S&W 5946 new for sale?

[benEzra]

So would lots of people, but making them now would be prohibitive, I think.

Yep. I detail-stripped my 5906 once for a good cleaning, and I was amazed at how many intricately machined little parts it had compared to a Glock or something, and how long it took to put it together. I would expect that a 3rd-gen Smith requires two or three times the man-hours to manufacture and assemble than a Glock does. They are very well designed and built, though.

I believe some of the last 3rd-gens made for general sale were Performance Center and TSW models. I wanted one of those badly for a while, but they were priced well out of my range. I believe that even my little 3913LS cost close to $600 back in the mid-1990s, which was a lot of money at the time.

 

[carguychris]

I saw a couple of these at Cabela's in Ohio --- not sure if new or used but they were in the new gun case. I assumed used.

I'm certain these are in fact new – possibly new old stock as others have speculated, but that qualifies as new in my book. However, I think they're new-production, as it's unlikely that this many guns would have disappeared into a distributor's warehouse for this long.

The major clue is Houlton. A large-volume discount gun shop in my area got a bunch of Springfield-marked 908S's ca. 2011 that were advertised as "The Last" of the 3rd-gens, and I read not long afterwards that all 3rd-gen production tooling had been moved to Houlton, supposedly for long-term storage.

The most logical explanation for these guns is that S&W has found some excuse to dust off the tooling and build a run of M5946s, probably for a large LE special order given the oddball model choice. The ones at Cabela's are likely a contract overrun.

 

[carguychris]

Both the slide and frame are stainless. That's not two-tone, in the traditional sense. They stopped using chromed triggers and hammers after a period, if you mean those parts.

+1. FWIW and IIRC, the MIM hammer and trigger were introduced ca. 1997, so many of the more common 3rd-gens were actually produced longer with the MIM parts, although the earlier hard-chrome guns seem to outnumber them, likely due to faltering sales.

Also, S&W has produced a number of "true" two-tone pistols with stainless slides on blued steel or black anodized aluminum alloy frames, AFAIK all as distributor exclusives or special PC models. That's NOT what these pistols are.

 

[chaim]

So would lots of people, but making them now would be prohibitive, I think. The gun featured by the OP is one of the two-tone models with synthetic hammer and trigger. It's probably just as good as early models, but has a lot of cut corners. My favorite model was actually the second generation 659, which was one of their most beautiful guns (and it was featured on many television shows and movies). It just looked cool! But to make one now would be just too expensive. Look how much stainless 1911s are going for now. That's about what a modern S&W stainless 2nd/3rd gen auto would go for.

Sure, we pay a lot for a well made 1911. We also pay quite a lot for the classic P-series SIGs. SIG went polymer with the P2022, P250 and P320 for the volume/value crowd, but kept the older, expensive to make (and buy) classic metal guns. There would probably be a market if S&W were to do the same. Keep the M&P series (and SD series) for the value/volume market, but keep the classic guns for those of us willing to pay in the $700-1100 range from time to time for a classic metal, hammer fired gun.

I think you are right that they may not be competitive for the general and police market (though, the classic P-series SIGs still sell well). That is what the polymer guns are for. Like SIG (and like CZ seems to be starting to do with the P-07 and P-09 next to the 75B based guns), it would be nice if S&W may move to trying to serve both markets. Of course, it is probably just an overrun of a limited run for a contract like others have said and won't be around long.

 

[FNS-40]

I know this is a few months old post but fwiw our lgs has 6 TSW 4013's for $375 each. I'm seriously considering bringing one home this weekend. They are local corrections officer trade ins.