S&W or Colt?

[Robert B]

I would like to know which had more police dept contracts during the Police Revolver era. Smith or Colt? Did one do more sales with detectives? Which company sold more service revolvers? Thanks.

 

[shooting4life]

If I had to guess it would have been s&w

 

[SaxonPig]

Prior to 1950 Colt sold more guns to cops. During the 1950s S&W surpassed them.

 

[Old Fuff]

It depends on location and time. Between the two World Wars, Colts were more popular in the northeast, where Smith & Wessons were more so in the "Old South," The rest of the country were evenly split.

After World War Two, Smith & Wesson got back into production faster then Colt did, and after the late 1960's Colt's high labor costs put them in a secondary role that Ruger eventually moved into.

Although many detectives prefered the Colt Detective Special and Cobra through the early/middle 1960, they also lost out to Smith & Wesson's much wider line of snubbies.

Service revolvers: Before World War Two Colt and S&W split the business, while after the war Smith & Wesson sold substantially more guns.

If you really want to know, buy a copy of Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 3rd Ed. by Jim Supica & Richard Nahas, and you can track production by year vs. serial numbers. The same information on Colts can be found at www.proofhouse.com

 

[Jim K]

Old Fuff is right on the geographical divide; in fact, the Mason-Dixon Line was often called "The Smith & Wesson Line." North of that, police guns were Colts, south of it, they were mostly S&W. (An exception, as usual, most MD police carried Colts.)

After WWII, not only did Colt let themselves be priced out of the police market, but they later deliberately abandoned both the police and civilian markets to concentrate resources on their Army contracts for the AR-15/M16. Worse, they made some very bad management decisions. They chose not to revive the SAA line, just before the first "cowboy gun" craze hit. They dropped all their revolvers (except the SAA) just as the concealed weapons market loosened up. They poured tons of money into the disastrous AA2000. They chose to buy Spanish pistols and put the Colt name on them; the guns were by any standard not up to Colt quality. They did not move soon enough to redesign their revolver line to make it less costly to manufacture.

All bad choices, almost as if Colt management (there were a seemingly endless number of owners and Presidents, CEO's, etc., all of whom promised to "turn the company around") had a death wish for the company. In the end, all any of them did was sell out, take the money and run.

Jim

 

[Guillermo]

Personal observation backs up the assertion that Smith was more aggressive in Law Enforcement sales "at the end".

In the early 70's my father was a police chief in a small southern city.

I remember the S&W representative. He would always come by the house to sell stuff. Even gave me trinkets. (because of this I was a huge Smith fan as a kid!!!)

There was no Colt Representative that ever visited to my knowledge. If they ever did come by, I can assure you it was with less frequency.

Perhaps Father's department was too small for the Colt salesman to bother with.

No matter the reason...S&W was far more aggressive w law enforcement sales.