Model 64 round-butt hard to find?

[WebHobbit]

So for some reason I am having some nostalgic pangs for a nice old revolver. Specifically I'd like to find an old S&W Model 64 with the heavy 4 inch barrel and a round butt. It would have to be pre-lock and pre-MIM trigger/hammer. Ideally this would be from back in the 80's (or older I guess) when they had the NICE smooth flash-chromed triggers and hammer mounted firing pins. So what series would that be? -4 or older? I dug around a bit on Gun-broker and it seems they are plentiful for $400 or less....but all I'm seeing are square-butts. I have the idea of maybe sending such a gun to S&W for bead-blasting and a trigger job. Set this up with the FBI load for my Wife's "house gun" as she is still partial to revolvers even though I have "moved on" as they say. I've always thought these 64s had a cool look/feel...

My idea is maybe I could trade my nearly new (350 rounds through it) 9mm Shield even for it....possibly here on INGO's marketplace.

Is this gonna be hard to source?

 

[woodsie57]

A few minutes with a belt sander and you can round it off. A little polishing and refinishing of the grips , and you're done! No , really- I did it once- but with an H&R 22 revolver, not the same thing. But; l'll bet a professional job wouldn't be expensive, the factory rb's are a lot less common.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Web, a ton of 64-6s came into the country a while ago. They are still floating about.

Last one I bought was $275. Think I posted it on INGO in the revolver thread.

EDIT: Yes, I did. It is post #1161 in the wheel gun thread.

 

[drillsgt]

Was that a RB though, I don't know if i've ever seen a 64 4" RB?

 

[drillsgt]

A few minutes with a belt sander and you can round it off. A little polishing and refinishing of the grips , and you're done! No , really- I did it once- but with an H&R 22 revolver, not the same thing. But; l'll bet a professional job wouldn't be expensive, the factory rb's are a lot less common.

Not quite that easy but you can do it, i did it on a M66 custom one time. The trickier part isn't making it a round butt but the front of the grip on a SB flares out a little bit as opposed to a RB so you have to dress that back a bit and may have to fiddle with the tension screw/screw hole there.

 

[kaveman]

The 64-5 and prior have the hammer mounted firing pin. I think you'll have a hard time actually finding a square butt 64 since somewhere along the way Smith started making all revolvers with round butt frames. All but one of mine are round butt(the 3" is a RB 64-3, there are three RB 64-6's and all the rest are RB 64-5's with the single SB exception(top revolver in the second column)). The gun you're looking at may just have square butt grips on it. Again, all but one of these 64's are RB's. The 3" guns (and to a lesser extent the 2" guns)are harder to find, but 4" HB RB's are very common. I happen to like the DAO version(obviously!).

No MIM or Hillary Hole on any of these and all except the 3"er were $250(or less) pickups off of GunBroker. Finding a 3" for under $400 is a chore.

If you want to read about my education on RB64's and see a few grip pictures posted, follow the link to the S&W Forum.

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-revolvers-1961-1980/390950-square-butt-grips-round-butt-frames.html

 

[WebHobbit]

Thanks Kaveman...mist informative. These guns have gone up a bit since you bought yours in 2014. Most are all like $339-400 or so

 

[kaveman]

You just have to shop them pretty good. I still find deals on them(and the DAO guns tend to be a bit cheaper). There was a dealer on GB a month or two back that had a single lot of 100 very nice looking standard DA M64-5's for $20,000 Buy Now with free shipping. If I'd had the money I would have bought them all. Can't have too many at $200 apiece. Except for the 3"er that I actually had to bid on, all the others were purchased with the BN option and they did rise from $225 to $235 and eventually $250 during the period I was buying. It's amazing what you can find on GB if you search daily(and I specifically search the most recent BN listings.

Meant to add that $350-$500 was the 'going' rate back then too. I haven't noticed the prices changing any in the last couple of years,........you just need to dig for the good deals. Certain bottom-of-the-barrel dealers have the same junky looking CAI imports that they had two years ago at the same 'low' prices. It's better to watch for a group of police or guard turn-ins to hit the market and scoop them up.