(Sorry about my typos, and forgetting to highlight your quote in color--since fixed. )

Back in those days I didn't think of that, and I just tended to do what people told me--and it was made clear in the academy that a lighter gun would be better.  Only state cops/highway patrol carried six-inch revolvers.  If mine had been a four-inch gun I might have kept it.  Although the dept. that put me through the academy and want to hire me as a reserve deputy issued guns (S&W M13s), I was trying to get on somewhere full-time, and many of the smaller depts. around there had you provide your own gun, thus my desire for smaller/lighter.  I ended up buying a 4" Ruger Security-six.  I still have that gun. 

Interestingly enough, toward the end of academy firearms training we were allowed to qualify on semi-autos, so I used my Colt Government.  Not long after I got on with a sheriff's dept. not too far from there, I ended up getting permission to carry my Colt, based on my academy qualificiation.  So I only carried my Ruger for a very short time.