686 Customs Service

J

jaysouth

New member
My latest toy is a Smith 686 .357. The model number inside the crane is CS-1.

I am told this is a U.S. Customs Service contract over-run.

It is the same as other 4" 686's except for a round butt and frosted finish.

It has been shot very little and still has a stiff action. Is there any collectors value here that precludes this being a shooter.

What is the value ANIB?

Help me out, this looks and feels like a great shooter but I don't want to destroy any collector value.

Many thanks


Shoot often, shoot safely


Jay
 
The "Customs Service" guns were nice...had a few unusual features, like the 1/10 inch wide front sight blade, rather than the usual 1/8 inch...also, they were all built on round-butt frames...they also had the cursed "floating hand"...don't like THAT feature AT ALL!!! They MIGHT BE worth a SLIGHT premium over other 686's, but $1,200??? Not in your dreams!!! Nice piece of gunmaking esoterica, but not worth NEAR that!!!....mikey357
 
CS-1

I bought a NIB CS-1, 3 in. bbl. round butt when they hit the market in the mid 80's. I think I paid about $400 for it, maybe a bit more. It was a nice L-frame as far a features, but had a stiff action and was a bit rough finish-wise. Wish I had kept it, that is a nice combination of features. I don't know how many they put out, but I'm skeptical that they could command that type of premium.
 
mikey.....I'm with you re the cursed floating hand. My experience has been that if you shoot it fast; It's out of time.

Sam
 
I was never able to gather very much info on my 4" CS-1, but the folks I spoke with about it seemed to think that it really isn't that much of a rarity and shouldn't command a premium price.
If they really are worth $1200, I have one for sale at the special price of $1,000.:p
 
Thanks for the info guys. I appreciate your input, but I must ask, what is a floating hand?

I paid for this one about what would be a good deal on a new 686. The one for sale at 1,200 is a 3 inch which a good many people say was never made by Smith. Before I paid that much for a gun, it would have to say "Wilson" or "Baer" on the side.

Thanks again for your help.


Jay
 
Anybody that says that Smith never made a 3" CS-1 has not looked very hard to research it. There have been several articles in Guns and Weapons for Law Enforcement and in Handguns magazine first discussing the special features of the CS series, then discussing the merit of the 2" or 3" inch medium frame revolver (with numerous pictures of David Steele's personal 3" CS-1) and finally discussing that Customs replaced them all a few years later with S&W DAO 6946 9mmp autos.

Customs bought the CS-1 with a 3" and 4" barrel. They later bought a CS-3 which was the same basic features (only in a 4" AFAIK) with the new style extractor star and a 1/8" pinned in front. I have never seen or heard of any reference to a CS-2.

I have bought one CS-1 4" and one CS-3 4" over the years and regret passing on the CS-1 3" (at the time I wanted the 4" as a potential duty gun).
 
Floating hand...a stab.
Usually on a Smith, the hand pivot pin is pressed into the hand and rotates freely in the trigger.

With floating hand, the pivot pin is pressed into the trigger and the hand rotates freely around the pin.

The floating hand pivot pin is real easy to bend with "fast n fancy" shooting.

Really bad in the guns with stainless lockwork.

Sam
 
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