Ken,Originally Posted by 1911Nut
My apologies for misunderstanding your thread. And you are correct in that our experiences differ widely.
Unlike you I have had no serious problems with pre-lock S&W revolvers. I have had any number of problems (and heard of many more from a gunsmith friend) with the newer S&W models, made "safe" with the insidious lock.
Sorry for your bad experiences and I wish you better luck with revolvers in the future.
Dave
I don't think "pre lock" is a safe distinction. There were plenty of crappy guns made during the Bangor Punta and Lear Siegler (and other) days. I've had a few as well. Of course not all of them were crap.
I've always thought the (post-war) high water mark was the post-CNC guns Tomkins was building in the latter half of the 90s. The CNC equipment was a big improvement and the people who remembered how to actually build the guns hadn't retired yet. But even those weren't a 100% safe bet. They're like 1911s in that if you don't want a headache you have to evaluate them on their individual merits. There are no "safe" years. It will always save you a lot of grief if you recognize a problem child early on, take the hit, sell with disclosure and just move on.
Thanks for taking the time to post that. I have no illusions that any machine is perfect. They can be poorly built and fitted, not hold up to use when an identical example may, and any number of other things. Were the ones with problems ones that were used harder than average, even for most non-competition shooters?
My fairly limited L and N experience has been fairly good, but I havent run vast number of rounds through them. The 4" 29 is the single one ive shot the most, it's had a hand fitted a couple times in its lifetime, and i shimmed the end shake, but nothing that was a show stopper has happened. Ive had several other Ns but none had truly large amounts of rounds through them. The single L frame Ive had was used, a no dash 586, and looked fairly well used, but was still timed OK and not loose. I think Ive shot a few hundred magnums through it max, its very accurate at 300 yards which is where the magnums were shot, with 38s, its been fun, just not shot a lot by me.
Ive shot the most rounds through the family 1971 period K-22, best estimate something over 200K rds, conservatively. So many afternoons of 500-1000 rds shot through it, as often as I had ammo money. No parts or work other than I lost the thumbpiece nut once in the 70s. I probably should tighten it up a bit with locking bolt, but it still shoots well for what I do with it. Hitting squirrels in the top of a big Oak or Ponderosa Pine is not difficult, prairie dogs @ 100 yards, running rabbits and squirrels, things thrown in the air, or ringing the 300 yard plate, shooting stems of grass or yucca stems, it makes it all look and feel easy.
I can accept the potential issues. Ive always shot revolvers much better and with much less effort (outside of lots of rounds through the K-22 and single action 22s in my youth) to achieve or maintain any given level. I wouldnt try to convince anyone else a revolver was best for them, thats something they would have to decide with experience and need. For most of my use I prefer revolvers. I accept the hillbilly title also, no qualms.
Edit: BTW, Ive broken 3 transfer bars in Ruger SA revolvers, the ones everyone says are indestructible. I stopped dry firing them and havent broken one since.
Last edited by Malamute; 08-29-2023 at 08:42 PM.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
Just so I can move on from this thread, I want to reassure everyone that may have been offended by my sharing stories of my personal bad luck with "N" and "L" frame S&W revolvers over a period spanning nearly 40 years was just that . . . . sharing my experiences.
I have also enjoyed many, many hours of shooting "N" frame S&W revolvers back when I used to compete in IMHSA matches and did a pretty significant amount of handgun hunting. Some of those revolvers had zero functionality or reliability problems. But at least in my case, quite a few of them DID have issues.
Those are just the facts. I didn't share them to cast aspersions on S&W revolvers (or any revolver) or anyone who loves and shoots them. I used my experiences to help me make future decisions on what I would spend my money on and spend my time shooting. I can't recall ever actively campaigning to have others support or follow my decisions.
My best wishes to all shooters who shoot any and all types of handguns. I enjoy learning about them all, enjoy shooting most of them, and admire and enjoy watching anyone who can shoot one really, really well.
Based on my skill level and experience, I have my personal preferences that I almost certainly would change simply because someone else didn't agree with my choices. Nor do I expect that from others.
The only exception to this would be if someone else purchases the handgun and the ammo for me to shoot. And I am just about positive that ain't gonna happen!
YMMV
Cheers,
Ken
If one shoots a lot of rounds, one will inevitably see problems no matter the platform.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
and
I had issues with LCRs down here in the summer getting full of rust where sweat was entering at the join where the plastic and metal frames attached. I had a 22 that looked great on the outside but was completely orange inside the frame after a week or so of summer carry. A good cleaning and shmear of red grease did wonders to prevent that in the future.
The Bangor Punta and Lear Siegler era Smith revolvers were indeed buck wretched. Getting bought by that Limey company in the Nineties was the best thing that ever happened to S&W. Things started slipping again in the late Aughties, but ‘93-‘’08 Smith revolvers are as good as any pre-Bangor Punta guns.
A good example of that swell Bangor Punta / Lear Siegler Era quality control from Smith & Wesson would be this Model 581-1, made shortly after the sale to Lear Siegler.
I ran into it when it was owned by Oleg Volk, who had complaints about it shaving lead and not being terribly accurate.
On examination by my gunsmith friend, Shannon Jennings, it turned out that the barrel and the top chamber in the cylinder were not remotely coaxial. The centerline of the bore was a few thousandths higher than that of the top chamber. Either the factory or some previous owner had already had the forcing cone relieved as much as was safely possible, so the gun was essentially a jacketed-bullet-only gun, and don't expect to win any bullseye matches with the thing.
There was no fixing it short of unscrewing the barrel and screwing it on to a whole new frame that wasn't messed up.
The thing is, having the threaded hole in the frame for the barrel shank cut too high is the sort of problem that can only be caused by setting up a fixture incorrectly. That's not the kind of error that only affects one gun; there's probably a whole day's worth of 581 frame production running around out there with that issue. I assume that the forcing cone relief was probably done at S&W and the result was deemed "within acceptable specification".
(Then there was the NIB Colt SF-VI that Marko bought back in '00 where the barrel was threaded in at an angle. Not clocked off on the longitudinal axis, but stuck into the front of the frame at an actual angle...like, if you looked down on the revolver from straight above it, it was clear that the bullet made about a one or two degree right turn upon entering the forcing cone.)
Sigh... the things a normal owner won't see/measure easily and the factory would just say "it's within acceptable specification"...
I've had an on-again, off-again similar experience to OP with S&W from that era, but as another data point... I've got 3 L-frames with right at 20k on the lot. 2 of them needed a hand at one point. The 681 needed an endshake bearing. Other than that they just ran.
I keep a text file that serves as a broad-strokes range log. Round count, last date fired, year I got it and year manufactured if I know it. (Also comments/notes I didn't include.) I started keeping track in the mid/late 00s and that text file has successfully made the trip from one computer to the next since then. When I sell a gun I delete its line so as to keep it from being too cluttered, so I don't have my USPSA 627 info anymore. There's a thread here somewhere where I broke a hand.Code:681-AZH 3200 (??/2005) 1998 1987~ 686-CDY 7832 (4/16/12) 2000 2000 686-BSE 9024 (4/24/23) 1995 1995
Those listed are 3 Ls from ~1987, 1995, and 2000. One of them was my main IDPA gun from when I got it new(ish) through 2012 which is the last time I shot it. When I came home after a match (or just a range trip) I'd update the log file based on how many rounds I actually shot. So the numbers are probably not 100% but should be reasonably accurate. That isn't JCN round counts but it's five digits across more than a decade of club matches that I think represents the model reasonably well. I'm sure he's got twice that on a single 929.
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