Howdy
Very nice.
I bought my Model 19-3 brand spanky new in 1975. Still have the box and all the goodies. I paid $125 for it, but that was 1975 dollars.
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Yours actually has a little bit more wear and tear than mine does. It appears to me the hammer spur on your 19-5 is slightly longer than on my 19-3. Also, you will notice the grips are slightly different. Yours are cut for a speed loader, mine are not.
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It is pretty much impossible to prevent putting a turn ring on any S&W revolver if you shoot it very much. Particularly if you play with it a lot and open and close the cylinder a lot, because the bolt will be up and rubbing against the cylinder every time you close the cylinder. Yup, with the wear present on yours, I suspect it has been shot a fair amount, particularly from the loss of blue on the backstrap and the frame behind the trigger. The loss of blue at the muzzle looks like holster wear, but the loss of blue on the cylinder looks a bit too scratchy to be from holster wear. The loss of blue on the high spots of the cylinder from holster wear is usually softer than that.
If you really want to know how much it has been shot, inspect the recoil shield. Every time it is fired, the round being fired will smack back against the recoil shield. Eventually this will leave a mark like a halo around the firing pin.
This 38 Military and Police left the factory in 1908, but it has actually been fired very little.
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This K-38 from 1957 has been fired considerably more. Notice how in addition to the halo around the firing pin there are two more showing up. This happens because the rounds at those positions in the cylinder have not been fired yet and still have their bullets attached, so they still weigh a significant amount. As the revolver recoils, those rounds will bounce backwards in the chambers once your hand stops the recoil. Enough of that, and they begin to leave a mark in the blue on the recoil shield too.
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This K-22 Outdoorsman shipped in 1932 and it has been fired a great deal over the years, judging by all the halos left behind from rounds in the cylinder over the years.
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This method will not give you an exact round count for your revolver, but it will give you an idea of how much it has been fired over the years, despite what the guy in the gun shop said.
By the way, if you pull the trigger with the pad of your finger under the fingernail, instead of nestling the trigger in the crease behind thr first knuckle, you will probably see less rounds hitting to the left of your aiming point. It takes practice to do this, and it does not feel as natural as placing the trigger in the crease, but it generally results in a righty not pulling the gun to the left as much. If you don't mind me correcting you, the proper name of the spring you are talking about is the rebound slide spring. That is the spring that shoves the rebound slide forward, which in turn pushes the trigger forward.
