S&W M&P Airweight .38 Special
“You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ’Til It’s Gone.”
Introduced in 1953 as the Military & Police Airweight, renamed the Model 12 in 1957, the lightweight version of Smith & Wesson’s super-popular six-shot .38 Special service revolver went through its siblings’ “dash-X” modifications up through Model 12-4 before lack of sales finally caused its discontinuance in 1986.
Born in the mid-20th Century USAF search for an ultra-light revolver for pilots that first gave us aluminum-framed revolvers — the Colt Cobra of 1950 and S&W’s subsequent Airweight series — the Model 12 was the black sheep of the K-Frame family. Slightly larger and a few ounces heavier than Colt’s Cobra holding the same six rounds and roughly a quarter-pound heavier and distinctly larger than S&W’s own J-Frame five-shot Airweight, it was just a tad too big for pocket carry even with its original and definitely most popular barrel length — two inches. I just never saw the need for a Model 12 back when I could order one new for a reasonable price at the gun shop. I guess most others felt the same.
The more fools, we.
Awakening
One day in the 1980s, I was in one of the great American gun shops of all time, Riley’s in Hooksett, NH, when I spotted a 2″ round-butt Model 12 in the used handgun showcase. On a whim, I asked to see it. The bonding was like what happens when you meet the right puppy at the ASPCA. I “rescued” it and brought it home. I liked the way it shot and the way it felt in my hand — no revolver has ever fitted me better than a K-Frame Smith — and I shot +P FBI loads in it against S&W’s recommendation, with a set of Pachmayr Compacs to cushion the recoil.
When one of my sisters-in-law needed a gun, I lent it to her. I had been carrying it because it felt so sinfully comfortable and being a guy who advocated packing more serious firepower, I felt a tinge of hypocrisy wearing a snub as primary. I went back to carrying service autos. When I finally got it back, it was missing its cylinder latch and I had mislaid its original stocks, a mistake since until the dash-4 model, S&W made these guns with thinner frames and regular K-Frame stocks didn’t fit right. My friend Tom Givens, another Model 12 fan, later helped me out with a pair of original stocks. Thanks, Tom.
Along the way, I had read old friend Roy Huntington’s paean to the Model 12 in American Handgunner and it reminded me of how much I liked the gun, perhaps irrationally. I picked up a 2″ square-butt blued one at Welch’s Gun Shop in Lebanon, NH, and a Mag-na-ported nickel duplicate with Herrett stocks at a gun shop in Louisiana. Neither, unfortunately, shot quite to the sights. I confess to envying Roy on this count, because his specimens shoot to point of aim/point of impact.
I even picked up one of the rare, short-lived Model 315 Nightguards, which shot great but because it had Scandium in it for +P durability, weighed 24 oz. instead of the original Model 12 snubby’s 18 oz. This put the 315 about halfway between the original 18-oz., 2″ Model 12 and the chunky 2″ all-steel Model 10.
Grail Gun
I got the urge for a 4″ Model 12. The slight added weight is compensated for by two more inches of barrel that significantly improve sight radius and lever the gun butt into the body for better concealment in a belt holster — counterintuitive, but true. My primary day job is that of instructor and I’ve found even in an auto pistol world, a double-action revolver lets you demonstrate trigger control better than anything else. As the instructor works the trigger, the students can see the even, uninterrupted rise and fall of the hammer and turn of the cylinder, as well as watching the long pull of the index finger on the trigger. I figured it would make a good teaching gun, and being old with sciatica, which interrupted my life-long comfort with a heavy pistol on my hip, a decent carry gun as well. With a six-shooter, a full-length ejector rod as on the 4″ model is desirable, too.
OMG — try to find an affordable 4″ Model 12, at a reasonable price, in the 2020s.
The search lasted for a couple of years and ended at Christmas of 2021, when my lovely bride found one on Gunbroker.com and put it under the tree for me. There it sat in its original box, pristine, practically needing a microscope to find a hint of a turn line on the cylinder …
… and I experienced a cognitive dissonance attack. Or maybe it was multiple personality disorder. My shooter self said, “Let’s take this baby out and shoot it, now! That’s why we have a range on our property!” But the ghost of my Scottish maternal grandfather seemed to say, “Nae, laddie, dinnae shoot it! Ye’ll ruin its collector value!”
Which is why it’s still in the safe, as yet unfired — and why I’m looking for a seasoned, “shooter-grade” 4″ Model 12, preferably with a round butt.
If you’re a gun enthusiast, I know you’ll understand.
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