This Model 64 S&W is not a custom gun; marked "NY-1" on the crane, it was one of the last revolvers approved for purchase and duty use by NYPD members of service

About 12 years ago, the NYPD was in the process of moving all their people from revolvers to autos. The last approved revolvers of the New York City police from Smith & Wesson included some pretty special hardware. Understanding changes that predated the move to auto pistols is helpful in understanding the guns that were last approved for purchase by members of service. At one time, the guns had to be Colt or S&W revolvers (later some Rugers were allowed), chambered for .38 Special only, they had to be blue steel and inspected/approved by an armorer. As time went on, some things became apparent. For one thing, out of the tens of thousands of cops, few were getting really significant amounts of firearms training. In fact, most weren't interested in guns at all and forgot much of what was demonstrated at Rodman's Neck.

The S&W Model 640 (top) is known as a .38 Special revolver. The other is not the M640-1 .357 Magnum -- it's a 640-2 in .38 Special, approved for NYPD members in the late 1990s.

For one thing, the revolvers could be cocked. Jim Cirillo told a story of working the range one day and having a member of service pulling him aside to talk to him in private. The cop produced a service revolver that was cocked and had a bandana wrapped around the frame, blocking the hammer from the frame. He had no clue how to "de-cock" the gun. Jim had joked that the gun appeared to "have a toothache," but found that the cop had cocked the gun months before and didn't bother to get it seen to until his next range trip! More likely was "cocking the gun as a threat," a movie and television staple. This caused a short, light press on the trigger to result in a "bang." The outfit wanted nothing more to do with that. Likewise, the guns were catching hell from the environment. S&W had started the move away from nicely blued steel toward the more rust-resistant stainless steel. It was getting difficult to find a source for blued wheel guns. Finally, NYPD approved some stainless "double action only" .38 Special revolvers.

A give-away is that the M640-2 is marked as a .38, not .357 Mag, on the barrel. On the crane, the model is given as "640-2."

One of the first of the change-era guns was the Stainless Centennial, the Model 640. A .38 Special, it was a near-remake of the 1950s vintage Centennial series. The modern incarnation lacked the grip safety of its predecessor. A five-shot .38 Special, the gun was double action only by virtue of preventing access to the hammer. The sleekly finished frame was smooth at the back with no opening for user access to the hammer, which is completely concealed. Weighing in at around 21 ounces, the .38 Special 640 met the specs required by the NYPD. The S&W Model 640 was dropped from the line in the mid-1990s with the advent of the 640-1. A robust revolver with a slightly longer, lugged thicker diameter barrel, the new gun was chambered for the .357 Magnum. The black ramp front sight was pinned in place. NYPD wanted no Magnums. So S&W produced the 640-2. I'd never heard of this gun until I began looking into the last of the NYPD .38s. I contacted Smith & Wesson in 2004 about the odd Model 640-2 I was examining. He responded as follows: "The Model 640 was originally produced in .38 Special. The 640-1 introduced in 1996 was produced with an integral cylinder lug, with a longer cylinder and larger cylinder opening in the frame allowing it to be chambered in .357 Magnum. We re-introduced the gun in .38 Special in September of 1997 and produced it through 1999, marked as 640-2. Although the 640-2 had the integral cylinder lug and longer cylinder, the chamber was drilled out to only accommodate the .38 Special. As far as the metallurgy there was no difference in material and or heat treat between any of the variations." So it is the Model 640-1 with ".38 Spl." barrel markings and "640-2" stamped inside the crane with the chambers reamed for .38 Special only. For uniform duty, the revolver that was most likely carried was the Model 64 Stainless Military & Police. Most of those are the four-inch bull barrel variant. They (and the two-inch, plainclothes version) are stamped "NY-1." Private collections yielded a sample of each. The four-inch had clearly seen time in a police holster. The short gun appeared new or nearly so. I recently fired the four-inch gun in an annual qualification for law enforcement retirees. It performed beautifully. Both guns had the "NY-1" mark inside their cranes. Likewise, both had laser engraved serial numbers on the left side of their frames immediately under the cylinder windows. This was apparently to make it easier to read the numbers, usually found on the butt of the grip frame covered by custom or over-size stocks. While the day of the police revolver is over for active service, they provide an interesting field to mine for the revolver collector. -- Rich Grassi