But it’s been since forever since I bought a new one. Actually, I only have two, a redhawk 357 and a m27 357 obviously. I dont shoot either due to their extreme sentimental value to me so I want to buy one to actually shoot.
I’m leaning towards a Smith if for no other reason than the multitude of choices. Probably a K or L frame. Now, my big issue… new or pre-lock???
I have to say, I really like the looks of some of Smith’s newer guns. The 686+, 627 PC and the fact that I can now have a powerful revolver with more than 6 rounds ( not that that’s that important)but I never see any locally to be able to handle ANY model. I live on Marylands Eastern Shore and all you find here is shotguns and fishing rods at any LGS. So, I just dont know $#!+ about a newer Smiths quality. Whenever I look on the net or YouTube to try to make a decision or see what other folks are getting for their money it’s always about a 50/50 wash with a few guys getting happy feelings and others getting junk and headaches. And, the guys who are happy, what’s their definition of a “quality” gun? Is it the same as mine? Dont know. I like to think I have a pretty high standard where guns are concerned.
So how about anyone here? Anybody have a newer Smith and are very pleased with the quality? Posted that you wanted probably close to $900 which seems to be the average damn revolver price these days?What model? What about it has impressed you? How do you feel about that stupid ass hole in the side plate? Can you compare the action to say, a M27-3?
Too, I’d be just as happy with an older model so I could send it out to a good smith for tuning and cosmetics. I friggin love a beautiful blued revolver, ss is great too. I will say though, nobody knows how to blue a gun anymore, no company anyway. I love my black rifles but not a revolver.
So I’m just looking for wisdom and knowledge. Old? New? Any models to avoid? A rather disjointed and circuitous route to a question I know. Perhaps that’s why I can come to a decision on my own.
Blessed is he who offers advice.
Don’t worry about lock or no lock. When you’re shooting it, you won’t be thinking about the lock.
If you reload, get a 629. The .44 mag is an extremely versatile cartridge. I got a brand new one this year to reload for. It’s just fine as far as quality. Good trigger, good fit and finish, quite accurate. With the .44, if you reload, you can load anywhere from .44 Spl to Grizzly-bomb .44 mag loads. What’s cool is the inbetween loads, say 240 grains going about 1050 fps.
If you don’t reload, get a 686. Either way, factory .44 or .357 loads are expensive, so you might as well start rolling your own. That $30 box of fifty rounds of .44 mag I can make for about $8.50.
New vs old… I bought a new PC 629 and had to send it back in for warranty due to the barrel being canted… I bought a classic no lock 686 plus, And still had to send it to the local smith to clean up what the previous owner did to it. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.
The new one came back from S&W pristine and 100% perfect. The older one is at the best Smith in the state and will come back an heirloom piece. Don’t let my experience deter you. Many people have good luck here.
If I could only have one, I’d get a .357. I do agree with Uni-vibe on reloading capability for the.44.
Get what you WANT. You only live once, and can’t take the money with you when you go…
My sample of one new Smith was poor, a canted barrel so I asked for and received my money back. Every classic pre-lock Smith I have ever bought has been G2G. There are youtube videos on how to examine a Smith revolver.
Thanks for your time folks. See, this is what I get into when I’ve tried to garner info for myself, buy new, dont buy new, buy old only and on and on and on. I know qc gets lax sometimes and not others and some bad ones get out the door. I just have to decide when how often is too often and decide against a new one, or just save more and buy an older one.
Or, I could buy a PC speciman, like the 586 L-comp I been looking at. What do you guys think about a 3" ported 7 shot .357? Looks delicious. I’m more than ok with a 3" barrel but am wondering about the comp and if it could be a detriment in any way.
More decisions.
An old 686 would be a fine choice. I have one Smith with the lock (a 629 Classic), and MIM or not, the trigger is as good as my 19-3s.
For versatile range use, I always grab the Nickel no dash 586. I don’t worry about putting full house loads through it, if that’s what my friends want to shoot.
The 586 LComp looks rad man. I think that would be a slick blaster, particularly with some trigger work and larger set of stocks you can get your entire hand on. The comp will just reduce muzzle rise, at the expense of blast and noise increases.
Alternatively you could pick up one of the Korth revolvers imported by Nighthawk Custom. Not sure what your budget is but those revolvers are supposed to be superb.
If it were ME, and it’s not… There’s no way I’d want a comped 3" .357 mag… Too much blast. F-that. Cool, yes… Practical… Hmmm… Not for me.
If I was going to buy new… I’d get the 8-shot Performance Center 627 4", OR if you must HAVE a comp, get the full 627 V-comp. The comp out of the 5" is much more tame. I have the big brother 629 V-Comp in .44 mag and it’s a tack driver. The v-comp is more $$$ but worth every penny IMHO. Go big or go home. Just my two cents.
In the past several years I’ve bought a couple of 8-shot Smiths. A 627 and more recently a 929.
I bought the 627 in 2014, when Smith was suffering frequent quality lapses. Smith was trying to get guns out at a breakneck pace and they were missing details that I would like to think an experienced QA inspector would insist on having corrected. A couple of local friends bought revolvers at the time (2013?) and had to send them in to S&W to have some issues addressed. I was fortunate in that my 627 Pro Series did not have any of the problems that were common at the time (barrel timed OK, cylinder gap was correct, extractor fit was OK).
I thought the mainspring that came in the 627 was not strong enough. The factory provided a ribbed mainspring (I’m used to seeing flat ones) which is supposed to be the bee’s knees. Even with the strain screw bottomed out I was getting light strikes in DA. I substituted a old style mainspring and that issue was cured even though I was not using the substitute mainspring at full tension; the double action trigger pull (just about all my shooting is DA) didn’t turn out to be unpleasant.
The main trouble I had was trying to understand what I needed to make 38 special work really well with moon clips. The gun will work just fine without clips for casual range sessions. For racing, moon clips are essential. Unlike my 625, where nearly any 45-ACP cartridge will work pretty well with any of my moon clips, the 627’s 38/357 to moonclip combination has some quirks. The size of the groove above the rim is not an industry controlled feature and ammo makers do whatever they want. They are consistent about it but sizes are different from one brand to the next
The 929, bought about a year ago, was more involved.
The internal surfaces of the frame had residual beadblast media that needed to be wiped away.
The ejector rod was not tight. Fortunately the new design is not prone to locking up when the ejector rod backs out slightly. It did need to be attended to but was not a major annoyance. It does make me consider buying the clamp that is supposed to be used to tighten the rod though.
As with the 627 there were similar things in the 929 to learn about variations in 9mm brass and how they work with moonclips.
The extractor groove on the 9x19 -is- controlled but apparently there is wide latitude allowed on the diameter. Each ammunition manufacturer has staked out some part of the tolerance zone and after that it depends on how consistent their machinery is. I have access to some gauges that helped me decide what to use and now I have a good system. (Again my experience with the 625 did not lead me to expect these complications)
Initially I fed the 929 a mixture of brass and some of it didn’t want to eject cleanly. This turned out to be narrowed down to a few headstamps. I avoid that problem by feeding it specific brass.
The 929 had factory-installed a lightweight firing pin. It was hollow. The pointy end was normal but the back was bored out. According to the Internet, the lightweight pin was supposed to address pierced primers, which must have been a frequent complaint. I was getting pierced primers with the hollow pin. I asked a gunsmith if he had a spare firing pin (a solid one, perhaps a castoff from an upgrade) that I could try. I installed that one and adjusted tension on the mainspring to get reliable ignition. I have not seen a pierced primer in the last 800 rounds.
Most recently I found the screw that fastens the rear sight leaf to the frame needed tightening.
Generally, both revolvers shoot really well. I have not found these to be serious problems (for me) but I wonder how someone new to revolvers would deal with such annoyances. In the case of loose screws it could be a substantial problem if the screw walked out badly enough that parts were lost. I did not need to send the gun anywhere to make these adjustments. Some of the problems on my buddy’s guns really had to go back to Smith.
For the light strikes at full mainsping tension or the brass-caused performance issues, I would expect some level of disappointment. They annoyed me but these were things I had some notion on how to fix/tune so my dissatisfaction level was more like a 3 instead of a 7-8 that it would be for a new expensive toy that I might have to return to the factory so they could ‘get it right’.
Get whatever appeals to you. If it isn’t right, Smith will do what they can.
I like long barrels. My 686 is six inch, and 629 is 6.5 inch. Longer sight radius, better powder burn, weight damps recoil, less blast.
If I had the funds, I’d buy this gorgeous, pristine S&W Model 19-5, 6" nickel .357 with giraffe bone grips posted on a forum local to me. It’s a steal at $750, but I’m gun poor right now. 
I had it’s big brother in the past (6" nickel Model 27-2 .357) and foolishly sold it. I gotta learn to stop doing that.
I have a few nice smiths. One to consider is the M&P 8 shot Performance center gun. Any of the Performance Center guns have nice upgrades IMHO.
I do like the older pinned-recessed- firing pins variety guns as well. It’s really like most decisions, personal preference.
Keep us posted.
PB
I with you on the short barrel comp thing. For a gun that maybe used up close and personal I don’t want that blast going anywhere but away from me.
The L comp is actually a PC model and has had trigger and action work and an extra set of fuller size grips so it’s all there. I agree, it’s a sweet gun.
Good Lord Almighty that a gorgeous piece!!! Just not what I’m after, agreed though, it’s a steal.
Nope the comp is low on my list of must have but I am wanting a shorter barrel. The 627 is definitely in the running but I seem to have really fallen for the 586 L comp. And, I’ve watched quite a few vids of it doing its thing and using factory ammo I could not see any fireballs streaking towards the sky. Several of the guys even purposefully videoed at near or full dark. Even at no light the blast wasn’t bad at all.
I dont own ANY comp’ed firearms but I swear, I dont see it being too big an issue, 3" or 5", not that big a difference it wouldn’t seem. How much extra burn do you get in that extra 2"? I’m asking that seriously.
I had a 640 pro a while back (sadly, 5 shot). Great gun. I sold it when I was buying my property but I miss it.
I prefer the K frame over the L frame but that’s a matter of personal preference. I don’t shoot a lot of .357 so my K frames aren’t being stressed. If I was one of those guys who shoots lots of .357 I would definitely go for the L frame. Unless you have such a need for the L, or just happen the like the heavier gun, I’d stay with the K.
New or pre-lock? Definitely pre-lock for me! I won’t own one. The lock adds nothing but complexity and is just something else to break. More parts in the gun = more parts that can fail. There were stories going around about these locks jamming and leaving the gun inoperable. A lot of keyboard commandos dismissed the idea as urban legends as they had never seen it happen so the stories must be false. It didn’t happen too often but it did happen enough that I’d never depend on a gun with a key lock. I am personally familiar with three cases, two of them involved S&W and one was a Taurus. One of the Smiths was owned by a police officer who was never able to complete his qual course without the lock engaging in the middle of a shot string. Last I heard he still had a problem after several repair attempts and was undecided on whether to sell the gun and buy one that had no lock or to just remove the lock from his gun (a violation of PD rules). Additionally, the presence of the lock is a constant reminder of how S&W sold us out by caving in to the demands of an corrupt president and his subversive wife.
Many of the newer guns also have 2 piece barrels like the old Dan Wesson guns with the interchangeable barrels and some have different cylinder locking points. While they seem to work well they are not the traditionally correct style that I love so much.
As far as trying out the different guns, start going to public ranges and gun clubs and ask around - somebody will have what you want to try or they will know somebody else who has it and most shooters are ore than happy to let you try out their guns. I’ve loaned guns to other guys at the range dozens of times. As far back as the early 90s when CompuServe started a gun forum I hooked up with almost a dozen newbies who wanted to try out a particular gun. If I or one of my brothers didn’t have it then one of my brother officers almost always did. Show up and ask! Try several different types before you buy so you’ll know you’re getting the best fit. Good luck and good shooting!
If you are paranoid, you can always take out the ILS on a newer Smith.
Otherwise, it is possible to get a really slick trigger out of a newer Smith.
My hogging .44 has a hillary hole and it does okay.
The only Smith I’d go out of my way for to get a pre-lock is an old popo Heavy Barrel model 10. More to just have. For shooting, I have a Model 65 and a PPC model 10.
I just like the classic A E S T H E T I C of the old oiled Police model 10 when men were men and wore razor crease polyester uniformed and Brasso shined adornments and used either Nyclad ammo or LSWCHP. They carried cocobolo sticks or blackjacks, no tasers, and didnt wear faggy 5.11 crap that looks like something the police extras in Robocop 1987 wore. Shined boots. And only broke out the autopistol if this time…it was personal.
Perhaps I am a bit mawkish, but there is something about good, honest revolver work.
Good post, thank you for the effort. I e thought of just the very thing you suggest with the ranges and clubs. Several problems with that for me. One there are no ranges near me. I’m extremely fortunate to have a good friend who owns a farm with some wide open stretches who will let me shoot there saving me a 45 minute drive to the range. I do go there when I want to shoot very long ranges as they have a 600 meter lane. Nice range but expensive to use and far away. Two, when I am there I will go and look at what people are shooting to see if there is something I’d like to try and offering time behind any of mine in exchange but I dont recall ever seeing anyone with a revolver there, at least not when I’ve been there. Three, and this is just a personal thing, the people here, the shooters too, are very unapproachable people. I mean they’re just way different from me and how I was raised. Hell, maybe it me, I dont know but I’ve lived on 3 different continents, 4 countries and I think 9 states and have just never seen the like of the people here, all reasons, among many, I cant wait to leave. LGS’s just dont carry revolvers as a normal matter of course, its shotguns and fishing rods here. Hell they dont even carry the ubiquitous MSR. It’s really a communist state. There is one store in a nearby town who does carry ARs etc but their stock is always very, very limited. They’re the best guys I’ve found here but that’s it.
All sad I know but what a ya gonna do.
Some of the things you mention above are some of the detrimental characteristics I’ve heard about the newer Smith’s too. Obviously I have no direct or firsthand knowledge of any of them but just stuff I’ve read. I do agree 100% about the lock adding nothing positive but complicating the gun and possibly being a detriment to tuning and function.
I like the L frame, the K frame, the N frame ,Hell, even the J. I like all of them but I WANT an L frame this time around. It’s like everybody says, myself included, a revolver seem to be a more personal decision than most other types. I’m just trying to see what most people have experienced with newer Smith’s. I know they seemed to have some QC issues for a time but it seems they may have got it smoothed out. I’m not too crazy about them having a sleeve the bullet is fired through and not a barrel but they, from what I’ve read, seem to hold up ok and seem to be as accurate too.
I’ve just been away from revolvers for way too long and behind the curve here. I’ll get there eventually I suppose. Like I said, I’m just seeking some wisdom from folks I trust.