S&W 41 barrel

There has been talk about the 41 barrels and I want to show everyone this barrel.  I recently bought a new 41 with the plan of having the barrel cut down to 6 inches.  My friend offered me use of this barrel that is 4.5 inches.  He is pretty sure that it came from the factory this size.  I included a pic of my 7 inch and the 4.5 inch.  Does anyone else have one of these?

looking at the last pic I see the weight of the bottom of the barrel has been taken down.

Crowns don't look the same.  The shortened one has sharp edges.  Clean the long one.  The edges are beveled.

Yea, you're right.
Took that out.

Smith & Wesson standard factory barrels are/were 5" (field), 5.5" (heavy), 7" and 7 3/8".  

A few years ago they started offering an "optics only" barrel which was rumored to be a cut down (new production) 7" barrels that had defects near the muzzle.  While the slide extension (tang) on those were shorter than standard (rear sight removed) they weren't near as short as the one you posted.  My guess is that barrel is what was salvageable of a damaged (new production) 7" barrel.

New(er) production due to the lettering on the barrel.

I can't count how many times I've seen optics only barrels listed as 5" field barrels because real field barrels sell at a premium today.

I had Ten Ring line a 5.5" barrel.  Wish I would have had it cut to that length at the same time.  I probably would like the weight and balance better

In my previous post I mentioned it looked like the bottom of the barrel was take down some.  Looking at it again it looks like it might of started as a 5 1/2 HB.  Jack, if you didn't want to change the length you could have someone drill out the underlug to your liking.  You would end up with a hole there but, it would be lighter.

That was once a heavy barrel, it's much wider than the 7 in barrels. The 5 1/2 HB had a great feel to them, the pistol had great balance with them.