I have long wanted a S&W Model 25-2, .45 ACP revolver. I had seen one many years ago that was carried by a police officer I worked with and I fell in love with it. But he wouldn't sell his, and I never could find a really clean one at a price I wanted to pay.

I recently found a great example and bought it. Here it is, on the bottom.

You will notice that it had the small N-frame grips, as compared to the Model 29 revolver above it. Those small grips caused the trigger guard to bang against my middle finger and I didn't like them at all.

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I placed a Want To Buy ad in the EE and asked for some large, wooden, factory N-frame grips.

My friend Warhawk sent me an IM saying that he had a set of Hogue grips and attached a picture.

I asked him how much he wanted, and he kindly advised me that he has always enjoyed the Box O' Truth posts and would like to give them to me.

How about that?

They arrived and I installed them on the pistol. They fill my hand much better than the small grips.

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The Model 25-2 shoots .45 ACP rounds, but you must use "half-moon clips" to hold the cartridges.

The US Military issued these pistols with both two cartridge and 3 cartridge clips.

Here they are.

They work well, but are very stiff and difficult to get the empty rounds out of the clips.

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I saw in a magazine a company that made some modern clips out of hard plastic and called and spoke with the owner.

The company is Beckham Product Design and the owner, Mr. Beckham was very helpful.

He sent me some samples to try and also included other clips for other pistols.

Here they are.

The web site gives all the information you might need.

www.beckhamdesign.com

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The instructions for the clips stated that they would need to be trimmed with a razor knife to allow them to fit a Model 25-2, and indeed they did.

However, it was a quick job and now they work great.

And, it is much, much easier to get the cartridges into and out of these plastic clips than the old metal ones.

They hold 6 rounds of .45 ACP and allow very quick reloads.

Just eject the clip and empties...

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and drop in the next clip.

It is as fast of a reload as a semi-auto pistol.

I also use brass that is ".45 Auto Rim" brass and was made especially for these pistols.

It has an extra thick rim to make the cartridges fit the cylinder at the same height as the regular .45 ACP brass.

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Of course, the big advantage of a revolver in this caliber is that you can load many types and shapes of bullets for them, as they do not have feeding issues like a semi-auto.

Here are some of the bullets I load for this revolver.

Here are some of the bullets I load for this revolver.​

From the left to right:

230 gr. RNL, 200 gr. RNFP, 250 gr. RNFP, 255 gr. SWC, 250 gr. RN, 200 gr. SWC, and a factory 230 gr. Ball.

The revolver has the rear-square front sight, and the plain black rear sight as it is meant to be a target revolver.

The sights are excellent.

Some folks prefer the red insert front sight and the white outline rear sight, but for target work, this one is hard to beat.

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Here I am shooting the pistol.

Here I am shooting the pistol.​

It is a joy to shoot.

It stacks the bullet holes as close as you can hold them.

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Some folks have found that some revolvers with extra wide cylinder mouths will shoot cast bullets poorly.

But I checked this one and it has a tight cylinder throat of about .452 to .453.

Just right for my cast bullets.

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Here is a 18 shot group with .45 ACP Auto Rim 220 grain SWCs.

Here is a 18 shot group with .45 ACP Auto Rim 220 grain SWCs.​

If one gets out of that group, it is my fault, not the pistol's.

The double action is smooth and allows good groups.

But the single action is as crisp as can be.

It reminds you what great revolvers the old Smith N-frame revolvers really were.

Since I loaded up those 6 different bullets, I brought them to the range.

If I shoot them into a group, how will the different weight bullets do?

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Well, as we would expect, it strung them up and down.

No fault of the pistol, just the expected result of different bullet weights.

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And here's six 230 grain RNL bullets with the Rimz clip for the normal .45 ACP rounds. Not bad.

And here's six 230 grain RNL bullets with the Rimz clip for the normal .45 ACP rounds. Not bad.​

This old revolver is a joy to shoot. It just stacks 'em in there.

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Conclusions:

If you ever get a chance to own one, don't let it get away. They are great pistols.