OK... I know... But for $195...?

Been looking for a 32-20 for a couple years. Wanted one to shoot and play with so I wanted a cheap one, not some collector grade piece. Someone pointed me to this one. An Army Special (becomes the Official Police Model) made in 1934 someone cut the barrel to 3” and maybe refinished it. I have a set of Colt stocks in the parts bin and it’s what I wanted. At $195 + $30 shipped to me on my C&R I couldn’t walk away.

Now I need to find some dies.




PS: I think I know why the barrel was cut down. In searching for a 32-20 I found a huge number of them with bulged barrels. Both Colts and S&Ws. No idea why this caliber would be more prone to this sort of damage but that's what I found. A bulged barrel means it was fired while obstructed but again, no idea why the 32-20 would be more susceptible to this.

OK, the barrel clearly says Army Special. The serial is 589000 which according to my DOM book by RL Wilson (is he out of prison yet?) makes it 1934. If the AS was out of print by then perhaps the barrel was swapped from an AS onto an OP frame? makes me wonder if the gun even started out as a 32? Perhaps the cylinder was also swapped?

There's another just like it (not cut) on GunBroker within a few hundred in serial and it also says Army Special on the barrel. Maybe they were using up barrels in stock for the 32-20 so the Army Special model technically continued until they were used up (whenever that was)? Learn something new every day.