Smith history (post 1970s)

[Driveout02]

Growing up I heard nothing but good things about Smith and Wesson revolvers. As a child/teenager I assumed they were the Mercedes of handguns. I've since learned that Colts have always been kind of the top of the game for decades. Regardless, I still feel like people put a lot more stock in Smiths in the past than they do today.

I see a lot of people going for Rugers nowadays over the Smiths (polls regarding durability, accuracy, "what gun would you trust your life to," etc.). Colts are all but gone, so it's pretty much down to these two for big double action manufacturers (I'm assuming most people agree that Taurus, Rossi, etc. are in a lesser category-for the most part).

I'm wondering if there's a simple explanation for this loss of consumer enthusiasm as far as Smith and Wesson goes. I know about the zit-like internal locks, but it's got to be more than that. Does anyone out there know a little Smith history that would explain their fall from grace?

~J

edit: maybe this should go in the revolvers forum (don't know how to move it there, though)

 

[RsqVet]

Well they more or less have been "de-contenting" their product line and adding undesired features for some time now while offering no choice and branding these changes as "improvements" to the consumer.

Started with loss of "pinned and recessed", then MIM, then locks, now cheap multi-part barrels, shrouds and whatnot.

Personally I don't care what they do if they offer me a choice, as in buy a gun with a lock or sign a waiver or whatever and get one without, or allow me to pay more for a custom shop gun with forged parts, and that is p&r. They don't so they don't get my money for new guns.

Ruger is in my opinion a great company when it comes to revolvers, they have solid products that are slowly and minimally changed over time. And they have been releasign great guns like the Alaskan and 4 inch 45 colt redhawk.

I'll buy high grade used smiths and new rugers, I suspect until used smiths are priced like pythons are now many will do this, when that happens if S+W is still around they may see more sales.

Honeslty I wonder how long before shops like Les Baer or Ed Brown say heck, we can get a frame forged and make a classic revolver.....

 

[44 AMP]

Times change, people change, leadership changes,...

ownership changes. And that's where things started to go wrong. BAck in the late 70s, maybe, but certainly by the early 80s, S&W was no longer US owned. And things started happening, slowly at first, but chages were made. The dropping of the pinned barrel and recessed chambers (in the early 80s) was done as a cost cutting measure, so they could remain "competitive", but many of us saw it as a cheapening of their fine product. Other makers never did pin their barrels or have the recessed chambers (on centerfires), but S&W always had, and without them, the guns didn't seem the same. One friend of mine had an early unpinned M629 with the 8 3/8" barrel, and after several hundred rounds the barrel started to unscrew! He sent it back, and they sent it back fixed , saying "there's nothing wrong with it". That kind of had a bad taste for us.

S&W spent a bunch of money on a line of rifles and shotguns, all foreign made, which didn't sell well, and eventually were dropped, and they "cut costs" on their handguns possibly to try and cover for it.

Corporate ownership changed a few times, until, during the Clinton administration they made a tremendous "political" blunder. The corporate owners of S&W, a British holding company entered into an agreement with the Clinton administration (which was potentially illegal, although it never got challenged in a court) in return for some design changes, like the built in locks, and restrictions on sales (no one under 21 allowed where handguns sold, among many other things) the Clinton administration agreed to exclude S&W from the lawsuits against handgun makers that were popping up around the country, and to give them priority on govt weapons contracts. I'm sure the British owners thought it was a good business deal, or at least a necessary one, but the American gun buying public thought otherwise.

We saw it as a betrayal. A sell out. While other gun makers were fighting to keep from being sued over the B.S. idea that criminal misuse of their guns was somehow their fault, S&W cut a deal! They caved in to the enemy! They betrayed our principles, so they could stay in business! A lot people felt that way. And we said, "No more S&Ws for us!" Sales dropped like a skydiver without a parachute, the stock tanked, and the British firm wound up selling S&W for a huge loss.

The new owners have kept the locks (on certain models), but otherwise seem interested in what we the public want, and sales are back up. But the quality of the old time S&W revolvers just isn't there today. They do make fome very nice guns, but they don't make them like they used to, and we remember. They could make them the way they used to, but they won't, because not enough people are willing to pay what it would cost to make them today.

My son recently got a S&W 1911PD. very nice gun, alloy frame, all the bells and whistles that so many want nowdays. Shoots good too. He is very happy with it. Me, I'll stick with my old guns, at least for now.

Basically, what hurt S&W the most was that for some time, they were controlled by people who felt that making and selling guns was like making and selling bricks, or clocks, or anything else. Many gun buyers don't feel that way. Sure, there are a lot of things in common, but guns mean something special to a lot of the owners, and a gun company that understands that gets loyalty. One that doesn't understand that gets the opposite.

 

[Moe Howard]

44 AMP that pretty much summed it up, and very well I might add. The current Smith owners are much more consumer friendly the the previous owners but yes the overall quality is not what it once was, but that seem to be the case with most all firearm manufacturers. It is partly the buying publics fault as we are not willing to pay for the quality of yesteryear. About the only way to get that great hand fitted quality, that was once the norm not the exception, you must spend $2000 to the sky is the limit. If all handguns were in that price range I would probably own just one. Smith, like most other major manufacturers, still make great, accurate, reliable guns for a fair price. I just don't get as warm and fuzzy over the quality of guns as I did over my granddads gun collection.

 

[Tom2]

I think Ruger was underselling Smith for a long time, on new revolvers. People decided that they could get a really good gun for less money and they became popular. So if you own a couple Rugers and no Smiths, you will swear by Ruger I suppose. Nothing wrong with Ruger revolvers. Well I had some issues with a Blackhawk but minor and they have a really good rep. But all I own now in centerfire is stainless Smiths. Not that I might not run across a deal on a Ruger in the future that might break me down if the price is great. As for Colts, well they are in the shrinking pool collectors domain now so even if you see a nice one, you will pay more for the name than a comparable Smith. Nothing wrong with them either, even though they handle differently than the other two brands and you may or may not like those different qualities. Smith has created some problems for themselves with the mentioned shortcuts and variable quality from owner to owner too. But overall I like their prelock guns. That is all I have.

 

[Mark Milton]

Here's the deal.
S&W was family owned for decades, back during their glory days.
In the 40s, 50s and 60s, S&W was more popular in the west and Colts were more popular in the east and up north.
If you look at Police Agency photos from then, you notice this. LAPD was primarily an S&W customer while Colt ruled the roost at the NYPD, for example.

S&W was a very progressive company in many ways, the magnums etc...

In the 1970s, they got sold to a holding company called Bangor Punta and their was definitely some quality control issues. If I remember right, in those days the guys who assembled the guns got paid by the gun, not by the hour, and BP ownership was always pushing them to increase production. BP era Smiths often have beautiful finishes and loose, wobbly cylinders, for example.
BP also owned Forjas Tuarus at the same time.
Both companies changed hands. Thompkins limited bought S&W. For awhile there, in the early 80s, S&W was making some of their best guns in terms of being well built. They made some durability improvements on the N frames, for example and introduced the Ladysmith line.
But the writing was on the wall...
They started cheapo-ing out. Putting plain, unfinished case hardened hammers and triggers on the stainless guns, which had always had flash chromed parts for corrosion resistance. Finishes got "milky" compared to the mirror bright guns of the BP era.
They also rean the company into the ground, vis a vis brand loyalty with the Clinton administration. In the end, they sold S&W to Safety Lock for about one tenth of what they had initially paid for it.
Safety lock started out okay but went downhill fast. First the MIM parts. Then the locks. Now the two peice barrels. Also, as the quality went down the prices increased drastically.

The common mantra for years on the S&W forums is that S&W is always trying to figure out how to build a good gun cheaper.
Unfortunately the price goes up.
I disagree vehemently with the following statement.
>>> They could make them the way they used to, but they won't, because not enough people are willing to pay what it would cost to make them today.>>>
In the real world, they could have continued to make them the way they made them, and the price would be about the same, or less than it is right now. Probably less as their would have been no tooling up for the changes.
The two peice barrell, MIM parts and so forth was a way to pinch pennies and increase the profit margin they allready had by making the product in an INFERIOR way.
The way the corporate @$$holes responsible for these defective changes see it, in a long period of time, the changes will be amortized and will eventually pay for themselves.
And when barrel shrouds shear off, cheap MIM parts break and the safety locks the gun up turning it into a paperweight, they won't care because they will have moved on, running some other company into the ground.

 

[CraigC]

Lots of reasons. Thirty plus years of Ruger's marketing hype and overinflated articles on how fragile they are certainly didn't help. If I hear "buy a Ruger, they're built like a tank" one more time I may throw up. Then the exaggerated stories about how bad the Bangor Punta guns were. I have several and they're all excellent. Nowadays with the Clinton-hole, MIM parts and the general cheapening of the product (except the price tag!) it's a wonder they sell any.

 

[44 AMP]

Bangor Punta

Sounds like a mexican curse word. And for S&W it was, the beginning of the troubles, which still plague them today. The 629 who's barrel unscrewed was a Bangor Punta gun. I'm sure many of the guns made under their management were fine, but enough weren't to show us what they were really about. And it wasn't about making fine quality guns first and money second.

Now, maybe S&W never was about making fine guns first and money second, but we felt like it was. I can remember back in the early 70s, looking at pistols in a store case, seeing two nearly identical .357s, a S&W for $140, and a Colt (trooper, not Python) for $188, and wondering why the Colt cost more. In those days (and we didn't have much money) the feeling was Colt cost too much for what you got (except for the Python, which was a premium piece, both in quality and price), S&W gave you a great gun for the money, and Ruger...well, they weren't as nice as Smiths, and didn't have the track record.

I can remember a good friend paying $400 for a (slightly) used nickel model 29 in 1976, when they retailed for $283.50. There was about a two year wait from the factory, and dealers were selling them as fast as they could get them, for whatever the market would bear. In those days, we would give whatever it took for a S&W, because we knew we were getting a good (great) gun. Today? it just ain't so. Sad to see how far they have fallen in just 30 years. That is what happens when companies put profit above quality. I've said it before, guns are not like other products, and gun buyers aren't like other consumers. Sure, we all want the best gun for the least money, but we, as a group, do have our standards. And companies that don't live up to them suffer in the long run. That may change, many things change over time, but I hope that change is slow in coming.