I picked up a .357 Mag Montado last year and just started to look it over. The Montado is a 3-3/4" stainless New Vaquero with a short base pin, a wide spur hammer, and a grip frame with grooves cut in the front strap. Chad's Reference says that 500 were initially ordered by Davidson's in .357 but it is unknown if they were all completed in the 510 prefix range clustered around this gun's SN. He only had one known number listed (just 35 away from this one, which has a fired case dated 08/28/2008) and says the 500 number came from a factory list of special distributor models. There were far more 510 prefix Montados made in .45 Colt (2,887 per RENE). So in general, the .357 would be rarer, and variations have been spotted. Montados appear again in the 511 range with grips like this, and I wonder if that was the completion of the initial order of 500, or whether it was a new order. And they appear yet again in the 512 range with wood grips as a current Davidson's model. The 511 and 512 prefix guns I've seen online do not have the front strap grooves. Also, the changeover from the Southport to Newport rollmark happened in the 510 prefix, about 1540 numbers higher than this one.
The variations spotted so far are: Southport marked lock models like this one with 510 prefix and grooves, Newport marked lock model with 511 prefix and no grooves, no-lock model with wood grips and no grooves.
So what I wonder is whether anyone has a .357 Montado with the grooved front strap and the Newport rollmark?
The variations spotted so far are: Southport marked lock models like this one with 510 prefix and grooves, Newport marked lock model with 511 prefix and no grooves, no-lock model with wood grips and no grooves.
So what I wonder is whether anyone has a .357 Montado with the grooved front strap and the Newport rollmark?
