Or just make the all-perfectly-identical MIM "concealed" (= bobbed) hammers available as an accessory part and let people put it in or have it put in without canceling the warranty.Originally Posted by okie john
Or just make the all-perfectly-identical MIM "concealed" (= bobbed) hammers available as an accessory part and let people put it in or have it put in without canceling the warranty.
.
-----------------------------------------
Not another dime.
My Taurus bobbed itself one day while fireing. Hit me in the forehead.
Judging by the prices of their other 856 offerings, the gun you describe would likely have a street price of about $450.
On the one hand, that would be a no-brainer. On the other, when it comes to me personally, Caleb’s gig as marketing manager is to convince me that buying another Taurus won’t be the firearms equivalent of re-marrying my ex-wife and telling myself “it will be different this time.”
I was into 10mm Auto before it sold out and went mainstream, but these days I'm here for the revolver and epidemiology information.
One path for Smith and Wesson would be to acknowledge that revolvers will never again be a true profit-center for the company, and to instead focus on revolvers as a luxury/prestige/legacy product--cut back to only making the Models 36, 19, 27, and 29--make them to a very high standard and sell them for $1500-$2000 (roughly where Colt is selling the new Anacondas and Pythons, depending upon options) and emphasize quality control.
I think they will keep doing what they are doing until they are established in Tennessee. For the moment, revolver production will stay in MA.
If the Tennessee experiment fails, my guess is that Smith will have to undergo some kind of restructuring and all the pieces will be up in the air. If it succeeds, I would imagine that there will be an impetus to move out of MA completely. Then they will have to take a hard look at the question “what do we do about revolvers?”
I think the three scenarios in order of likelihood are:
1) Exactly what you describe above. Smith revolvers become a limited production collector/cognoscenti item.
2) They get out of revolvers entirely.
3) They come out with an entirely new revolver platform that is more amenable to modern manufacturing realities.
Factors that could sway the decision:
1) legislation. 6 rounds is still a hard sell vs. 10 rounds, but I have seen ideas floated that limit magazine suze even more.
2) If there is concerted effort among gun influencers to Make Revolvers Cool Again. Gun companies survive by selling more guns to people who already have guns, and I think it us getting harder to generate excitement about a new plastic people popper. The .30 Super Carry was an attempt to sell people the same guns in a new chambering and it failed miserably. We haven’t quite tapped out the wave of trading your iron sighted guns for RDS guns, but that won’t last forever. I think pushing hammer fired autoloaders is more likely, but revolvers could be the new cool as well.
I was into 10mm Auto before it sold out and went mainstream, but these days I'm here for the revolver and epidemiology information.
Exactly.
Or sell the revolver line to another company that’ll do it.
Smith could keep making the 642, etc for the carry market.
That, mind you, was one gun. (The second had a jammed sight, they fixed it.) I've got over 500 rounds through the new one, including about 100 rounds of .357. @03RN put a hell of a lot of rounds through his.
As for N-frame guns, P-F seems to frequently have posters talking about carrying N-frames, especially in the woods.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
While the ideas for S&W missed opportunities are endless, my main thesis is this:
1.The 2.5" Model 19 Combat Magnum WAS the Glock 19 of the revolver-era.
2. As such, it is still a valid gun in that role for shooters who understand the trade-offs vs an autoloader. (compromised grip, contact and entangled operation, low-complexity operation)
3. Given 1 & 2, the 2.5" Model 19 should be in perpetual production.
I guess the 2.75" 66 is the closest currently, but I'm not as big a fan of the extra .25" barrel for finding classic holsters.
One thing I have noticed is there are no revolvers sitting on the shelves at any of the local stores here, other than a few SAA clones and some Ruger wranglers in various colors. Even the pawn shops here don't have any/many. The missed opportunity here is not enough guns being produced. The downside to upping production is the already less than stellar QC gonna suffer more? I do miss the old lineup that they, S&W and Ruger, had at one time.
I've speculated before about S&W only ever doing one production run of scandium K frames, the 315 Night Guard. Something like 576 units, if I remember. It's possible that, unlike all the J, L and N frame scandium revolvers that have remained in intermittent production in their various iterations, S&W decided that no way, no how was the K frame ever going to be viable. Another hypothesis is that the tooling to forge the frames broke or was otherwise rendered unusable. Kinda wonder.
In any case, if I was a product manager at S&W and was going to spend actual money to tool something up, it would be the "J frame plus" that Taurus has done with the 856, and which we've collectively wished Ruger would do with the SP101. A J frame opened up just enough to have a cylinder that holds 6 rounds of .38 SPL. If that meant it could also take 7 rounds of .32 H&R, great, but don't compromise the .38 version to do that. Steel and scandium variants. No need for a Ti cylinder, but it would certainly land the "lightest six shot" prize if they did that eventually. Use J frame grips. Use J frame guts as much as possible. All the other stuff that's been said about K frames, especially with regard to sights and lock. Get the quality management right.
Last edited by OlongJohnson; 10-27-2022 at 11:54 AM.
.
-----------------------------------------
Not another dime.
Reply With Quote