Victory Model Grip Question

[Husker_Fan]

I've posted about my Victory Model before. It was refinished shortly after the war and wears a set of high-horned diamond magnas. I will be moving those to the '52 Combat Masterpiece I picked up, which begs the question, how to dress the VM?

I have looked for VM grips but don't see many online. Besides, this gun doesn't have the original parked finish and lanyard ring, so the VM grips might look a bit out of place.

What I have seen are the later made k-frame magnas from all sorts of time frames one e-bay. Will these fit well on the VM, or have the grip frame dimensions evolved over time?

 

[Slamfire]

These are the grips on my victory model, very plain.

Everything on these older guns were file to fit.

 

[hawkeye10]

If your grips on your VM are correct they should be numbered to the gun. I believe I am right saying that. If not someone will correct me. Don

 

[Husker_Fan]

The grips that came on the gun are not original (they are diamond magnas). I'm looking for grips to put on the VM, and want to know if later production magnas will work as well.

 

[Old Fuff]

Production Magma's (or copies thereof) should fit, but remember when the Victory Model was made (1942-45) stocks were individually fitted to each frame, and then serial numbered to that frame. Therefore stocks from another revolver will probably be close, but not perfect in terms of fit. That said, they probably won't be far off.

The stocks on the Victory Model were identical in style to those used on pre-war commercial guns, except the commercial ones were checkered, and some had nickel-plated trade mark medalions mounted at the top.

 

[Jim K]

Old Fuff is right. What they did was to rout the grips and drill the locator hole. Then they installed the grips on the frame while it was still "in the white" and polished the grips and frame down together. Then the grips were removed and numbered so they would be put back on the same frame after it was finished. The frame was then given a final polish and blued or Parkerized. That final polish took the metal just a tad below the grips and if you look closely at an S&W revolver (right up to very recent times) you will see that the grips are just a hair bigger than the frame.

So grips for any S&W of the same frame shape will be close, but not as close as the originals. As to the grips for that VM, the gun is no longer original, and I see no reason not to put on whatever grips you want. You can often find original VM grips at gun shows, and you can check www.gungrip.com for pretty good reproductions.

Jim