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Originally loaded with just over 9 grains of black powder and a 146-grain lead bullet, the .38 S&W had an average muzzle velocity of 740 fps and a muzzle energy of around 175 ft. lbs. While not anything to write home about in this day and age, it was far superior to the ballistics of the .32 Long, which delivered a 90-grain bullet at a little over 900 fps.

With the popularity of the .38 S&W cartridge and the First Model, Smith & Wesson wasted no time in bringing out their Double Action First Model in 1880, which resulted in a whole series of small revolvers that in one form or another would be produced until 1940. These little pocket-sized guns proved so successful that their basic premise was copied by Iver Johnson, Hopkins & Allen, Harrington & Richardson, and a whole host of others in America and abroad. In fact, one such revolver was used in an attempt to cut short the life of one of America’s greatest Presidents.

On October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, campaigning for a return to the White House after four years out of office. Teddy had just left his hotel when a bartender named John Schrank stepped out from his hiding place and fired a single shot from a .38 S&W revolver. Schrank later claimed that the ghost of President William McKinley told him to kill Roosevelt because no man should have more than two terms in office as President. (Roosevelt was trying for a third.)