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Dagga Boy
10-18-2012, 02:15 PM
So I keep reading that the hot ticket for LEM improvement is to re-master my old revolver skills. Couple this with DetWD always bringing his "pet" snubby K-frame .38 to our training sessions (that he shoots like his "pet" G-19), and I have an overwhelming need for a good K frame revolver to start messing around with to shoot cheap .38 special out of. I have A LOT of revolvers, but they are mostly large frame big bores. I carried a .45 COLT 25-5 as my first duty gun so I am sort of attached to my big bores, but they are expensive to shoot.

So am at my favorite local gun shop (Jackson Armory in Dallas) picking up a 25-5 that was shipped there, and I spy this "weird" thing in the revolver case. I have been scouring these displays looking for an old revolver to appeal to my new "need". This one did not fit the "old" or "cheap" I was looking for, but weird was a magnet. I am well known for my love of "weird" guns. I pull out a Smith and Wesson 686 Pro Series SSR. It "looks" bigger than it is. It fit my hand like it was made for me. The trigger pull was really good and smooth. Instant credit card impulse purchase.

After playing with it, I think I may take a hard look at starting to compete with it. Revolvers were really my thing back in the day, and I would like to start doing some "fun" shooting for a change vs. how serious and worked up I get with the serious tactical shooting I have focused on the last twenty years. My only disappointment is that this gun now uses a MIM hammer and trigger that are made to look like the forged ones they used to use. I also saw a picture of a guy's gun who got a seven round cylinder with six holes (bad mix) accidently and when Smith fixed it they put in an un-fluted cylinder that looked absolutely PERFECT to me with the slab slides of the SSR's barrel shroud. It may get a trip to Smith at some point for this and a trigger stop, but for now I plan to invest some time into both the SSR and my TLG LEM'd P30. We'll see how it goes.

Sparks2112
10-18-2012, 02:44 PM
The SSR and the R8 are on my list of stuff I'd like to buy once I'm legally allowed to buy stuff again. (Divorces suck btw)

jetfire
10-18-2012, 03:14 PM
Best thing about the SSR is that the hammer is forged instead of MIM, which means you can chop the hammer spur off AND remove the single action notch on the hammer entirely to get rid of that worthless "single action" mode without worrying about messing up the part's surface hardening like you would with a MIM part.

The chamfer on the charge holes could stand to be a bit more aggressive, but hey at least it's there.

Dagga Boy
10-18-2012, 03:56 PM
Best thing about the SSR is that the hammer is forged instead of MIM, which means you can chop the hammer spur off AND remove the single action notch on the hammer entirely to get rid of that worthless "single action" mode without worrying about messing up the part's surface hardening like you would with a MIM part.

The chamfer on the charge holes could stand to be a bit more aggressive, but hey at least it's there.

The new SSR's are MIM hammers and triggers. I don't know if a retrofit is possible to get the overtravel stop and to modify the hammers like the old ones. I was kind of pissed because when you initially look at the gun the parts are made to look forged, but are not.

GJM
10-18-2012, 04:33 PM
I have a SSR and it is a nice revolver. I understand you may compete with it, and that makes sense, but as a LEM trainer I prefer my 317 kit gun .22 as it is cheaper to feed and I care most about the trigger practice.

PS: if you need a holster for the SSR, think I am using one that works well from Sidearmor.

jetfire
10-19-2012, 12:38 PM
The new SSR's are MIM hammers and triggers. I don't know if a retrofit is possible to get the overtravel stop and to modify the hammers like the old ones. I was kind of pissed because when you initially look at the gun the parts are made to look forged, but are not.

That's a bummer. The one I had was all full of forged goodness.

SouthNarc
10-19-2012, 04:11 PM
I have a 2.5" Smith Model 12 that will shoot inside a quarter at 10 yards. Airweight K frame is a keeper!

Tom Givens
10-19-2012, 04:43 PM
I have 2 of those snubby Model 12's and I'm keepin' them.

Dagga Boy
10-19-2012, 05:48 PM
That's a bummer. The one I had was all full of forged goodness.

I may have to call Smith and play the "gunwriter" card......:p.

Lon
10-19-2012, 07:47 PM
So I keep reading that the hot ticket for LEM improvement is to re-master my old revolver skills. Couple this with DetWD always bringing his "pet" snubby K-frame .38 to our training sessions (that he shoots like his "pet" G-19), and I have an overwhelming need for a good K frame revolver to start messing around with to shoot cheap .38 special out of.

I got bitten by the same bug. I bought a 3" Model 65 as a project gun a couple of months ago. It was in rough shape and needed some work. Still needs some trigger fine tuning, but as soon as the trigger is squared away and my CCC holster comes in, I'm going to dedicate serious training time to it and carry it as an off duty gun.

Dagga Boy
10-19-2012, 10:34 PM
I carried a 3" Model 13 for an off duty gun when I first started in L/E back in the 80's. It made a good companion to my 25-5 and the Mod 36 I carried as a BUG.

I have my wife's model 65, but I am saving that for my daughter to use in the next couple of years. I was actually looking for a old model 13, but the SSR just called out to me. I guess I am having a mid life crisis..........I suppose the SSR is cheaper than the $103,000 Corvette I was drooling over at the fair.:cool:

TCinVA
10-21-2012, 08:55 PM
I've been wanting an SSR ever since encountering one by chance at a gun show. Just haven't been able to justify spending the money.

There's just something about shooting a good wheelgun...it's a lot like driving a good classic car.

Tamara
10-22-2012, 07:31 AM
I have 2 of those snubby Model 12's and I'm keepin' them.

My 2" Model 12-2 is old enough (http://cosmolineandrust.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunday-smith-15-model-12-2-1966.html) and nice enough that I'm worried about shooting it much with anything heavier than mild wadcutters. I've seen enough early Airweights crack the frame at the barrel threads to give me a permanent case of the 'noids regarding S&W's learning curve with aluminum frames.

I meant to buy another, slightly newer one to do more shooting with, but in the interim, folks have decided that anything old that says "Smith & Wesson" on it is worth a mint... :(

Dagga Boy
10-22-2012, 08:26 AM
A lot of this was my justificaiton for the SSR. Feels like a 19, it has a lock so I can't really love it, and I can shoot the piss out of it without a care in the world of maybe ruining something I can't fix. My "needs fixing" Mod 58 is a great example of what happens when you shoot the piss out of these things.

Wayne and I shot the SSR this weekend. It is a god example of why I wanted adjustable sights. You can move stuff around to just drop rounds on top of each other in the "X" on a B8. Low recoil with Winchester WHite box value pack .38 SPecials. Overall, I am happy as heck with the SSR. It is very shootable right out of the box, and has some potential for some personal upgrades as time goes on without ruining a older gun.

Tamara
10-22-2012, 09:07 AM
A lot of this was my justificaiton for the SSR. Feels like a 19, it has a lock so I can't really love it, and I can shoot the piss out of it without a care in the world of maybe ruining something I can't fix.

That's exactly why I want to find a "soulless steel" K- or L-frame to serve as a range bag gun like my 22/45 does. I'd constantly worry about a blued one and wind up unzipping the bag every couple hours to check on it. :o

nalesq
10-22-2012, 12:23 PM
That's exactly why I want to find a "soulless steel" K- or L-frame to serve as a range bag gun like my 22/45 does. I'd constantly worry about a blued one and wind up unzipping the bag every couple hours to check on it. :o

Why did Smith & Wesson mostly stop making blued revolvers?

jlw
10-22-2012, 12:35 PM
The SSR is a nice package. Nothing like a 3" K frame, but nice none the less.

LHS
10-22-2012, 02:06 PM
I'm not much of a wheelgun guy, having grown up on bottom feeders, but I have learned to appreciate what they are. Probably the best one of the limited selection I've experienced was a pretty basic gun, all told. It started life as a model 10-8 heavy barrel .38, used by armed security at the Arizona Republic newspaper. When the libs running the paper disarmed all the guards, they sold off the guns. This one had been kept in a desk and almost never fired, so it was in great shape. The new owner sent it to Nelson Ford to have it converted to DAO and the action polished. The weight, balance, and feel are just remarkable. The gun shoots like a dream, and wadcutters feel like a .22LR. It was the first time I shot a DA revolver and said "Man, I'd like to have one of these."

Tamara
10-22-2012, 04:43 PM
Why did Smith & Wesson mostly stop making blued revolvers?

Because people mostly stopped buying them. Blued revolvers are fun to coonfinger and "Ooh!" and "Aah!" over, but soulless steel is a lot more fun to shoot and neglect.

(Having worked a gun counter during the dying days of the carbon steel portion of the S&W catalog, I can tell you that if everyone bemoaning the absence of the blued guns had actually been buying them, they never would have left the inventory.)

Chuck Haggard
10-22-2012, 04:56 PM
I had a bud trade me a model 67 for a 681. Always wanted one of those and finally got one. Shoots to the sights really nicely.

shooter220
10-22-2012, 05:35 PM
The last of the really nice finishes on the blued Smith revolvers seemed to kind of go away in the late 80s (and many folks say they had been "sliding" for a long time before that).

Not only was it not as hot a seller anymore once the 6-- guns came out, stainless requires very little finish work. A good bluing job requires a fair amount. Any savings to Smith on buying Carbon Steel went out the window when they invested time to make the bluing look nice - or as nice as it could look given evolving EPA rules.

I would go as far as to say there aren't many nice bluing jobs on guns anymore, short of some high-end 1911s.

-shooter

Dagga Boy
10-22-2012, 09:00 PM
I picked up a beautiful blued model 25-5 with gorgeous grips the same day as I impulse bought the SSR. That 25-5 went into the display gun cabinet in the man room and will probably never be shot. 25-5's were our duty guns, so all the ones I have ever had time on were beater duty guns. It was nice to get a collector piece. It has a soul. The SSR lacks the soul stirring character of the guns of a different time. It does exhibit the modern machining advances and theme of many more modern systems. It fits the role of a "service" revolver as opposed to an enthusiast revolver. The Ruger GP100's were always like that for me. Not soul stirring, just something I wanted to shoot as much as possible.

The nice thing about the SSR is that I don't have to make decisions about my pride of ownership guns. The 3 1/2" Model 27 (maybe the best looking DA revolver ever made), my 2 1/2" 66, or the numerous big bores can all sit happily in the safe as "examples of goodness" rather than taking any chances with them with a bad round, dropping, or other possible hazards. Like Tamara said, the SSR can get dumped in the range bag with a economy pack of .38 for some work with no issues or concerns.

nalesq
10-22-2012, 10:39 PM
Because people mostly stopped buying them. Blued revolvers are fun to coonfinger and "Ooh!" and "Aah!" over, but soulless steel is a lot more fun to shoot and neglect.

Ironically, then, the only Smith & Wesson revolvers I own simply to "shoot and neglect" are blued revolvers: an ancient Model 10 acquired in college which I left long ago at my parents' house so that there is a beater heater handy whenever I visit them, and a well-worn Model 19 rescued from a shelter (a hole-in-the-wall pawn shop). My Model 19 is mostly a rather handsome revolver that is none the less relegated to "shoot and neglect" status, because I bought it for cheap due to the fact that some imbecile inexplicably engraved his social security number into the side-plate, perhaps while drunk. But if there was some way I could fix this nasty scar, my 19 might well be elevated to "Ooh!" and "Ahh!" status.

Tamara
10-23-2012, 06:04 AM
Ironically, then, the only Smith & Wesson revolvers I own simply to "shoot and neglect" are blued revolvers...

Oh, I totally grok that. The closest thing I have to a "range bag" Smith at the moment is a pre-Model 18 that shows enough signs of honest use that I don't worry if it picks up another freckle or worn spot.

TCinVA
10-23-2012, 07:46 AM
Oh, I totally grok that. The closest thing I have to a "range bag" Smith at the moment is a pre-Model 18 that shows enough signs of honest use that I don't worry if it picks up another freckle or worn spot.

I just bought a model 34 that lives in my range bag for double action precision practice. Over 1,000 rounds of dirty rimfire so far with no cleaning.

...as I typed that I felt a disturbance in the force, as if a hundred guys on the Smith & Wesson forum just rolled their eyes and cried out in agony.

Chuck Haggard
10-23-2012, 08:23 AM
I just bought a model 34 that lives in my range bag for double action precision practice. Over 1,000 rounds of dirty rimfire so far with no cleaning.

...as I typed that I felt a disturbance in the force, as if a hundred guys on the Smith & Wesson forum just rolled their eyes and cried out in agony.

That's because they did. You aren't supposed to shoot blued S&Ws, you are supposed to whisper to them while rubbing them with a soft cloth, then place them gently back into the safe. So I've been told.

Whatever. My model 10 2" has some actual pits on the outside from being AIWB in the summer.

Tamara
10-23-2012, 08:35 AM
That's because they did. You aren't supposed to shoot blued S&Ws, you are supposed to whisper to them while rubbing them with a soft cloth, then place them gently back into the safe. So I've been told.

I have a couple of older Smiths that are unfired and on which I have yet to talk myself into the $200 trigger pull. :p

rsa-otc
10-23-2012, 09:25 AM
Generally I don't keep guns I don't shoot. The lone exception has been the gun my wife bought me for my birthday 12 days prior to us getting married. And that one has well into the tens of thousands of rounds through it before it was retired to be a safe queen.

Right now I find myself jonesen for a Mdl 13 3" round butt. Should I come across one of those in decent condition for a good price I'm sure it would follow me home. It would be shot, caressed cleaned and whispered too.

I'm a wheelie kind of guy and prefer the fit and feel of the older blued K frames. Sometime around when they started to offer the smooth faced trigger they changed the trigger profile and , the upper part of the trigger started abrading the top of my trigger finger during prolonged shooting sessions. The older specimens with the narrow serrated trigger faces don’t evidence this problem.

Tamara
10-23-2012, 09:33 AM
Generally I don't keep guns I don't shoot.

My 401k has been outperforming most people's 401k's. Further, worst come to worst, you can't shoot a zombie in the face with a hundred shares of AAPL, but if it gets time to strap a colander on my face and play Lord of the Wasteland, an unfired NRA EXC+ 100% Triple Lock is still a .44. ;)

Chuck Haggard
10-23-2012, 09:41 AM
I have a couple of older Smiths that are unfired and on which I have yet to talk myself into the $200 trigger pull. :p

I'm well known to be a heathen. The first thing I asked a friend when he got in his brand new John Wayne commemerative lever gun and John Wayne ammo was "when we gonna go shoot this?". He almost had a heart attack.

MDS
10-23-2012, 09:53 AM
I'm well known to be a heathen. The first thing I asked a friend when he got in his brand new John Wayne commemerative lever gun and John Wayne ammo was "when we gonna go shoot this?". He almost had a heart attack.

I'm no collector, but I overheard at a gun show that while "unfired condition" is good, you can really keep the price up if you don't open the box and keep it in "unseen condition."

DanH
10-24-2012, 06:40 AM
I'm no collector, but I overheard at a gun show that while "unfired condition" is good, you can really keep the price up if you don't open the box and keep it in "unseen condition."

Well, of course. I mean, you can't possibly allow something valuable to be breathed on. What kind of philistine are you?

Tamara
10-24-2012, 07:11 AM
A couple of pointers from a professional:

1) Commemorative firearms are crappy investments. Given their premium price at purchase and the fact that they are marketed as a "Future Collectible!", they appeal to the same people who buy Wizard of Oz plate sets from Franklin Mint. Also, with rare exceptions, they are hideously tacky.

2) I love it when people try and show how cool and callous they are about guns by saying "Oh, I'd shoot that old Colt Pocket Hammerless of yours!" Whatever. Understand this: I am more callous about guns then you could possibly understand. They are absolutely fungible to me. I literally could not tell you within the closest hundred how many firearms I have owned.

Always trading, and always trading up, because I have spent my adult life working in a job that didn't offer me any retirement package but did offer me an "inside baseball" level of knowledge on certain collectible markets and discount prices on items in those markets.

Sure, I could shoot my unfired 3.5" 27-2, but why would I? It's made it fifty years without being fired, and I have plenty of other .357s to shoot. It's not like I don't know what shooting a 3.5" 27 feels like, either, so taking this one to the range would be as dumb as sticking one of my Roman coins in a vending machine or using an Inverted Jenny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_Jenny) to mail a letter. You could do it, but why would you brag about it? I guess burning money is cool to some people...

(And don't get me wrong, I have no objection to shooting or using old guns. After all, after I got a screaming deal on my 95%+ 1905-vintage Colt M1903 that really was too nice to shoot, I tracked down another one that was a year older and showed enough wear that further use wasn't going to be setting money on fire with each range trip. It's fun letting people fire it and then telling them that it's a hundred and nine years old. :) )

TCinVA
10-24-2012, 07:33 AM
1) Commemorative firearms are crappy investments. Given their premium price at purchase and the fact that they are marketed as a "Future Collectible!", they appeal to the same people who buy Wizard of Oz plate sets from Franklin Mint. Also, with rare exceptions, they are hideously tacky.


So you're telling me that gold plated semi-auto Thompson I bought isn't going to make me a fortune?

MDS
10-24-2012, 08:29 AM
A couple of pointers from a professional:

Speaking of rare and collectible, here's a way to get Tam's goat, like-new... ;)

It's all good, no judgement here, but you have to admit that sometimes the rules of numismatics lead to funny behavior...

Tamara
10-24-2012, 08:43 AM
Speaking of rare and collectible, here's a way to get Tam's goat, like-new... ;)

Heh. It is indeed one of my pet peeves. ;)

BobM
10-24-2012, 01:08 PM
I'm well known to be a heathen. The first thing I asked a friend when he got in his brand new John Wayne commemerative lever gun and John Wayne ammo was "when we gonna go shoot this?". He almost had a heart attack.

I almost bought one of the Theodore Roosevelt commemorative 94s, fully intending to use it as a shooter.

TCinVA
10-25-2012, 06:10 AM
...because I enjoy being Buzz Killington:

1110

Tamara
10-25-2012, 06:34 AM
...because I enjoy being Buzz Killington:

Eh. It happens (http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_files/a35a2ad4be06648d06d1df441d945d45-2.html).

You think the shooter noticed the barrel going downrange? What do you reckon it weighs in grains? ;)

Chuck Haggard
10-25-2012, 11:17 AM
No problem, that will buff right out.

FotoTomas
10-26-2012, 06:22 AM
The ultimate snubnose! :)

Where can I get a holster for that?

NickA
10-26-2012, 06:24 AM
No problem, that will buff right out.

Ha, well done.

LHS
10-26-2012, 07:31 AM
...because I enjoy being Buzz Killington:

1110

LNIB, only a single scratch from some holster wear.

Sparks2112
10-26-2012, 09:09 AM
But but, revolvers don't jam....

Dave J
10-26-2012, 09:18 AM
Obviously caused by limp wristing.

Chuck Haggard
10-26-2012, 10:05 AM
Obviously caused by limp wristing.

Now that you mention it, that could be the cause, whip effect of the recoil combined with that heavy barrel.

Yeah, that's the ticket.........