I work for the PD in the town I live in. I went to work last night and, while getting a Taser out of the safe, I saw a revolver, We have an older guy that just retired as a part timer from the PD. He started in the early 1970's and was issued a S&W M66 when he started. He just retired at the beginning of Feb, when he turned 80. He hasn't worked the road for a good 5 or 6 years and only worked parades and functions like basketball and football games at the High School. I thought he was going to keep it; when we have someone retire and they had been carrying am issued gun, the gun is always gifted to them, so I was really surprised to see it in the safe. The various firearms instructors the PD has had have tried switching him over to whichever various autos the PD had issued over the years (Glock 17s, S&W M6906s, Beretta 92s) and, every time, he shot the autos so badly that they instructors just broke down and let him carry the M66.

Anyway, the gun is a S&W M66-2. It has been shot a LOT in the 40 or so years he has had it. A bunch of the guys shot PPC competition in the early and mid '80's and this Officer shot this gun. I have absolutely no idea how many rounds are through it, but over 40 years of service and several years of informal competition, it is a BUNCH!

Something interesting I noted. The K Frame S&W revolvers are notorious for having the outside of the forcing cone cut away on the bottom to provide clearance for the yoke to swing into the frame. On this particular revolver, there is hardly anything removed from the outside of the forcing cone for the clearance cut. I had to look really close to see the cut. Probably doesn't matter on this particular gun because the PD has never authorized .357 ammo; the only authorized duty load for revolvers is .38+P, which really isn't that much pressure and shouldn't really effect the forcing cone, even in examples where a lot of it is cut away. Just thought it was interesting, is all.

The gun has been fairly well taken care of. It does, of course, have dings and wear, but for being carried for 40 years (keep in mind, they guy was part time and really didn't work all that much, but 40 years? Come on now!), it is in very good condition.

Pics follow. Keep in mind, I AM NOT a pro photographer and, in fact, they were taken with my iPotato in the few minutes I had between calls when I found it. I just thought everyone on here could appreciate a good gun, even in potato pics.


Left side, Pretty good shape, actually, since he was right handed.


Right side, Still in very good shape.


Right grip half. Some wear, but still in very good shape.

That's all the pics. I didn't have much time and didn't take many. I did dry fire it, though. After 40 years of use, the trigger is SMMMOOOOOTTTTHHHH!!!!!!  I couldn't believe it when I pulled the trigger and did it a few more times just to verify what I felt. I can honestly say that I have never pulled the trigger on a gun with a smoother trigger, even the Colt Python my father-in-law used to have. SA wasn't quite as smooth as DA because probably 99.9% of the shooting with this gun was DA, but it was still very good.

The Officer still stops in to shoot the breeze a couple times a week. I'll talk to him next time I see him and ask him why the hell he doesn't want the poor gun. If he really doesn't want it, I'm going to talk to the Chief and see if he'll let me purchase it from the PD. If he does, I'll post more and better pics when I get it.

Enjoy, all.

Bub75

ETA- Pics in a separate post below

Very nice.  Very nice.  

The stainless looks pretty good after all that carrying.  From what I can tell.  Maybe better pics would show more wear.  I don't know.  

My Model 19 has a smaller cut on the barrel than some of the others I've seen in pics too.

Why on earth didn't he want to keep that awesome piece?

Looks very much like my mom's 66 (no dash).

LOTS, probably even most, of cops aren't gun guys. To the vast majority of cops, guns are merely tools that you have to have to do the job, nothing more. From what I have seen, when they retire and are done with the job, they really don't want anything around to remind them of the job. A lot of them will buy their old duty guns for nostalgia's sake, but a lot won't and don't care about them. They think about their guns like some would think about a socket set after they have worked with it as a mechanic for 40 years- they can't wait to get rid of it, never use it again and enjoy their retirement.

I got a couple of good guns a few years ago when we got a new Chief, who sold off all the old issued duty guns to those of us who wanted them to buy new Glock 22s for issue. He got trade in value from one of the large distributors and sold them to us for the trade in price. I got a Beretta 92FS with (mostly) dead night sights, 6 factory mags and minor finish wear for $225.00. I also got an ancient, beat to crap but still fully functional 1st Gen G17 with 6 factory mags (3 were original to the gun, 3 were only a couple years old) for $200.00. While I wish the Officers who had carried them had wanted them, they didn't, so I got a chance to buy 2 good guns that function well, one of which is VERY "finish challenged", for a killer price. Like I said, if he REALLY doesn't want this M66, I'm going to try and buy it from the PD. Its not like it will get shot every day or be a carry gun, but will come out for occasional range trips, probably with .38 only because of the issue with no remaining barrels at S&W in case something happens to this one. It has served for about 40 years and it also deserves a graceful semi-retirement. We'll see how it plays out.

Bub75

Nice pistol. Early 66s had stainless steel rear sight assembly, then they switched to blued. SS is pretty rare.   These appear blued.  Correct?

If I could have taken it I wouldn't have hesitated for a minute.

Correct. IIRC from my reading, only a few hundred of the first M66s had stainless rear sights. This is an M66-2, so if it had stainless rear sights, it would have been messed with.

Bub75

Nice looking gun, I'd definitely pick it up if I were you.  I love Smith revolvers.

Thank you for posting this. Awesome story (I especially like the part about him shooting the autos so poorly they handed it back to him) and beautiful gun. Hope you can snag it if he doesn't want it, I know you'll give her a good home.

Just as an FYI, that gun is closer to 30 than 40 years old. At least since 1982.

The barrel is not pinned, and S&W stopped pinning barrels in 1982.

It looks like the hammer and maybe even the trigger are target variations, which, in my experience,  are actually hard to find in the stainless model guns.  It has the target grips too, so it may have been ordered that way,
especially if it was used in competition.  They are nice guns, and unless beat to heck, they have risen in value much more than the fixed sight stainless models, like the model 65.

I have my S&W model 66-2 in my hand as I type this reply. It was my constant companion for almost all of my years spent as a police officer and I did try to switch to a S&W 5906 and a glock 17 when they were first introduced and I could shoot them just as well as my 66, but the the 66 just kept calling me back to it.

As you stated the trigger was and still is excellent and I had no problem shooting perfect scores for all those years. BTW, both DA and single is equally perfect on mine. It does have many battle scars on it and it kept me safe through a few scary situations.

I have tons of other revolvers and pistols but my old S&W 66-2 is my go to home defense bump in the night weapon.

BTW, mine is set up exactly as the one in the picture and I bought it new in 1982. Only difference is that the grips are still almost new since I changed to pachmayr grippers early on.

I would never part with it and it is considered an heirloom now, my son already knows this revolver will be past down to him when I'm gone.

If you have the chance, I'd get it.

Hmm, interesting. I wasn't aware that P&R didn't go away till then, I thought they stopped doing it earlier. Oh, well, doesn't take away from the revolver and I still want it badly!

Bub75

From the way it was explained, it wasn't ordered for competition, this was issued to him quite a few years before they started competing and he used this gun because he didn't have another. Not to mention, it allowed him to use the gun he was carrying, helping boost competency with his duty gun. These "competitions" were extremely informal and were held between neighboring PDs and you had to use your duty gun, or at least a gun you had qualified with to carry on duty. I got in on it the first year or so I worked for the PD before everyone lost interest and used my Glock 21. This is the way the PD bought the gun for duty use. Not a big deal and it doesn't take away from the gun itself.

Bub75

I love the 66 I own 3, 2 x  4" a -2& a -5 and a 2.5" -3 they are amazing guns  that's a nice looking piece thanks for sharing.

Well, I got some better pics today. The Chief called me this past weekend and asked me to take it home and clean it up. He is presenting the gun to the Officer who carried it when Village Council recognizes him for his 48 years of service with the PD . It is going to be a surprise since he turned it in and the Chief acted like he wasn't going to give it to him. So, the Officer will be receiving the gun after all, which is as it should be.

Since I work Sat, Sun, Mon and Tues, Wed Thurs and Fri are considered my "weekend". The kids were at school and the wife was at work today, so I sat down, loaded up Battlestar Galactica on the DVD player and spent a lot of the day cleaning. I even went so far as to detail strip it and cleaned out MANY years of dirt, grime, dried up lube and brass flecks out of the innards. The gun is now probably cleaner than when it came from the factory. I also took some NevrDull to some of the stains on the stainless. I didn't do it to polish as much as I tried to deep clean the metal. I didn't have time to do much with the grips except cleaning them as well as I could and applying a couple coats of paste wax. If I had a couple weeks, I would have stripped them and applied pure Tung Oil to them. Unfortunately, I have to have the gun back Sat when I go back to work, so no time to refinish the grips.

On to the pics. Keep in mind, I'm NOT a pro photographer. I take my pics on my low speed, high drag kitchen table photo studio with a Casio point-and-shoot camera. Also, I had a pic showing the serial number and model number where I blurred out most of the serial number, since its not my gun. However, Photobucket is being its usual bastard self and won't show the blurred pic. Serial number is ACN4XXX, it is an M66-2.


Left side, You can see some of the blemishes on the stainless.


Right side.  Lots of wear on the grips.


Closeup of the left grip. Some wear but not too bad.


Right grip. Quite a bit of wear, especially on the checkered part and the border. Honest wear, though.


White outline rear sight. Quite a bit of wear but still perfectly usable.


Red inlay front sight. Seems to be in amazingly good shape. Still stands out VERY well and no discernable nicks or scratches in the plastic inlay.


Target hammer.


Target trigger. Took me probably 10-15 minutes with an old toothbrush and Hoppes to scrub all the black filth out of the grooves.


Not the greatest pic but showing some of the holster wear on the right side of the barrel.


Some of the holster wear on the left side of the barrel. Again, not the best pic but the best I could come up with.


Some of the blemishes on the left side of the frame. Also shows the condition of the grips. The original finish was badly worn and not really there anymore. One reason that I'd really like to strip and refinish the grips. No time, though, so it is what it is.



Condition of the sideplate screws. Not the most buggered up I've ever seen but it has obviously been opened up a time or two.


What I believe is an overtravel stop behind the trigger?


And, just because! Who really needs a reason to post a pic of S&W .357 Magnum?

Well, that's it. I'm just glad its going back to the guy that carried it all those years. Enjoy.

Bub75

If your local hardware store has it, Renaissance Wax will make that baby SHINE!

Looks like the overtravel stop has been filed/ground down.

Will Renaissance Wax really make a difference on stainless?  I was under the impression that it really only made blued steel shine and more or less protected stainless.

u dun good.  I bet the guy will be proud to have that back!

It's going to do about as much as anything can. I mean, it's not going to ever look like nickel, but it will look it's best.

Outstanding work Bub75!

As a S&W Fan, I would rather have the gun back in its natural state and not highly polished.

The 66 is one of the finest revolvers ever made. Im sure that he will be extremely happy to have it back. Kudos to you for cleaning it up for him.

Nice clean up...I'd love to see the holster he carried it in.

That's awesome. That is a revolver anyone would be proud to own, glad it's going to make a home with the man who relied on it for so many years.

Thanks, guys. I would have really loved to have had enough time and money to, say, send it back to S&W for a complete refinish to get the "brushed" look back and got him some new grips, but cleaning it up was a kinda spur of the moment deal. That would have been the next best thing to having it just as it came out of the box and I'd bet he'd really appreciate it. Myself, however, if it was going to be mine, I kinda like the worn-but-not-abused, been-there-done-that look. Honest wear, as long as its not abused, makes a gun look better, in my eyes. Besides, this gun HAS been-there-done-that, so it might as well look the part. I'm just glad it is going back to the guy who carried it all those years and that its not going to languish in the safe or get traded in for something else. I believe, from talking to him, that he carried the same holster from when he started up till just a few years ago. The Chief at the time finally got tired of looking at the WELL worn leather (not to mention, it was pointed out to him that the holster was so bad it was now a safety issue) and got him a new holster. The old one was so bad and so worn that, rather than throw it in the "extra leather" box, they threw it away.

Bub75

Looks great just the way you cleaned it up.

He will love having that ol' girl presented to him.