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10-04-2012, 02:46 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 264
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hsguy
Very interesting post and information. I think perhaps your idea of increasing the grasping area of the slide to allow more effective clearance of jams etc. was idea before it's time. Judging by the current and plethora of increased serrated areas on slides and the incorporation of different shapes of the grasping areas such as scales etc. perhaps the value of your idea has been recognized. I do sometimes wonder though if the recent offerings are offered more as a design element rather than a functional characteristic particularly the designs placed on the front of the slide. Placing serrations/designs on the front of the slide certainly does not achieve your original safety driven purpose of keeping hands away from the muzzle. Either way, the desired result of increasing the traction area to allow for easier manipulation seems to mimic part of your original idea.
Did S&W give a reason for not incorporating your idea? I am curious if was based upon economics such as retooling costs or they thought there might be functional issues or a lack of consumer demand.
Keep the posts coming as time allows, I always look forward to your knowledge and insight.
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“hsguy”:
First, I should preface any comments here by making it very clear that this slide was made for me at the Company in 1988 or ’89 and that many of the people working there then are not working there now. I should also say that by 1990 or 1992, there were significant changes in how such “ideas” were viewed, studied and put into place by the organization. A perfect example of that is detailed in an older posting of mine on this side of the Forum talking about how a similarly constructed-as-a-favor project led to the reintroduction of the Model 14 (Origins of the Model 14 Full Lug & An Introduction to the SWCA). And as a member of the Smith & Wesson Collectors Association, you can also read something I wrote on that side of the Forum about how the J-Frame Boot Grip came about.
Both of those examples of consumer-driven products took place in that later 1990-1992 time frame but in this earlier ’88-’89 period, there could, but not always, be some reluctance to entertain ideas from outside certain circles within the company and/or to listen to the end user as much as was actually possible. That might have been the case here or it could have been the extra machining time, increased tool wear, and possibly higher scrap rate generated by the longer pattern seen in my experiment that led to this idea not being adopted. Or, it simply could have been a combination of the two. Or, any number of other things. And so it goes…
It should also be recognized that this functional serration and slide-grasping issue was not unique to S&W. Over the decades, older guns from other companies saw the patterns they employed become less helpful due to changes in manufacturing or the costs of doing business. Later guns (newer designs) often employed patterns that were less-than-optimum for the same reason or because they were viewed more as traditional holdovers that “just had to be there” or (as you suggest) as “design elements” instead of performance-based aids to the shooter. In fact, that last part goes back to something I said in my initial post regarding the matter that some people were just beginning to look at the pistol as a reliable fighting tool in the 1980’s (and some not until the early 1990’s). Suddenly, the serrations that were OK for target shooting and older, often-bullseye-related defensive techniques were not helpful (and, at times, even an impediment) to these newer users’ employment of the gun under stress.
Certainly semi-auto handguns had been used successfully by a number of countries since early in the last century and easy-to-manufacture pistols (like the 1911 and the P-38) were used throughout World War II. Smith & Wesson’s own Model 39 (arguably derived from the P-38 and ultimately still the basis for the 5906 we are discussing here) was developed at the beginning of the second half of those 100 years and sold to police departments around the world in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. But the average “guy”, let alone the average “copper” didn’t carry, shoot or fight with anything but a revolver until the last 10 or 15 years of 1900’s.
As such, the functionality of the things like the slide serrations or the practicality of the techniques used to getting a stopped gun back into the fight weren’t given a lot of thought by the mainstream user (or much ink by the mainstream gun press) until both the weapons and the methods of employing them began to be studied and refined in that same end-of-the-century time frame. And even then, much of that interest was still limited to people who either shot at the upper levels of the competitive scale on the range or who were responsible for teaching others how to stay alive with such guns outside of it.
The people to whom I showed and let use the gun to which this slide mounts up tended to be from both of those camps. Generally, they were police and military instructors and usually, they were serious shooters “back home”; often using competitions of various sorts to test themselves and the techniques they had studied before passing them on to others.
I think that is why they (like I) saw the value to something like this Extended Serration Concept. But I think that its value was lost on some of the engineers of that era who either weren’t shooters themselves or who only saw such “grooving” as the “way things had always been done”. The same might have been true of some of the end users as well. People, who through no fault of their own, just didn’t understand or appreciate their effectiveness because pistols were something new to them and they just hadn’t become experienced, knowledgeable, or discriminating enough to know any better at that point in time.
So while I still wince at Forward Slide Serrations every time I see them, I am happy to see things like truly functional serrations or other functional patterns on the rear of some guns as they make them today.
The “scales” that you mention are a good example. As I said, things began to change rapidly in the early 90’s at Smith (and elsewhere in the industry) and their Performance Center (somewhat hamstrung early on for its mission kept changing) finally started coming up with gun “models” identified with them and not necessarily with the company as a whole. Sharp and relatively deep “Scales” became common on several of their pistols for both functional and visual reasons.
Over time, they filtered down into parts of the standard line and can be seen now on most, if not all, of the company’s Enhanced series of 1911’s. That’s good for two reasons. One is performance in that if cut properly so that they are truly effective, such “scales” can work far better than many of the smooth surfaced or poorly patterned serrations seen on other guns (even within Smith’s own line). The other is brand recognition. For when looking at row after row of 1911’s in your local gun shop or gun show tabletop, those “scales” can often distinguish an S&W from the others crowded around it.
However, one does have to be careful (again as you suggest) that things don’t become too much of a “design element” (only). For while I think that as long as they perform like a true, directionally-opposed series of steps or working surfaces, that things like the heavily stylized rows of S-shaped “waves” that are found at the rear of the slides on S&W’s new “Shield” pistols can be a good thing, one still has to be careful that they “work” first and “look good” second. What is that phrase that is so popular with many political commentators these days? “Style over Substance”? It’s the same thing here.
John, I hope this helps you and that I answered all your questions.
In summary, there could have be economic issues for while it really wouldn’t have involved “retooling” in the traditional sense (more like reprogramming), there would have been some increased costs for the reasons I gave above: longer times to make the longer cuts; shorter tool life because of increased tool use; and perhaps a greater chance for something to be scrapped because of a greater length in which to do something that was out of spec.
There were no functional issues that I was aware of. You weren’t affecting any of the gun’s mechanisms and you weren’t removing enough metal to affect the slide speed in either direction. We also worked our guns a lot harder than most people did and no, I don’t mean that we abused them (although sometimes for test purposes we did): we just shot them a lot; a whole lot and I saw no negatives with this one.
I simply think that it related to perceived value within the company at the time and your mention of a possible “lack of consumer demand”. It is like a lot of things in life: an idea that was just a bit ahead of its time. And I don’t say that because I think that I knew better or was clairvoyant about such matters. It’s just that as I described in detail above: pistols were only beginning to become accepted as trustworthy sidearms by the mainstream and all the things that the average shooter would learn about them were still a long way off. I was just lucky enough to see some of those issues early on when I was shooting and teaching with such guns every day of the week and this just happened to be one of them.
You take care.
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