Gun-Fusion Or "Gunfusion"?

Through the extremely generous good offices of my friend Chuck McDonald I now have a gun which has fascinated me for many years: a “Smython” also known as a “Smolt.” And, this being the 40th anniversary of Handgunner’s birth, we thought it fitting to get a bit retro.

The brand rivalry of Colt versus Smith & Wesson is older than Ford versus Chevy or Coke versus Pepsi. In the third quarter of the 20th Century, gunsmiths started putting Colt Python barrels on Smith & Wesson revolvers, usually medium sized K-Frames, but occasionally the larger N-Frames. Though it has been postulated it was for one-handed bullseye shooting, my understanding has been it was really for PPC, the Practical Police Course, shot on the tight-ringed B27 target with 24 of every 60 shots fired from 50 yards. The faster rifling twist of the Colt barrel generally made that brand a tiny bit more accurate than the slower-twist S&W barrels with .38 Special target loads.

Why the Python barrel in particular, since the Python wasn’t introduced until 1955 and Colt had been making double action target revolvers on the same frame since the first decade of that century? Because the Python was the deluxe show-pony of the Colt line, and Colt engineers came up with the feat of tightening the bore by a thousandth of an inch from forcing cone to muzzle. This was believed to drive the lead bullet deeper into the rifling, resulting in the Colt’s slightly greater accuracy. The weighted full-length underlug beneath the barrel held the gun steadier on the tiny X-ring of the target and S&W didn’t make such a gun until circa 1980. That’s when they came out with their Distinguished Combat Magnum L-Frame series, models 586 (blue or nickel) and 686 (stainless), essentially an S&W copy of the Colt Python except its rib atop the barrel did not have the Colt’s distinctive (if largely useless) “ventilating” cuts.

Why put a Python barrel on a Smith & Wesson instead of just buying the whole damn Python? Because most police revolver shooting in the PPC game (and of course, in defensive shooting in general) is done double action, and the Colt had a two-stage pull which “stacked,” or became a little harder at the end of the trigger stroke. The S&W was consistent and even all the way through a single pull, which most of us found more manageable.

Why else? “Because they could.” The S&W frame and the Colt barrel do not “mate” in nature, and it requires some pretty fancy machining to get that to happen. It was kind of like Smith & Wesson’s original Registered .357 Magnums from 1935, with fine grooves on the side of the hammer and checkering on the top of the frame which did nothing at all for the shooter but simply showcased how finely S&W could craft a handgun. The Python barrel on the S&W frame sorta gave the same showcasing of a gunsmith’s skills.

Retro Range Time

The broad beavertail hammer was designed for bullseye shooters who shot both single-handed and usually single action. It was easier to thumb-cock that big spur back in the revolver days of that most conventional American target handgun sport. Worked then, works now. The wide, serrated target trigger was also designed for single action shooting, because more of the finger’s flesh is on the trigger, it makes the pull seem lighter when the hammer was cocked. In double action, however, the much longer trigger stroke executed on a very wide trigger tends to exert pressure laterally, first in one direction and then the other, not necessarily compensating for one another. All of us on the test team were experienced revolver shooters, and none of us found ourselves “doing our best work” on this Old School S&W target trigger. Hence, all accuracy testing was done single action.

From a Caldwell Matrix rest on a concrete bench at 25 yards, my teaching partner Steve Denney, a retired SWAT cop and police supervisor, got the best group of the day with five rounds of Federal 125-gr. .357 Mag screaming out of the 6″ barrel at somewhere around 1,450 fps, into 1.25″. The best three of those were in 5/8″! That’s right up there with the last Ransom Rest test I remember doing on a 6″ Colt Python, which resulted in 13/8″ with 148-gr. match wadcutters from twice the distance, 50 yards. Interestingly, match WCs and 158-gr. round nose lead “service” loads did not group quite as well. Everything shot low, alas, even with the S&W micrometer rear sight jacked up as high as it would go.

On the Lyman digital gauge from Brownell’s, the single action pull measured 2.57 pounds of sweet, marksman-beloved, crisp trigger press. Also, by the definition of the most antagonistic prosecutors and plaintiffs’ lawyers, it was the dreaded “hair trigger.” In double action, the trigger rolled back sweet and smooth (its single action-oriented configuration notwithstanding) in an even, uninterrupted roll measuring 10.65 pounds on average. That sounds heavier than it feels, and is in the range you need for busting the hardest Magnum primers out there. The gun is, after all, a .357 Magnum.

This gun came to Chuck, as it came to me, with some rust on the barrel and frame. We’ll see about getting that off, though there’s gonna be some pitting, and “ya can’t grow back the steel.” The 6″ barrel is 2″ too long to qualify for NRA PPC Service Revolver, or IDPA Stock Service Revolver, and a barrel not from the gun’s original manufacturer will disqualify it from some NRA Distinguished Revolver competition. All of that said, though, it’s a piece of American guncrafting history that’s gonna be staying in my own collection.

Bill Pfeil, the resident gunsmith at ProArms has already replaced the rear sight leaf with a higher one to bring it to point of aim/point of impact, and it has a narrow, smoothly polished trigger for DA work in its future. But this sweet Smolt ain’t likely to go up for sale ’til I croak. Thanks again, Chuck McDonald!

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