{"id":29810,"date":"2026-06-26T08:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/26\/sw-model-52-1-a-magnificent-target-pistol-for-38-special-wadcutters\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:00:22","slug":"sw-model-52-1-a-magnificent-target-pistol-for-38-special-wadcutters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/26\/sw-model-52-1-a-magnificent-target-pistol-for-38-special-wadcutters\/","title":{"rendered":"S&#038;W Model 52-1: A Magnificent Target Pistol for .38 Special Wadcutters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mejs-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xfgWixcPQYE?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The Model 52 is a purpose-built target pistol that Smith &#038; Wesson built on the Model 39 frame. It is chambered for a very specific flush-loaded 148gr .38 Special wadcutter loading, to be used in bullseye pistol competition. It was first introduced in 1961 as a double action pistol, and replaced by the single-action-only Model 52-1 in 1963. It remained in production until 1993, with a few internal improvements in 1970 making it the 52-2. Ultimately, the production tooling wore to the point of needing major refurbishment which wasn&#8217;t worth the cost. The style of 3-gun bullseye pistol competition that the Model 52 was designed for was no longer popular, and so S&#038;W chose to drop the gun form production.<\/p>\n<p>The best firearms reference books: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.headstamppublishing.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Model 52 is a purpose-built target pistol that Smith &#038; Wesson built on the Model 39 frame. It is chambered for a very specific flush-loaded 148gr .38 Special wadcutter loading, to be used in bullseye pistol competition. It was first introduced in 1961 as a double action pistol, and replaced by the single-action-only Model&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/26\/sw-model-52-1-a-magnificent-target-pistol-for-38-special-wadcutters\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">S&#038;W Model 52-1: A Magnificent Target Pistol for .38 Special Wadcutters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}