Commonly found on British commonwealth guns (especially Australian). It indicates the revolver was officially refurbished at an arsenal post-war. It is usually accompanied by a year (e.g., FTR / 52 ). 5. Identifying Post-War Commercial Modifications
At the end of 1944, S&W introduced an important safety upgrade—a redesigned hammer-block safety mechanism. This upgrade was prompted by a tragic incident involving a dropped revolver, and all Victory Models produced from late 1944 onward received the new safety block. Guns with the revised safety mechanism were designated with an "S" added to the serial prefix, creating the "SV" prefix for guns already in production (indicating retrofitted safety blocks), followed by a transition to a standalone "S" prefix at approximately S769000 as production continued after the war. s w 38 victory model serial number lookup extra quality
Use this reference table to date your revolver and verify its production run. This data is compiled from S&W factory historical letters and Roy Jinks’ records. Guns with the revised safety mechanism were designated