the dark side of smith and wesson!

G

griffin12aaa

New member
To start off I own a 442 thats only a couple of weeks old. I currently own a glock a ruger and a smith. I dont love nor hate smith. I dont love or hate any gun company. I see it as business. They want money and i want a gun. And who ever "fills" my needs best at a decent price is most likely where my money is going. I found this on the web and i thought id share it. What do you guys think?




http://www.chuckhawks.com/smith-wesson_dark.htm
 
I have seen this article before, it's not new. We can drag out the whipping posts on just about any gun maker that has been in business for more then a few years. Bill Ruger's "no law abiding person needs more then a 10 round mag", Colt's "smart" gun come to mind.

My personal experience with S&W has been positive. The current management seems to be willing to fix problems. There are always going to be people that get a bad product and it never quite gets fixed to their liking.
 
I think someone's underoos were in a bunch one day.

I only have two S&W's but haven't experienced any problems with mine, although they're both older and out of production.
 
I’m not sure who the guy is, but he’s entitled to his opinion. I suppose when you’re one of the top two or three largest manufacturers and you’ve been in business over 160 years you’re going to upset a few folks – apparently Mr. Hawks is one of them. I currently own three S&W handguns one of which I am very happy with and the other two I actually love. So, if you dislike S&W I’m certain Ruger will gladly sell you a gun.
 
This is an old article filled with half-truths and opinions disguised as "facts." Ignore it and save yourself from a headache.
 
I have a 686 from the late 80s. It's a special model made for the Customs Service and ordered with unique specifications.

I'd call it darned near perfect in every way.

I would not buy one much newer than that......and certainly would not buy one of the more recent ones with MIM parts and that damned safety with a key.

The heyday of S&W is long past.

Hail......but farewell.
 
Love how he is so insulted by S&W "copying" the Browning designed 1911...


What about the dozens of other companies who do just that?? Wilson, Kimber, Sig Sauer, RIA, Ruger, and on and on and on... You practically have an legitimate industry unto itself just with the 1911 design and all of the manufacturers who build them!

And what about Winchester's m70... very very similar to a Mauser.. Guess Winchester is guilty of "stealing" other makers ideas too??

Hell, you could say Winchester/Browning and Henry stole the idea of a lever rifle from the Volcanic pistol designed by Horace and Daniel!

All of this is neither here nor there....

It is naive at best to assert that competing manufacturers will not "copy" (for lack of a better word) their competitions designs to an extent, it's part of the game... I give you the automobile as one example.. From it's inception to current day, the manufacturers have been copying each other to varying degrees. Does he honestly think that Colt should be the only one still making revolvers today or Mauser the only one making bolt rifles?? It's BS!

I have read some Chuck Hawks articles in the past and have found them to be pretty informative.. But this is some of the most childish twaddle I have ever laid eyes on.
 
Chuck Hawks was in error in several respects.

Now I have ran into bum S&Ws but so have I ran into Colts and Rugers that had problems, so what?

Now about the K frame .357s, Jordan got S&W to make it in .357 and HE wrote to use .38s for most practice. It was not meant to be a gun to shoot .357s all day but a lighter gun a LEO could pack all day and still have .357 Magnum power.

The only reason the L frame can into existance was cause some LEO departments were using .357s all the time and yes, the K frame could not take that (just as the S&W 29 was not made to take 10K rounds of full magnums. Now days they have 'strengthened' the frame due to people in IMHS using them all the time with REAL .44 magnums.)

See back then not many people used full house .357s and .44 magnums for practice.

And no, the J frame was not meant to be a six shot gun but a five. There were LOTS of 5 shot top breaks before S&W ever thought about the J .38.

And so what if S&W used some after market parts, gun worked, right?

Anyway, every big gun manufacturer has had times when quality control went down. That is cause they are ran by humans and not robots (might be robots one day though!)

Deaf
 
He blasts Smith for copying the 1911 yet doesn't mention Ruger's copy of the same design. Also Bill Ruger's first product was a blatant copy of the Japanese Nambu pistol .
Mr Hawk's rant is worthless bias.
 
article is 3 years old. if what he says is a systemic truth about S&W why is he the only one to mention it? one could infer that he calls all other gun writers dishonest in their evaluations of S&W products.
 
S&W has been around for generations and undergone many changes in ownership and management.
It's hard to understand how complaints can follow them through all the eras.
Although, back in the late 1980s and early 1990's a well respected and very competent gunsmith told me that he preferred to make competition revolvers from a Taurus, instead of S&W.
Eghads.
I'll still take a S&W revolver over anything else.
 
Some people hate "progressives." Some people hate "conservatives". Some people hate broccoli. Chuck Hawks hates Smith & Wesson - totally, completely, and everything they ever did or made from 1857 on. IMHO, it is no more rational than hating conservatives, or blacks, or broccoli, or lentil soup. Since everything he writes is laced with the same kind of opinionated "reasoning" to justify his dislikes, I simply ignore his rants.

Jim
 
The responses to the article amaze me. Central to the author's thsis is that S&W has (or had) quality control issues for which he gives five examples he lists as "examples", and several more in the body of the text. Respondents however, choose to ignore the many examples and either respond with baseless accusations, terse and seeming emotionally based retorts, or in one case took the weakest example (they copy other makers) to attack. None, disputed his examples (poor quality control, problematic products), as being false or outright lies...they just do not like that kind of talk about a product they are fond of, it would seem.

As a person with an advanced degree who has studied the logic required of scholarly writings, I maintain that he made a logical case with examples, his attackers however...
 
Well, I also have an advanced degree and like I said, I am not impressed with Chuck Hawks. Whatever point he made, I question the source.

Are new guns inferior to the older ones? Probably. Used to be craftsmen and artisans designed and made guns. Now accountants and lawyers make them. That's why I own very few new guns. This is not something unique to S&W.

As for the responses, you put something out on an open forum like this and you will get varied replies. Don't be shocked when some (or all) don't agree with you. Opinions and cowboy hats...you know?
 
To say that a company has not always had good quality control is one thing. But to accuse them of being "un-American" is another. (Even though Hawks puts that accusation the mouth of a competitor, it is clear that he agrees with it.) I agree that the previous S&W management made a poor choice in going along with that agreement, but then Colt stopped production of ALL their DA revolvers under the same pressure. (Economics was a major reason, but political pressure played a huge role.)

Jim
 
Dahermit: The examples of bad handguns being made is fine, and I did not contest that. But don't mistake my not contesting it for failing to acknowledge the truth if it. Every manufacturer of everything ever manufactured has had issues with product. It goes without saying.

To cite examples of poor product is one thing. But to say that S&W has committed some ethical capitol crime with their product designs that resemble or in the case of the 1911, directly copy another design, while giving a pass to dozens of others who do the same thing is intellectually dishonest at best. By going on that rant about "copying everyone else" he showed his cards about his personal dislike of the company. And that's fine that he hates S&W. But IMHO, there was nothing objective about his article. To me, the way the thing reads, all of his examples are just the lead-up to get you to take that first step aboard his little S&W hate bandwagon. The real purpose of that article was to proclaim S&W some sort of dastardly big company who steals from the little guy.. Boy, that sounds eerily familiar doesn't it?


Now the 2a issues, I have no position on as I have not familiarized myself with that situation. Would have been helpful if he had included a few more details on that.

Bottom line: Chuck is entitled to his opinions, just as everyone is... But we are also entitled to speak our minds as to what we think of the aforementioned opinion.. After all, he put it out there for the world to see. Matter of fact, in his opening words he stated his expectations of the oncoming criticism.

I don't think he needs you to be offended for him. ;)

Edit to say: My response to his article would have been completely different if he had stuck with his assessment of QC at S&W and not delved into the baseless accusations just short of theft of intellectual property. That is where he lost credibility with me. I cited examples too.....:D
 
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FWIW, it is neither illegal nor unethical to copy a product that has long ago been out of patent protection. The whole idea of a patent is to allow the original inventor to profit from his development for a suitable period while then allowing the invention to be in the public domain so others can compete in the market with the original developer. If that were not allowed, the original maker would have a perpetual monopoly and many of the products we use today would be unavailable (because the original maker could not meet demand) or would cost much more.

Jim
 
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