Older S&W semis

You know.  The all metal kind.

So Tam has an article rolling around in here head like so many marbles in the skipper's overhead.  ('Overhead' is how swabbies say 'boat ceiling.')

She want to do something about the older Smith and Wesson semi-automatics.  You know the kind, with roots back 65 years. 

I am looking forward to it.

Now, I came to the shooting world late.  So I don't remember gunshops with lots of those brand new under the glass for sale.  They aren't there anymore, to be super simple about it, because they are expensive to make compared to next generation pistols ~cough~Glocks~cough~.

But they, themselves, were a response to how much work went into the generation before.  Again, to be short-bus simple, 1911s are a manufacturing improvement on earlier design, the Model 39 tried to one up that, then Glocks to one up them...  Smith would still make them if there was a demand and people willing to pay for the extra costs.

Like I said, though, I was never into older metal Smiths, so I am nigh totally ignernt in how they work or shoot.  Tam was nice enough to post this video but what appears to be a cut above your usual youtube gunsmith.



Goodness, that seems complicated.  I wonder what John Browning would say?  I saw the stamping and when "Ick!"  Then I thought a moment and went, "Ya know, that might actually be a decent idea.  Why NOT stampings?  Certainly cheaper to have a stamping ejector than that machined part you have to FIT on a 1911 that does the same thing."

You can see all the efforts to NOT have as many machined parts.  Then, later, some of them machined parts can be swapped out with Metal Injection Molded parts...  Cutting costs more.  Still hard to compete when you have all them frames you have to work.

Anyway, I am look forward to Tam's piece.  I hope it is a long article.  Heck, she could right a book on it.  She won't become a millionaire selling it, but I'd buy a copy. Fill in some of my gun knowledge holes.