had a second set that was in far better shape. My carry gun is usually a Glock 27 but there is something about revolvers that I really like especially the old pinned & recessed Smith's. The N frame makes for a pretty hefty .357 no wonder the K frame became so popular.

You won't hear too many complaints about N Frames from this crowd. Great guns. You can put some healthy loads through a Highway Patrolman. Great old guns.

Nice. You can shoot the hottest Magnums there are in that gun and the recoil will be pleasant.

Love those old model 28's, my first S&W was a Highway Patrolman 4", new in the box for $93 in the late 60's in Texas. Shot thousands of cast bullets through that gun & a fair number of Speer jacketed 146 gr slugs as well. A lot of Armadillos, possums, turtles, snakes, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels & a few alligator gar wished I had never bought that gun. The Keith bullet over 13.5 grs of 2400 in 38 special brass was standard fare.



Dick

One of my favorites as well, for reasons previous posters stated. The grips you're using are nicer than the Pachmyrs on mine.

Great handgun…….bought mine in ‘69! memtb

Good find, great revolver.
BTW, nice wood on the rifle, is it a model 6?

Darn nice wood on the Remington too. Grats.

A long long time ago I carried an M28 as a deputy sheriff in the patrol division. Packed it in a Jordan holster on a Sam Browne belt rig. It was great... until you started packing that for 8+ hours. Bill Jordan had the right idea when he helped S&W develop the M19 and I switched to a M19 after a few months of working with the Highway Patrolman on my hip. Besides, being a deputy sheriff the words "Highway Patrolman" on the gun was a put-off.

Really liking the grips on your Highway Patrolman Idaho1945.


They look super sharp.

Yep, quite an anchor to be carrying around all day, everyday. When the S&W Model 19 came out, it was considered by Jordan to be the premier sidearm for any policeman. Although Colt had them beat by a few years with their Model 357 and their Trooper (same guns, but the Model 357 had superior treatment at the factory in terms of finish and tuning). I wonder why Jordan didn't simply champion the Trooper. It's just a hair heavier than the S&W Model 19.

I believe Jordan preferred the S&W action. If I remember correctly I read an article of his in which he said he could shoot two shots from the shorter, quicker S&W action at the same time it took him to crank one shot from the Colt pistol. That's probably an exaggeration but there is no doubt the K frame S&W has a quicker action than the Colt fired in double action mode. And Jordan was all about shooting fast. And who really knows, behind the scenes S&W may have treated him better in some business way than Colt did.

Nice revolver and Remington. My normal carry guns are either a Glock 19 or 48 with Shield S15 mags . I too have been carrying a revolver more recently. This no dash 686 4" is very accurate and has been with me more often than not recently

Most of the serious DA gunfighters of the day gravitated to the S&W medium frames even though in many ways the Colt medium was "better". It took Colt a LONG time to figure out the market changed significantly with law enforcement's full dive into DA revolvers. Colt's DA's were not very good out of the box in DA, and absolutely superb in SA. Colt was so focused on bullseye competition they really neglected a well tuned DA revolver until the Python, and even most out of the box Python's could use a bit of fine tuning. The Colt's heavier frame, thicker forcing cone, thicker cylinder with offset bolt cuts meant you could feed it magnums all day long and it just didn't care. Do that to a K frame and you'll wear it out pretty quick, or split the forcing cone. Jordan liked the Colt grip frame better, and if you look at the Jordan grip you'll see the backstrap is shaped like a Colt's backstrap. But the rebound on a Colt, which is more than sufficient for us mere mortals, is just not up to it when you get a man like Jordan working that trigger.

Maybe, but I can shoot them both pretty fast.

Most of us normal shooters would probably never be able to tell the difference. Guys like McGivern, Jordan, and Miculek are on a completely different level.

The Rifle is a 1960 era 760 Carbine, it is in far better condition than the also old Weaver scope.

The first 5 years of my LE career I carried a 4" model 19 & Super Vel ammo. That stuff was probably a little more pleasant to shoot out of a mod 28. Then everyone decided the high capacity 9 was better. I still have a thing for revolvers & the 357 cartridge.
I always heard that the Colt trigger pull stacked, got heavier, as you shot DA. That's why S&W was more popular for DA shooting.

Once you learn it, it actually feels just right.

Pre-War Colt's DA actions are smooth but very heavy, and the pull does stack. Back in the day when you wanted action work on a DA revolver, you couldn't call up Wolf Springs, so you had to modify the existing springs. To make a long story short, that is WAAAY easier to do with a S&W, and it results in a much better DA trigger without really sacrificing any trigger return speed. With the Colt, you will reduce trigger return speed noticeably when you modify the mainspring, and it will get to the point where rebound is noticeably slower.