History: Smith & Wesson Victory revolver

A fun way to find out how interested someone is in vintage firearms is to ask them what a Smith & Wesson Victory pistol is.

Newer shooters and members of the younger generation will likely tell you it’s a semi-automatic .22 LR pistol, introduced in 2016, but the correct answer, at least for fellow people of culture, is that it is a .38-calibre revolver made in vast quantities during WWII for the Allied forces and used throughout the rest of the 20th Century as a result.

Smith & Wesson Victory revolver — A S&W Victory Model revolver made for the Commonwealth during WWII

Because nothing involving old military firearms is ever simple, the name “Victory” revolver refers to two pistols made concurrently by Smith & Wesson during WWII, but in slightly different configurations.

Both variants had a “V” serial number, but the British/Commonwealth guns were chambered in .38 S&W (more specifically, .38/200 and .380 Mk IIz) with a 5in (127mm) barrel, while the American guns were chambered in .38 Special with a 4in (100mm) barrel.

For the purposes of this article, we’re focussing on the British/Commonwealth version, which was made in larger numbers than its US counterpart and is far more likely to be encountered in Australia.

When WWII really got underway, the British desperately needed handguns. Despite local manufacturers such as Webley & Scott and the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield cranking out guns as fast as they could, they couldn’t meet the military’s demands and thus the British Government started buying pistols from US manufacturers – chiefly Smith & Wesson, but also Colt.

Smith & Wesson owed the British Government rather a lot of money over a failed 1940 light rifle project, which they had been paid for but couldn’t be completed satisfactorily, and by way of compensation some bright person suggested that S&W provide handguns instead of money. Given the circumstances, the British accepted.

The gun the British had been ordering were essentially the Smith & Wesson Military & Police revolver, Fourth Model, but chambered for .38/200 with a 5in barrel and a lanyard loop.

The guns ordered before US entry into WWII were regular commercial-production M&P revolvers and featured a commercial finish as well as chequered grips with the S&W medallion on them.

Once production of the M&P revolver series reached 1 million guns in early 1942, the serial numbers had a V (for Victory) prefix added and the grips were changed to a smooth wooden style. The finish was changed to something often described as Parkerised, but using a different process and officially referred to as Black Magic (despite being grey) by S&W.

By January 1942, Smith & Wesson was making 1000 Victory model revolvers (in both .38 Special and .38 S&W) per day, at an approximate cost of $US23.79 each — about $A680 each today.

Following a fatal accident involving a dropped revolver aboard a US Navy ship in 1944, the hammer block was redesigned and guns produced with the new system had an SV serial number.

Military production ended on 27 August 1945 with serial number SV 811119, although there were so many spare parts left over that Victory revolvers continued to be manufactured for the civilian market until 1946, concluding around serial number SV 825000.

Serious Collectors™ will argue over whether or not the revolvers supplied to the Commonwealth before 1942 are actually Victory models since they lack the V prefix, but in a practical sense any .38-calibre S&W M&P revolver made for military use between 1940 and 1945 arguably can and should be considered a Victory model.

Prior to March 1941, the British handguns were supplied on a “cash and carry” basis, ie, the same as any other commercial order. Payment was initially covered by the credit owed to the British Government by S&W.

Following the passage of the Lend-Lease Act on March 11, 1941, the US was able to “lend” military equipment, supplies and even food to the Commonwealth on the understanding it would be returned or paid for once the war was over (no-one seriously expected the stuff back, however).

As part of this, the S&W Victory revolvers supplied by the US were stamped “United States Property” (later “US Property GHD”, with GHD being the initials for Springfield Ordnance District head Colonel Guy H Drewry, indicating the guns had been inspected under his authority) as part of the polite fiction the guns were owned by the US and just being loaned to some mates for a bit.

According to Smith & Wesson’s records, a total of 571,629 Victory revolvers were supplied to Britain and the Commonwealth between 1940-1945 — notably 112,854 sold to the British Purchasing Commission between June and October 1940; 21,347 sold to South Africa and 45,238 to Canada between June 1940 and December 1941; and 8000 supplied directly to Australia in June 1941. The remainder were supplied to the British under Lend-Lease (featuring US ownership markings) and ended up throughout the Commonwealth.

While the standard Commonwealth Victory revolver had a 5in barrel, a small number of the non-Lend-Lease examples had 4in and 6in barrels, especially from the 1940-1941 period when the Commonwealth was essentially buying commercial guns and taking whatever was available at the time.

The US-issue guns were primarily for the US Navy. Early examples were stamped “US Navy” rather than “US Property”. Many others were supplied to police forces, power plants, factories and other strategically important businesses and locations via the Government-owned Defense Supplies Corporation, as civilian sales had been stopped because of the war. DSC-supplied Victory revolvers lack the US Property markings but are otherwise identical to their military counterparts.

Post-war, a lot of the British-issued Victory revolvers were re-imported to the US (along with vast quantities of other military firearms), with many being rechambered from .38 S&W to .38 Special by reaming out the cylinders. A number of the guns which remained in Australia and Britain were also converted this way.

While making them commercially attractive to the public, it was still a suboptimal conversion in many respects. Split cases are a common occurrence and it’s generally considered not safe to fire these converted revolvers with hot or +P .38 Special loads.

In Australian service, the Victory was issued during WWII, the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency, with most of the Victory revolvers in Australian service then going through a Factory Thorough Repair (FTR) overhaul at Lithgow in 1954-1955, which often involved replacing the finish with a different one that produced an almost green colour in some cases.

By the early 1960s the Victory (and .38 Webleys and Enfields still in ADF armouries) were phased out in favour of the Browning Hi-Power, and the guns ended up on the civilian market — often unfired since being overhauled. Many remained in Australia, but large numbers were shipped back to the US and sold to collectors.

SHOOTING S&W VICTORY REVOLVER

Anyone who’s shot a S&W Model 10 knows what a nice gun they are, and despite being of earlier vintage, the Victory is every bit as pleasant to shoot as its modern .38 Special counterpart.

The main issue is feeding the gun. Commercial .38 S&W ammunition is available, but it is expensive and hard to get, making reloading the best option.

The .38 S&W cartridge is, when pistol propellants are available, relatively straightforward to reload for, generally being loaded with a 145gn LRN projectile (although there are published loads using the same 158gn projectiles commonly used for .38 Special cartridges, too) and coated hard-cast projectiles are readily available from several Australian manufacturers.

Being a .38-calibre K-frame revolver, the Victory models use standard speedloaders and an HKS-10 or Safariland Comp II/Comp III works perfectly with them.

S&W Victory revolvers are a notable part of Australia’s military history and still function (and shoot!) just as well today as they did when they were first issued, a fact which has not been lost on shooters and collectors.

SPECIFICATIONS