April 25, 2014
I was on armslist recently and saw a listing for a 44 magnum 4 inch VH as a model 13 . I thought it was a joke till I read in this forum about a model 10 and 16 that I never heard about. contact the seller he said gun was from a family member of a former DW employee special order 1 of 3 made. armslist number 4610164 in Springfield Missouri what do you think? he's asking 2000
August 28, 2009
Ralphmailman -
This was my original response to your inquiry:
I saw it listed earlier this week as well and discounted it a a mistake or hoax. It looks like a straight-up 44 to me. I'd be asking what is different about this gun than a standard 44, what are the special markings' and what provenance exists to document that it is a "Model 13". If there isn't any of the above I'd steer clear of it at that price as anyone can pick up a 44 and claim it's a special order, 1 of 3 Model 13 for a DW employee family member. If there truly is documentation to support that it is what it is claimed to be, then you may have something there. Otherwise I'd value it as a mod. 44. These are the questions you should be asking.
I guess I didn't have enough to do today so I went and did it for you. Here is the response:
"The hammer and trigger are different, ported barrel. No documents or box. Traded for it from a guy and his dad worked for Dan Wesson long time ago that's why he can get this rare gun."
So basically there is nothing documenting this gun other than these photo's:
Well daaayyum!! It looks like I've got myself the one and only Model 40, 1 of 1, chambered in .44 mag, with the same features sitting right here in my safe!!
It's probably just an honest mistake and I hope there were no misrepresentations along the way during the life of this gun. The cast-in marks in the yolk are for identification - usually date, lot, or tooling identification. In regards to DW, they have no significance as far as model or rarity of the gun. If you're looking at historical firearms these types of markings may have some meaning, but here in the DW world they don't mean much of anything at all.
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