Indians For Guns

http://www.chuckhawks.com/smith-wesson_dark.htm

Very informative and I am sure an eye opener for a lot of people.So S&W is to the American press what Mercedes Benz is to the Indian press.While international press was full of reports of how the Merc quality had fallen to the extent that their cars were no longer reliable,the Indian auto magazines were busy tom tomming every new product from Merc as the epitome of luxury and German reliability.

penpusher

Interesting article penpusher... Have heard it repeated quite often that Ruger and Colt guns are "sturdier", especially when compared to S&W guns. However, this was offered as personal opinion without any facts to back up the claim...

This article does seem to offer evidence, but not very solid evidence all the same. It would have seemed a lot more solid if the author had made available tests with comparative models from different makers being destruction tested, figures on percentage returns to factory (for warranty repairs/ replacements), factory recalls etc.

An interesting read all the same.

Cheers!
Abhijeet

Chuck Hawks has obviously got his knickers in a twist about S&W. No doubt there have been cases of problems with S&W revolvers but unsubstantiated reports count for very little.
I can`t ever remember having any S&W revolvers that had problems of any sort.........I had a Ruger Old Army that had plenty of problems though. Mehul recently quoted a report on the re-issued Colt Python which has apparently experienced major failures but not having seen any such report I can`t comment. Certainly the Pythons that I handled from the original series were superb.
Complaining that the `N` Frame revolvers were overly heavy for the .357 mag just smacks of sour grapes. I had two M 27 .357 mags and whilst they were undoubtedly large and heavy they were beautifully made, very accurate and recoil was pleasantly inconsequential with any load. That the `L`frame ripped-off the Python size and styling is probably true......but an intermediate frame was required and they built one.......I suppose that they should have made it slightly bigger or smaller than the Python. It seems to me that Colt got the size right and S&W were obliged to copy it.
That S&W have ripped off the 1911 design is hardly a big deal........Who hasn`t ripped-off the 1911 ? There are 1911s in production by so many manufacturers that any list would be extremely long. Assembling the 1911 clones from bought-in parts apparently makes the situation even worse.........Why ? There are plenty of 1911s being built from parts supplied by multiple manufacturers. Nothing wrong with that at all as long as the parts used are of good quality.......and all the American 1911 parts manufacturers that I know of make extremely high quality parts.
There`s something not 100% about this article - it doesn`t even read like typical Chuck Hawks - perhaps because none of his other articles are a 100% attack upon a manufacturer. Normally his writing is excellent but he obviously has `got it in for` S&W. Unless S&W quality has declined dramatically in the ten years since the UK pistol ban - something that I`ve heard no evidence of - I`m inclined to treat this article as an aberration ...... especially as I can think of more worthy candidates for censure......

Thats quite a revelation to me. Thanks penpusher, for the interesting article. Just my humble opinion, but I think the perceived drop in quality, if at all would be recent. I;ve never come across badly made S&Ws... again this is India so access to S&Ws of 'recent' make would be somewhat difficult, so I'll deduce that the writer of the single article has some personal prejudices and peeves.

Apart from the revolvers that the writer is cribbing about, are S&W autos really that bad? I checked out some seized S&W autos(9mm-forgot which model- I think it was Model 59)...I thought they were pretty fine guns. Of course, there's an awful lot I don't know and I'd be glad to be more educated.

Anyhow, even shoddy S&W's would be miles ahead of our IOFB products any day of the week.

Hi Folks!
I fully agree with penpusher. and would request you to kindly see the link also
http://www.gundirectory.com/more.asp?gi ... n=Revolver
when so many people are complaining about the same, it is my personal opinion that something is wrong with S& W's quality control
love,
Jayanta