The original Smith & Wesson company was founded in 1852 by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson in Norwich, Connecticut. Both had considerable experience in gunsmithing – Horace gained it while working at the state armory in his native Springfield, while Daniel was already developing sporting weapons in the 1940s.
Springfield Beginnings
The business plan was simple: produce and sell a repeating pistol with a bottom-operated bolt and a tubular magazine under the barrel. It fired self-sealing, single-shot cartridges, a hot new feature in the mid-19th century, and in 1854 it was nicknamed the Volcanic, derived from its rate of fire.
Despite initial success, the founders ran into financial difficulties, which led industrialist Oliver Winchester to buy the company. In 1855, it was renamed Volcanic Repeating Arms and moved to New Haven. Smith decided to leave the business and returned to Springfield, while Wesson briefly worked for Winchester as the company's manager. A year later, the two partners reunited and founded a new company, S&W, on Market Street in Springfield. Wesson took advantage of the situation when Samuel Colt's patents for the revolver had just expired and developed a similar small-bore weapon. However, he soon discovered that the patents for some of the components - including the full-length bored barrel - were owned by former Colt employee Rollin White. The businessmen agreed with him in exchange for 25 cents from each gun sold.
The new revolver in .22 RF caliber was designated Model 1 and the Civil War soon gave it unexpected publicity. Soldiers on both sides used their own money to purchase S&W weapons for self-defense, trusting them more than the stock revolvers. Orders exceeded the company's production capacity, which led the owner to move to larger premises and experiment with the design of a new cartridge. Thus, the Model 2 in .32 RF caliber was born .
The generous Tsar
When demand dropped after the fighting ended, Smith and Wesson sought outlets in France, England, and Germany. They attended trade shows, and their revolvers attracted great attention in Paris. The financial thorn in the company's side was removed by the Russian Grand Duke Alexander, who signed a large order on the spot, and the businessmen were able to start developing and purchasing other inventions. In the late 1960s, they bought the patent for both the frame improvement and the barrel-breaking and ejector mechanism.
The Model 3 for the new .41 RF cartridge soon saw the light of day. The weapon again scored points in the East, when the Russian attaché in Washington pushed for the purchase of 20,000 pieces for the Tsarist army. Even so, the company again found itself in trouble in 1870, when the patent rights to White's solution expired after 15 years and the administration of President Grant rejected the request for an extension. At the same time, the US Army decided to replace percussion revolvers with weapons with a single cartridge, and Colt received a huge order with the Peacemaker model.
The partners had no choice but to turn to the civilian market and try to satisfy the hunger for pocket weapons. To this end, they developed a five-shot .38 caliber revolver, nicknamed the Baby Russian for its resemblance to the larger “eastern” model. In 1880, the company launched double-action revolvers in its own .32 S&W caliber, the most famous of which was the Lemon Squeezer, equipped with a palm safety.
In war and in peace
In the late 1990s, the most famous S&W revolver came out of the workshop: the Military & Police in the new .38 S&W Special caliber. The caliber was further increased in 1908 with the first S&W revolver with a Type N frame, which fired the .44 S&W Special cartridge. The weapon was called the Hand Ejector (the cartridges were removed by a manually operated ejector) and was also sold in .32 and .38 calibers.
S&W was brought back into the sights of the armed forces by the First World War, when the company received an order for 75,000 revolvers in the British .455 caliber. The Model 1917, also produced in an army version, made the gunsmith most famous at this time. Both weapons used the American .45 ACP caliber and atypical semicircular loading belts for three rounds. In the interwar period, the Outdoorsman caliber .22 LR – the ancestor of all S&W small-bore revolvers – became especially famous. In the mid-1930s, the .357 Magnum caliber weapon with the Factory Registered designation was added to the portfolio for the first time, the first piece of which was given as a gift to the infamous FBI chief Edgar Hoover.
A significant milestone in the history of the brand was the second global conflict. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Army began to grow in strength and new soldiers needed weapons. The company focused exclusively on military orders, led by an order for 1.1 million .38 Military & Police revolvers. After the war, the company modified the production lines back to civilian production and moved to larger premises. At the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, S&W twice unsuccessfully participated in military tests of various types of pistols, from which the successor to the Colt M1911 was to emerge. However, none of the arms companies succeeded and the soldiers kept the Colts.
Management and portfolio changes
In 1964, the Wesson company was sold to the Bangor Punta concern. The new management decided to expand production to include equipment for the police - the first S&W handcuffs, night vision goggles and service clothing date from this time. The development of weapons did not stop either, and in 1967 the company achieved a breakthrough success when the Model 39 pistol was introduced into the armament of the Illinois State Police. This step prompted other forces to replace their service revolvers with self-loading weapons, and S&W responded to the demand with an enlarged Model 59 with a 14-round magazine. The weapon also became popular with the Navy's special forces and was successfully used in Vietnam. At the same time, S&W rewrote the history of handguns again by introducing the Model 60 - the world's first stainless steel revolver.
When the Pentagon invited S&W for the third time in 1978 to conduct comparative tests, the management proceeded to revise the entire model line of pistols. Beretta won the tender, but S&W only benefited from the innovations introduced. In the early 1980s, it stopped production of the old models in favor of the types 439, 539, 459 and 559, where the number 4 indicates the use of light alloy and the number 5 indicates a steel frame. The design changes also made it possible to use different types of ammunition and also led to a reduction in the dimensions of the weapons. Engineers also equipped the new models with an automatic firing pin safety and soon prepared other types with the initial number 6 and a stainless steel frame.
In the midst of the transformation, the company changed hands again when it was taken over by the Californian corporation Lear Siegler, better known to aviation and automotive fans. In 1986, the arms company changed hands again and became part of the British group Tomkins.
Into the 21st century
In the early 1990s, gun enthusiasts were delighted with the arrival of new CEO Ed Schultz and massive investments in technology. The innovations that resulted in the Sigma model line were aimed at countering Glock competition. S&W Sigma pistols do not have an external manual safety, they fire exclusively in double-action mode, and they found their way into the arsenal of police officers in Niagara Falls and Tennessee. The turn of the millennium brought a series of compact Chiefs Special pistols for concealed carry.
Despite the positive impact of the news, the company was not spared from friction, which resulted in the sale of S&W to Saf-T-Hammer Corporation in May 2001. It spent only $15 million for the famous brand, a fraction of the $112 million paid by Tomkins. In 2006, the gunsmith fundamentally changed its business policy and focused its marketing on hypermarket chains.
In 2016, S&W acquired Crimson Trace (laser sights), Taylor Brands (knives) and UST Brands (survival equipment). The purchases confirmed the company's direction in the increasingly popular outdoor & survival segment. However, in the eyes of fans, Smith & Wesson remains primarily a traditional manufacturer of pistols and revolvers for self-defense, sports and service use. Today, the bestsellers include the polymer M&P strikers in countless sizes and calibers, which continue the tradition of police revolvers and, in addition to great ergonomics, offer extensive customization options . Everyone can choose from the S&W portfolio, even if they spend a lot of time choosing a weapon. For example, in the 1990s, the gun manufacturer produced 32 models in 110 variants and ten calibers in four frame sizes in the Double Action revolver segment alone...
