So, is it a "pinned and recessed" gun or the new kind with no barrel retention pin and no counterboring of the back of the chambers of the cylinder?
Either way, this is a great package for people who like wheelguns. One of my favorite handguns EVER was a S&W model 12-- basically the same gun in .38 special. But it was also the heavy-barrel, 4" bbl, square butt fixed sight model. I loved it.
Sacramento County, California Sheriff's Department probably got these guns in 1982, and I'd guess they sold them off and replaced them with semi-auto pistols before the end of that decade.
Weren't the model 12's airweights? They wouldn't have had bull barrels right?