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Old 05-16-2012, 05:04 PM
H.Callahan H.Callahan is offline
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Ownership of the company passed from the Wesson family control in 1964. I think that was the start of the decline of quality at S&W. The Bangor-Punta and the Saf-T-Hammer eras being among the worst. The ONLY saving grace during the B-P era was that S&W still had a number of people working that remembered how to build a gun, and there were still some good examples from that time, but things started to decline.

In MY mind the real down turn occurred during the time period they eliminated the pinned barrels and the recessed chambers on the magnums. The even deeper downturn occurred around the time of the IL. This is not to say that those specific items were in my mind the reason, but just an identifiable way to pinpoint the time frame.

Smith did (and still does) make fine guns. But the just ain't like they used to be.
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