Smith & Wesson missed opportunities

[OlongJohnson]

Someone better funded than me might start a hobby business as a firearm distributor and commission all these great ideas from S&W as exclusives. See how well that actually works.

[HCM]

Someone better funded than me might start a hobby business as a firearm distributor and commission all these great ideas from S&W as exclusives. See how well that actually works.

Yup.

I knew this thread would devolve into people wanting 3” left handed 16 shot K frames in 5.75 Velo Dog with moon clips … because Fiocchi still makes the ammo and it would be like a round Glock 19 …right ? /sarcasm.

[Joe in PNG]

Someone better funded than me might start a hobby business as a firearm distributor and commission all these great ideas from S&W as exclusives. See how well that actually works.

Sadly, we will probably have better luck with Taurus in that regard.

[jtcarm]

Even Ruger - RUGER, for crying out loud - gets it WRT replaceable front sights, so S&W has no excuse at all for not "going thou, and doing likewise."

No more fixed hog trough rear sights; use Novak-style replaceables on the duty guns and adjustable sights for the balance. Sights (and grips) should be easily changed.

Get rid of the locks and don't make me say, "even Ruger gets it" again. I dang near bit on a dandy J-frame today until they moved the price tag and I saw the lock- it made that decision easy.

A lockless, 2.5" K-frame with a Novak-style rear and a pinned front should be a given in the S&W line, and ditto in stainless would be nice. But no. We're more likely to see a .600 S&W Magnum built on a new Y-frame instead. Some distributor will eventually get "the R word" to make a GP-100 that fills the bill but is ever-so slightly too large... in fact, they almost make one now.

2.5” is the worst of both worlds, IMO.

You forfeit the full-length ejector stroke of a 3” and the retention qualities of a 2”.

http://www.snubgunstudygroup.com

[Lex Luthier]

Sadly, we will probably have better luck with Taurus in that regard.

I suspect we have a mole on the inside with the Bull. Schmidt Und Vessönn, not so.

[Joe in PNG]

I suspect we have a mole on the inside with the Bull. Schmidt Und Vessönn, not so.

And someone who actually shoots revolvers too...

[OlongJohnson]

Yeah. They actually make the 856 Defender in an aluminum frame, 3-inch barrel, changeable front sight, etc. Add a Novak-ish rear sight and ensure reliability, and it's pretty darn close to the perfect carry revolver. Wouldn't surprise me if it beat a Model 12 in an endurance test of "# of rounds to a cracked frame."

[okie john]

Yeah. They actually make the 856 Defender in an aluminum frame, 3-inch barrel, changeable front sight, etc. Add a Novak-ish rear sight and ensure reliability, and it's pretty darn close to the perfect carry revolver. Wouldn't surprise me if it beat a Model 12 in an endurance test of "# of rounds to a cracked frame."

Would it kill Taurus to bob the hammer on at least one of their 3" guns?


Okie John

[jtcarm]

Someone better funded than me might start a hobby business as a firearm distributor and commission all these great ideas from S&W as exclusives. See how well that actually works.

Paging all Silicone Valley billionaires on the forum.

[Lester Polfus]

I don’t think the future of revolvers is with Smith and Wesson. They fundamentally have been making the same lockwork since the 1800s. They just made incremental changes and taken advantage of improvements in metallurgy.

They occasionally do something really smart like the 640 Pro, although they could skip the ball cuts and moon clips and my particular example has rollmarks that look like ass. You would think the next logical step would be to make an Airweight .38 and some kind of K-frame with the same sights, but it’s been what? Ten years? They have a single SKU with decent, fixed night sights and it is a semi-unicorn Performance Center gun. You’d think once those sights were in their parts stream they would be looking to leverage that into other models.

The most recent clean sheet of revolver innovation was with Kimber in the K6. Before that it was Ruger with the LCR, and before that with the GP100 and SP101.

I think if Smith had to choose between designing a clean sheet revolver design and not making revolvers anymore, they would say “fuck it” and just devote the machine time to making more Shields.

The big wild card right now is Taurus. They could be the Glock of revolvers. We will see.