S&W Model 686 Questions?

You must have been a VERY good boy to get this kind of Christmas present.

The Dash 1 is an earlier gun and unless altered, it will have the square butt. Hogue's are my first choice for full size revolvers, and make a great gun even better.

These are tremendous guns. Since you've owned mostly Rugers, brace yourself, you're about to fall in LOVE with one of the finest revolvers ever built.
 
I have a 686 dash-nought in 6", and a 686-3 in 2.5". Absolutely love both those guns...I have yet to see a Python I would want to trade either of my 686's for, and that includes the Python Elite which showed up at the shop a few months back. The 6" gun is a joy to shoot at the range and a very capable home defense gun, and the 2.5" is my favorite toting revolver next to my Model 19.
 
Dfariswheel,
Actually no I have not been a good boy, I have been a naughty boy this year :D This S&W will be my 10th gun since last year at this time, that is not counting the SP101 that I put on lay-away last month, that hasn't made it home yet.

But you got to understand, I started shooting about 2 1/2 yrs ago and got my first gun the Christmas of "99" from my loving wife :D And then a year ago it all started, it became an addiction Im now a gunaholic :eek:
HELP I can't stop.....LOL

Thanks Guys for your help.....
 
S.F.S......it took about 10,000 cylinder reloads (60,000 cartridges) before my front and rear latches were out enough to affect lockup. Couple of fairly intense years. lotta folks would go for many years on that many reloads.

Sam
 
A little FYI is in order here-

The original S&W model 686 was intorduced
via catalog in 1980; but the first run
production guns didn't start hitting the
dealer's shelves until early 1981.

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, Life Member N.R.A.
 
C.R.,
How is that sought of problem repaired and the cost of it?
I do know that this particular gun had a good lock-up.
 
Sam,

60,000 rounds of hot .357's in two years?! That averages out to 2,500 rounds a month, or nearly 85 rounds per day, every day! You must be the man of steel. How are those wrists these days?

rock
 
rock_jock......that was 10,000 cylinder loads, 60,000 cartridges. Bout half of the cylinder loadings were during speedloader drill....only bout 30,000 actually fired. And most fired were not full house .357s. The wear was from the loading and unloading, not from the shooting.

When closing the cylinder, the pivot pin drags across the recoil plate and snaps into the locking hole in the center.....eventually cutting a grove in the plate and elongating the hole as it slides in. Front latch in the barrel lug also wears from the same action. Rework would have entailed having the recoil plate machined for a bushing and probably rebarreling. Along with other worn parts, not worth it to me. Low mileage replacement was probably less than re-work. So I went that way.

Nuther way of lookin at it. Cost bout a penny a round in gun wear if you write the gun off.

Sam
 
Interesting. I've always wondered how deep that grove would get on my revolvers. I wonder why gun makers don;t reinforce the recoil plate?
 
I called S&W today with a couple questions and they informed me that the dash one was manufactured during the years of 86 and 87 and that it was a definatly a square butt L frame.



C.R.,
I take you had a lot of side to side movement in that cylinder from the locking hole being out of round?

Thanks guys for all your help Im sure Im gonna love this gun with all that I have heard about it.

Now the hard part is waiting:D
 
S.F.S

You will love the 686! The only thing I would watch out for other than the standard wear indicators would be to see if it has been
subject to a recall by the factory. The early 686's had a minor problem shooting .357's called "primer pocket cratering", had to do with the firing pin bushing and the firing pin. Factory corrected for free at the time. You might want to contact factory once you get it, they will tell you if it was subject to the recall by the serial number. If gun was corrected, there will be a small upper case M stamped on the crane between the AEK.... serial number and the words MOD 686-1 or M686-1.

Many of the 686-1's for sale today are police turn-ins and have had the correction made. $300 is good price for mechanically good gun. Most of the wear on these police turn-ins is just cosmetic and buff out easily. Not much shooting wear at all.

Do a search on TFL "primer cratering on 357 mag" to get more info

Good purchase.

Jim-alex
 
Jim,
When I called the factory they mentiond about the modification on the earlier models but said that was already done when -1 series came out the -0 was the ones with the recall. They were very helpfull when I called.

Scott
 
Last edited:
I've had a fair amount of experience with "early"--pre hammer-nose & bushing mod.--L-frames...have a "dash-M" 686 and a NO DASH 586...the 586 has NOT been back to S&W or one their warranty repair stations for the mods...never had any trouble out of it in around 35,000 rounds, so...MAYBE much ado about nothing? Actually, IIRC, the reason for the "mods" was that "some" high-intensity factory Magnum loads (with "soft" primers, I was told) had the primers "back out" and tie up some of the early STAINLESS L's...at least that's what a friend who owned a shop that was a Smith warranty repair station during the time of the recall told me...IIRC, the "guilty" ammo was Winchester "Silvertip"...at least, that's what I THINK he told me, all those years ago!!!....mikey357
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top