One of the most sought-after postwar K-frame variants, from back in the earliest days of the Smith & Wesson Performance Center:
"In the early ’90s, Smith & Wesson introduced their Performance Center, and back then it was much more of a custom gun shop than it is now. With the pistol half of the Performance Center helmed by Paul Liebenberg and the revolver side of the house under the supervision of John French, the shop turned out small numbers of essentially hand-built variations on the standard production models found in the Smith & Wesson catalog..
In 1995, the Performance Center took standard round-butt Model 13 frames and fitted 3-inch heavy barrels, but with a full underlug. The cylinder latch was cut away on the bottom to make sure it would clear speedloaders, which wasn’t the standard practice on S&W revolvers at the time. With the action converted to double-action only, the hammer spur was bobbed and the trigger had a non-adjustable overtravel stop fitted in its backside.
The action was slicked up, the cylinder charge holes were chamfered, and the barrel was treated to quad Mag-Na-Ports to tame recoil. Finally, the whole thing was finished in a bead-blasted matte blue, fitted with abbreviated Eagle Secret Service grips for maximum concealability without compromising grippiness, and the finished product was etched with the Performance Center logo."
