A friend in the business of coming up with interesting firearms let it be known that he’d come across a Smith & Wesson Combat Masterpiece from just over 70 years ago – made in my birth year. 

Big deal? Not really, except for collectors and sentimental old fools. They began as the K-38 Combat Masterpiece before the 1957 change to model numbers; it came to be known as the Model 15.

A variation of the K-38 Target Masterpiece – a revolver originally meant to compete in bullseye matches, those made with 6” and 8 3/8” barrels, analogous to the K-32 and K-22 Masterpiece revolvers made to the same purpose – the Combat Masterpiece was made in four-inch and, later snub versions. The target audience for the shorter guns was law enforcement. 

I combine the serendipity of the birth year of the gun and I with the fact that the K-38 Combat Masterpiece was the chosen duty revolver – in both barrel lengths – for a pair of badge-toting uncles on my mother’s side.

I never saw the need when I was on the job, having carried a Colt National Match 45 and a Stainless Combat Magnum, Model 66-1 in uniform. I thought both were superior choices. 

Still, the Combat Masterpiece Model 15 saw lots of service with the Los Angeles Police Department and, notably, the US Air Force. Some USAF units didn’t give up the S&W revolvers until 1992, a long record of service as they originally adopted them in 1956 (after this sample had been shipped). 

The Target Masterpiece had a slender rib atop the six-inch (and 8 3/8”) barrels and a Patridge front sight, ideal for target use. The shorter Combat guns had the Baughman (FBI) ramped front sight and shorter barrels.

The sample has a target hammer and service-width grooved trigger. It was made before we knew that smooth face triggers were better for double-action work. Someone painted the front sight a shade of “safety green.”

The gun I got was equipped with Magna style service stocks, like the originals, but the originals had diamond-pattern checkering; these do not. I added an original Tyler T-grip grip adapter I had in the safe.

This is a five-screw gun; there are four screws holding the sideplate, with a fifth in front of the trigger guard under the frame.

I found the trigger press to be easy – easy enough that, when trying some bullseye at 25 yards, I enjoyed a miss. At the indoor range, I tried the 130 grain FMJ non+P load. Five-round strings were fired one hand only at 25 yards. The four hits on the repair center measured in at 3 3/8” with the best three in 1 1/8”. The first round was on the backer just off the repair center.

The gun wouldn’t have missed, but I could.

My second string had all on the paper with a single flier opening the group. The best four in a rounded group went into 1 ¾” with three of those in an inch. 

I put a business size envelope on the backer in portrait mode, ran it out to ten yards. Shooting double action, two handed, five hits went into 1 3/8” while firing in “assessment time.”

A 70+ year old revolver with a shooter the same age; I’m not complaining. 

I’m thankful. 

– Rich Grassi