I'll rot in hell before I buy an S&W (Part 2)

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Rickmeister

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A lesson in maturity, Mal H? :)

I can't break out my "More Streets and Roads".

Spot ate my copy. :D

I'll tryyyyy to make this post adequate enough by asking those TFLers who own a 629 what they think of it? I handled one yesterday and it looked pretty solid. But then I also saw a used Colt Anaconda (1970s, condition 80%), and the temptation was much too great.

New 629 or used Anaconda. What do you suggest?
 
Well, if it's a pre-agreement 629, there's certainly nothing wrong with it.

The older 629s, before the endurance package was installed, didn't hold up as well to the pounding of full-mag loads. I'm not certain when the endurance package was incorporated.

Anaconda? Never could develop much of a liking for Colt's snake guns.

If you want to run a steady diet of full-bore magnum ammo through a handgun, then a Ruger Super Red Hawk is probably the best choice.
 
Thanks, Mike. I had not considered the Super Redhawk. I knew something was missing from my to-do list. I'll look into it.

What's your take on the regular Redhawk, BTW?
 
Hello All:

Att-Rick, I have a pre-agreement Smith & Wesson 629-5
"Classic" with a 5" fully lugged barrel. For a gun that is
fabricated from stainless steel; it's as slick as a babys
butt. Fit and finish are superb. Using my custom hand-
load's in this weapon, is like shooting a large caliber
.38 Special. I would certainly recommend a 629-5 to
other's; as this model contains the "beefed up" parts,
in order to handle the hottest of magnum load's.

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member
 
I will weigh in by advising you to get that Posthud Smith. The finest American Revolver money can buy.:D Smith's stock is at $2.50 up from $.50 6 months ago. GO SMITH GO! :p
 
I'm not into the pre/post S & W "thing" .....

but I can give you some dope on Red Hawk vs Super Red Hawk. Both are super heavy built pistols with the Super Red Hawk being the more heavily constructed of the two models. The SRH's come in two barrel lengths 7.5 and 9.5 inches. I own and shoot both for the heck of it but for going out in the field I carry my stainless 5.5 inch barrel Red Hawk. I find the RH more easily carried than the two SRH and will easily accomodate "hot" ammo (44 mag to be specific) such as Garrett puts out. While I love 'em all I find the Red Hawk to be the one my hand reaches for when I go to the field. Good shooting:)
 
Actually, I've found a lot to be wrong with the current crop of S&Ws. I'd feel the same way agreement or no.

The early to mid-1990s saw a marked decline in the construction of S&W revolvers, both internally and externally.

Throw the agreement in on top of that, and it's an extremely unpalatable combination.
 
On this board, we've seen Performance Center weapons that went out to dealers with horrible and obvious mechanical and cosmetic defects. Do a search if you care to. The PC is supposed to be the best S&W has to offer, and its production rate is low enough that zero defects are to be expected. Yet, a lot of it is crap. Perhaps your zeal to protect the traitors (including their new American owners who ratified the agreement by saying they would comply with all S&W's preexisting contracts) has blinded you to the problems with S&W's products.
 
Hum, Roger, if I'm "blined by my zealotry" then please tell me why I was having SERIOUS reservations about Smith & Wesson's quality control in 1996-1997?

How do you explain that?

If anything, my passion FOR Smith & Wesson revolvers would have caused me to EXCUSE the increasing number of faults that I was finding in these guns.

How do you explain THAT?

Here's something of a well kept secret, Roger.

Since the mid 1990s I've established for myself a very small, very quiet sideline business of EXCLUSIVELY working on and repairing Smith & Wesson revolvers, mainly for friends and acquaintances, and on a hobbyist footing -- I take no money for the work that I do, I do it STRICTLY for my love of Smith & Wesson revolvers.

To date I've worked on over ONE HUNDRED Smith & Wesson revolvers of all vintages.

As I've said, since the mid- to late-1990s, there has been a marked DECREASE in the quality of worksmanship coming out of Smith & Wesson.

Smith & Wesson has largely wasted the promise offered to the company by their CNC investments of the 1980s and 1990s by allowing quality control to be performed by machinery instead of humans, and by obviously TRUSTING the infallability of the machinery to do the job better than humans can.

The result has been a lowered standard of quality that was evident long BEFORE Smith & Wesson signed it's agreement (by the way, have you actually read the agreement, and seen just how S&W would function as an enforcement arm of the Federal government, activly impinging on your rights?)

It's a pity that the old Compuserve Firearms Forum isn't archived anywhere, or you'd see for just how long I've been complaining about the dropping quality at S&W.

So, Roger, since you think you have me pegged, Roger, care to explain these nasty little inconsistencies?
 
Nope.

It still all reeks of the "boycott". It's always there, in the background.

Hell, it's in your Signature, Mike.
 
I guess then I'm in the wrong business, Roger. I guess that since I've been addressing the dropping quality since at least 1996, or fully 4 years BEFORE, I must be some sort of mystic who can predict the future.

So, then I make my next brave prediction.

I predict that you, and others like you, will be the first ones screaming bloody murder about the big bad government when the next gun-hater in the White House uses your passivity and Smith & Wesson's blindness to ram the agreement down the throats of all gun owners.

Until that day, though, don't tell me what you THINK you know about me, because you're simply talking out your backside.

And until that time, do something constructive and search my posts on S&W's quality control problems. Even if the agreement was absent I'd STILL be advising people to buy guns made prior to the mid-1990s, simply because those guns are BETTER -- better made, better fit, better finish, better triggers. In other words, they're BETTER.

Even though the agreement is in place, I still keep tabs on S&W's quality by handling all of the new revolvers that I can at every gun show that I go to. There's crap coming out of the factory today and hitting dealer shelves that NEVER would have left the factory in the 1980s, and shouldn't be in dealer inventory today.

I make no bones about my disdain for S&W because of the agreeemnt, but I also make no bones about my disdain for S&W's slipping quality over the past 10 years. If you can't separate the messages, then I'd say that the problem is on your end, and not mine.

But, quite truthfully, I say that if my posts keep some one from buying a new S&W EITHER because of the agreement, or because of the quality control flaws, then I say I've had a good day.
 
Rickmeister:

If you saw a 1970's Anaconda, buy it now, as production on them did not begin until 1990. ;)




ALL:

Which part of "Discussions of the legalities and politics of the boycott belong in Legal and Political" is so hard to grasp?
 
You make my point.

Again.



You cannot hide behind "quality issues". Your politics comes through loud and clear.

"Smith and Wesson's quality problems of the 90's" my ass.
In the 90's they made some of their best stuff since "the old days".

Bangor Punta, maybe, but that was way before that.

Who's talking out of where?

But, quite truthfully, I say that if my posts keep some one from buying a new S&W EITHER because of the agreement, or because of the quality control flaws, then I say I've had a good day.
Click to expand...

You make my case.
 
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Tamara

It is not hard to grasp at all. You have a member who jumps at every chance he can to bash Smith and Wesson, to further his political cause.

The topic of this post is out of line to begin with. Then Sir Irwin chimes in with his usual "quality issues".

Not everone shares such a bias.

Smith and Wesson makes good guns. They make a few lemons.
Taurus and Ruger do the same.


-------------------------------------------
Sorry, left out his part:

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!!"
 
I share the quality issues thinking of Mike.

Tamara handles new ones often and has expressed QC problems with them on several ocaisions.

Long ago we thought of the Bangor Punta days as a low period in Smith quality. Seemed to pick up a bit under Lear Seigler. Then started going downhill badly under Tompkins and seems to be continuing in the downward direction.

Bangor guns seemed to have bout a one percent rate of guns with minor defects when new. A lesser amount with major problems. Today we are seeing a far higher defect rate and many with major problems.

Sam.....ex Smith dealer. And fan since the 40s.
 
Handle, shoot, and smith as many Smith & Wesson revolvers as I have, Roger, and maybe, just maybe, you'll begin to understand, and know, what I, Sam, Tamara, and others are talking about. Haunt the gunshows, the collector shows, the museums, and the private collections for 20 years, and maybe you'll begin to understand the concept of quality control and be able to identify where, and why, S&W has been failing to live up to its history.

Spend 4 years as Associate Editor of American Rifleman magazine (I did 1990 to 1994) and have many long conversations with a variety of people from S&W, ranging from management to floor staff, about quality, about how the CNC machinery was the greatest thing since sliced bread, how the guns would soon look like they had in the 1920s through the 1950s, when the best S&W handguns were made, and maybe you'll understand the basis for the failure of those promises.

Your failure to understand both the quality control issues as well as your desire to have your head in the sand regarding the potential legal ramifications of the agreement and how it would affect every gunowner, aren't really surprising.

Sad that you'd think that you'd be able to discuss these issues in an informed fashion, but again, not surprising.
 
Tamara,

I'm discussing quality control failures.

I don't have a problem discussing why S&W's guns from the mid 1990s onwards don't live up to the company's history for production of fine firearms, but Roger seems to think that I'm making up the QC issue as a smokescreen for my well-known political stance.

As I said in an earlier message, which was summarily dismissed by another accusation that my only concern is political, I've been discourgaging people from purchasing S&W revolvers from the mid-1990s when quality began a rather nasty plunge, long BEFORE politics even remotely entered the picture.

But of course I'd never say that, of the last 30 or so Scandium and Titanium Smiths that I've examined that 7 had barrels that were so overtorqued that the front sights were not even close to vertical, that of the last 200 or so Smiths of all flavors that I've examined that at least a dozen had serious timing problems on at least one chamber, constitutes anything OTHER than political bashing on my part.
 
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