Thursday, July 09, 2009

Exhausted...

..from a day filming SHOOTING GALLERY! Short story is I wanted to show you guys some of my favorite guns...ended up shooting groups for four hours, with everything from a Walther TPH .22 up to an S&W 329PD 44 Magnum with full house loads...my hand hurts...

Also,WE GOT AN S&W LOCK FAILURE ON FILM! Flag popped up and caught the hammer as it fell. We'll get it transfered out of HD and into an MPEG to post on DRTV as soon as possible.

More tomorrow after a good night's sleep!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sweet on the on-camera lock failure. I wound up selling off my early 60-15 after a self-activation of the lock. Took a bath on it. Nowadays I'd just cut the nub off . . .

cheers, erich martell

Dan said...

S&W lock failure. That's un-possible. Just ask Smith-Wesson. Never happens. Send the revo back to them and they will check it and find NTF. LOL.

Eric said...

What load were you using when the lock failed?

Anonymous said...

Please put the failure on your show and inform S&W that you are going to do so. The lock is not a good design, despised by most and is a black eye on an otherwise stellar company. It is the reason I have not purchased many new S&W revolvers. Those that I do have, had the lock neutered so that it is not a danger to those that are relying on the firearm to work without failure.

Anonymous said...

Ditto the previous Anonymous's comment. Run this on the show; make something of it. This is no joke; it's potentially life and death.

The only recent production S&W defensive revolver I have been willing to buy is one of the NO-LOCK run of 642s they did last year. I love it. Wonderful little pocket piece. If Smith makes more no-lock revolvers, I'll buy some.

But otherwise, until they ditch the lock -- (or, at a minimum, radically improve its location and its design; the default state MUST be "working gun," not "nonfunctioning gun") -- I won't buy any Smith wheelgun for defense.

Anonymous said...

Hey, wait! Is that the same 329 that locked up last year and WAS sent back to S&W, or is it another one? I don't remember what the diagnosis was on that earlier failure.
The Boy Scouts Shooting Merit Badge Training describes safeties as " a mechanical device that can and will fail." So, you shouldn't rely on them to keep guns from firing due to carelessness, as failure here allows firing. In the S&W "alledged" cases, the safety renders the gun inoperable. Both condiditons are bad ones.
Life Member

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 10:18,

MB didn't return his lock failure gun last year. Didn't want to get his pistolsmith in a pissing match with S&W, or something to that effect was his excuse.

Jason said...

I'll never understand how S&W justifies keeping the lock in their revolvers when their M&P pistols are available WITHOUT it.

Anonymous said...

Please, oh please, but the video of the 329 locking up on Shooting Gallery. Maybe that will have some affect on S&W.

I totally removed by integral lock from my 329PD (the whole works). I can live with the little hole above the thumblatch. I can't live with the revolver locking up.

Anonymous said...

Where's the video?

Anonymous said...

These things happen regularly. Likely only S&W has any idea as to how frequent they are. They are still able to sell the revolvers so, there are a lot of shooters who have not heard about or do not believe in the lock failures. There seems to be plenty of case law suggesting that manufacturers can get in a lot of trouble when their guns work as intended but none suggesting that it cost them anything in legal expenses or settlements when they fail to fire.
Those factors could explain the persistence of Safe T Hammer locks.