Oklahoma Museum Brings Pretty Boy’s Smith & Wesson .38 Pistol to Curator’s Corner
NRAblog 02.06.13
The second week of the Curator’s Corner move from Thursday to Monday nights stayed in Oklahoma yesterday as battling Curators went completely gaga over an Oklahoma owned piece of American history.
The owner? Former U.S. Marshal and Pryor, Oklahoma Police Chief Austin Whitaker.
The gun? A Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.
The history? How about Pretty Boy Floyd?
“Whitaker was involved in a manhunt for Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd,” explained Davis Arms & Historical Museum curator Jason Schubert. “After they caught him, the FBI agent who was running the operation took this gun off of Floyd and gave it to Whitaker.”
What else makes this revolver so special? Well, nothing.
“It’s any revolver that you’ve ever seen,” said National Firearms Museum Director Jim Supica. “The Smith & Wesson 1905 worked, it was simple and it was effective. They became the basic police revolver through the 20th Century.”
The Smith & Wesson Model 1905 is a double action .38 special revolver on a standard K-frame. With just over 600,000 ever made, this popular model was ultimately replaced with the semi-automatics at the close of the 20th Century.
Before they called it a wrap, Supica went on to praise the collection at Davis Arms.
“Davis does an outstanding job, they have a wonderful collection. I lived here for a couple of years and made it over there every chance I had.
“We want people to understand the role that firearms played in America and the story of Americans and their guns. We’re both working on getting that out to people.”
To see more spectacular firearms like the Smith & Wesson owned by Pretty Boy Floyd, tune in to the Sportsman Channel every Monday afternoon at 5pm eastern for Cam & Company on NRANews.
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