Smith & Wesson's 12 Most Important Guns

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While searching for another item I came across this and thought you might find it interesting...From a Shooting Times Magazine article...

Smith & Wesson's 12 Most Important Guns

For 150 years S&W firearms have been changing history. Here are our Technical Editor's picks for the dozen most influential S&W handguns of all time.

By Dick Metcalf

1. Model 1 (1857)
2. Model 3 American (1870)
3. .38 & .32 Double-Action (1880)
4. .38 Hand Ejector (1899)
5. .44 Hand Ejector First Model (1908)
6. .22/32 Target Model (1911)
7. .357 Magnum (1935)
8. .38 Chiefs Special (1950)
9. .357 Combat Magnum (1955) Model 19
10. .44 Magnum (1956) Model 29
11. Double Action 9mm Pistol (1956) Model 39
12. Model 60 Chiefs Special Stainless (1965)
13. Airlite TI and Airlite SC (1999)

Excerpts from the article:
(7) The .357 Magnum changed the world's concept of handgun power and range. But from another perspective, there was nothing really new about it. As I've already noted, S&W had been in the practice of making guns for longer, more powerful versions of existing cartridges. The original S&W No. 1 (.22 Short) was merely a longer, more powerful Flobert (.22 BB Cap). The .32 S&W Long was an 1/8-inch longer and more powerful .32 S&W; the .38 Special was a longer and more powerful .38 Long Colt; the .44 Special was a longer and more powerful .44 Russian. And there were others. The thing most notable about the .357 was the magnitude of its leap (and the resonance of the new "Magnum" label), which was made possible by the capabilities of the N-Frame design and the greater power allowed in existing-dimension cases due to the smaller volume of smokeless propellant compared to blackpowder.

(9) Before Hellstrom talked to U.S. Border Patrol shooting team member (and later Shooting Times Field Editor) Bill Jordan at the 1954 Camp Perry matches, no manufacturer had attempted to chamber the high-intensity .357 Magnum cartridge in anything but a large, heavy frame revolver. Jordan's idea for a "peace officer's dream" sidearm was a heavy-barrelled four-inch K-Frame .357 Magnum with a shrouded barrel like the big-frame .357 and adjustable sights. After a year of experimentation with improved-strength steels and special heat-treat processes, the result was the .357 Combat Magnum (later designated Model 19), with the first serial-number gun (K260,000) presented to Jordan on November 15, 1955.