New revolvers at SHOT/Lipsey's release

[okie john]

Wait… Taurus fixed their QC?

I'm not saying it's 100%.


Okie John

[awp_101]

Wait… Taurus fixed their QC?

[TCinVA]

• Revolvers: more complex beasts and I suspect the old gunsmiths who knew their stuff retired.

The revolver market was dying. There was no future for revolvers...at least until there was. Chicken or egg, etc. But I remember going on Gunbroker and bidding on multiple model 19 revolvers for $100-$125 bucks not long after Gunbroker started. I won all of those auctions. That's how little people wanted revolvers.

The truth of the matter is that hardly any of the firearms companies sell will actually be shot to any significant degree. I just talked with a friend today that bought a Glock 47 with a factory optic cut that patterned at 25. Glock took the gun back, didn't specify what (if anything) they did with it, and sent it back with a 15 yard target saying it met spec. It had the same problem with multiple types of ammo, still patterning at 25.

His dealer took the gun back and sold him another that shot 2" at 25. He is one in maybe 1,000 shooters who would even notice.

It's cheaper to fix problem guns for the tiny percentage of owners who shoot than to make every gun run off the line running to a high standard. That started in the early 2000's and it went on with practically every company. Cohen at Sig is a good example. Prior to Cohen, Sig manufactured extremely reliable, durable, ergonomically challenged handguns where every part was made in house and subject to multiple layers of quality control at every step. The company made no money.

Cohen ditched the complete in-house manufacturing, the extra quality control steps, and today the company is one of the most profitable in the entire industry. Their government weapon contracts, their optics division, all that was made possible by making the company more profitable.

Is that wrong? It certainly isn't for the company.

The forces producing that result have impacted every company in the business. It's a fight for survival.

The J frame was in no way, shape, or form a perfect product before any production issues came about. The Lipseys order here is literally a distributor...who is the real customer for S&W...paying for the financial investment necessary to update, modernize, and revise the production of one of the most ancient product lines the company has. The demand and interest has been such that it's become clear the market has wanted these changes all along, and now the business case for making the guns better is right there in dollars and cents.

That's usually what it takes to make a company change direction and make improvements.

"People don't want revolvers." would be a position one could find ample statistical and financial justification for holding. That makes it impossible to make the argument for investment in modernization, updating, and improving the manufacture of them for volume shooting and carry. That's why this project from Lipseys has such potential, because they as a distributor are adopting all the risk by committing to buying literally thousands of revolvers built to a new standard. They're fronting an investment that is essentially underwriting S&W's improvements to production processes.

Even the simple things aren't simple. Installing front sights in barrel shrouds manufactured in a new way required building new jigs and tooling specifically for installing front sights. But now that exists and so instances of dead sights leaving the factory should be diminished. New QC procedures put into place are simple but had to be incorporated to make sure the tritium glows and the iridescent paint responds properly to light exposure. How hard is it to stick a gun in a dark box and check both of those? Not hard at all...but you have to actually build those dark boxes and keep lights there and train employees on that process.

Lipseys is taking the risk here by ordering expensive, difficult products on their hunch that there's a market for this. They made the argument with their checkbook and assumed the financial risk and in the process seem to have proved that people do, in fact, want revolvers. They just want better revolvers.

[WDR]

Lipseys is taking the risk here by ordering expensive, difficult products on their hunch that there's a market for this. They made the argument with their checkbook and assumed the financial risk and in the process seem to have proved that people do, in fact, want revolvers. They just want better revolvers.

I am glad someone(s) pushed for this project to happen... and I'd like to think some of the ideas could be applied to other lines/models, but I do have my doubts about the revolver market making a general big comeback. Maybe if QC and customer service makes a big comeback alongside these improvements, S&W (and Lipseys) will really get this to take off. Time will tell. It's clear to me that at least the folks involved in this particular project think it's worth the effort to try to give folks what they want in a small snub.

How that carries over to other models, I'm interested to see (as has been hinted at a little bit). I'd like a lightweight 3-4" .357 mountain gun style tapered barrel in SS, or maybe a scandium frame, for a "packing" gun while hunting or woods/desert bumming, but I'm not sure I could lay out specifics right now. Something like that probably would have a following, but might be too niche to sell well.

As availability and my finances allow, I plan to pick up at least one of each caliber, and maybe a couple, starting with a 442. I have a daughter who some day might find a 432 or 632 useful for her needs.

[WDR]

I also saw this earlier today, and haven't seen it linked here in the thread. Revolverguy's third article about the UC guns, and a bit more about actually shooting them, and some (bleh) clear gel ballistic testing that was done:

https://revolverguy.com/the-lipseys-...ames-part-iii/

[Stephanie B]

Getting this product right on the production side has exposed some challenges for S&W that they now have significant incentive to solve. Anyone who has bought S&W revolvers in the last few years...especially J frames...has seen sub-optimal specimens leaving the factory at higher rates than desirable. Especially with the move factored in.

Revolver production hasn't moved. But having the big bosses relocate a few hundred miles away doesn't help with quality. (I'd reference Boeing, but they have lots of other problems besides moving their HQ every few years.) And yeah, I had said that I wasn't going to buy a new S&W revolver after my last debacle, but I want to give this one a try.

If what I've heard is correct, the splash of this new offering has made it a sufficiently high profile product that the company is now invested in trying to build these right and to do so the first time with adaptations and adjustments that will benefit other product lines, too.

The downside to that is it will likely mean slower production than we originally speculated. But I'm fine waiting until late summer to get revolvers that have the production bugs worked out.

I hope so. S&W needs to show they're still in the game and not just Taurus North.

[Singh]

It's cheaper to fix problem guns for the tiny percentage of owners who shoot than to make every gun run off the line running to a high standard. That started in the early 2000's and it went on with practically every company. Cohen at Sig is a good example. Prior to Cohen, Sig manufactured extremely reliable, durable, ergonomically challenged handguns where every part was made in house and subject to multiple layers of quality control at every step. The company made no money.

Cohen ditched the complete in-house manufacturing, the extra quality control steps, and today the company is one of the most profitable in the entire industry. Their government weapon contracts, their optics division, all that was made possible by making the company more profitable.

Is that wrong? It certainly isn't for the company. better revolvers.

Corporate management are people with BPD and NPD, and along with abusing employees is the impetus to vomit out products in bulk regardless of quality. Sure, 99% of firearms owners are dumb and don't notice. So yeah, the model works. Great for profits.

But the few of us who simply want a weapon made to spec (that's considered quality nowadays) on a consistent basis... well, it's not good for us. We just have to shop carefully.

[314159]

To those who know:

Does the rear sight use an Allen wrench or Torx?

What size and is it loctited in?

Thanks.

[BN]

To those who know:

Does the rear sight use an Allen wrench or Torx?

What size and is it loctited in?

Thanks.

1/16" Allen on mine. It was easy to break loose.

[TicTacticalTimmy]

I also saw this earlier today, and haven't seen it linked here in the thread. Revolverguy's third article about the UC guns, and a bit more about actually shooting them, and some (bleh) clear gel ballistic testing that was done:

https://revolverguy.com/the-lipseys-...ames-part-iii/

Another great article. I was really surprised how good the .32 HPs did in the cleargel. Would like to see some tests in ballistic gel, especially of the 80gr FTX.