I have installed a "Plug" in my 638. Working with the innards of a J-Frame make me heart my Glocks, but once it was installed, it has given me 6 or 7 hundred problem free rounds.
I have installed a "Plug" in my 638. Working with the innards of a J-Frame make me heart my Glocks, but once it was installed, it has given me 6 or 7 hundred problem free rounds.
I've seen a S&W lock auto engage in a gun that was knocked off of a workbench and landed on a rubber mat over concrete floor.
I'll let you guys decide if this type of impact to a handgun might be possible during the course of a fight.
I've seen a SIG P-228 shear its roll pin and bend the breechblock like a banana.
The lock can be disabled mechanically, removed, or (alternatively) Loctite is cheap.
That's weird, none of my Rugers have locks on them.
In all seriousness though, I like no-lock guns because I think they look better. That little dot on the side of the gun is kind of ugly. With that being said, I have had lock guns that I've shot quite a lot with no issues. I don't really worry about the lock engaging on my 929, 986, or 625. It never was a problem on my 686. The only guns where the lock really sort of concerns me are those flyweight magnums - whether it's a scandium j-frame shooting full house .357 or a scandium N-frame in .44, those are guns that I'd disable the lock. But I wouldn't own one of those guns, because I like the bones of my hand all right where they are right now.
And those are where most of the self-actuations have occurred.
But not all. The one I witnessed was on a plain vanilla M-64, shooting Federal 158 RNL standard pressure ammunition.
What happened to my M-360PD was different; I altered the mechanism without taking the time to fully understand how it worked, and it eventually let me know just how derpy that was.
But I am surprised somewhat at a few of the folks who pooh-pooh (more or less) the notion that the lock is a potential catastrophe looking for a place to happen. I cannot speak of other brands, but the S&W lock mechanism is flimsy; period. There are FAR too many documented instances of it self-actuating, or downright failing, to dismiss the notion as urban myth, etc. Sure, it really doesn't matter on a game or sporting gun. But on one carried for defense?
Whatever. This seems to be one of those topics where most folks have their mind made up, in one direction or the other.
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I was about to say I don't own an LCR, then I remembered there's an 8-shot .22 LR LCR in my sock drawer.
To the IL issue on S&W wheelguns and back to LSP's point, the accidental engagement of the lock can happen. It's a documented thing, and I agree with that. I also don't have the IL on any of the S&W guns I carry, but on my competition guns I don't really mess with it.
Nobody in this thread has done any of that.
I do not deny that it adds an additional failure point to the gun.
I will point out that I have seen more broken hammer noses on pre-MIM guns, more cylinders bound up from backed out ejector rods, more cylinders fall clean out of the gun from yoke screws that went air soluble, than I have failed internal locks, and nobody ever wrings their hands about that stuff. At least you can do something about the lock.
Anyhow, I've said my piece; I spent the morning at the range with a pair of wonderful pre-Bangor Punta guns and an ammo can full of rimfire rounds and I'm just not going to let anything kill this buzz for a while.
I wasn't referring to "nobody in this thread".
The wicked flee where no man pursueth...
As for the other stuff, you are right. The difference there is, that stuff is user-preventable. Cleeti can make a Glock, etc. malfunction through neglect (or via modifying something without thinking it through... guilty). The S&W lock is a nasty surprise waiting to inflict itself on the unsuspecting.
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BTW... you forgot to add bound-up cylinders due to gradeaux under the extractor star.
Last edited by LSP972; 09-15-2014 at 03:07 PM. Reason: Added a failure point peculiar to revolvers