Bam-Bam, you said (along with other blaspheme) - "The 3913/14 as the descendants of the ASP, Devel and Trapper 'chopped and channeled', 'hot rodded', customized; 39-2s of the 1980s.......which inspired the whole 3rd Gen of guns."

"What gun did Novak first work on with S&W?"

Bam Bam, as a peripheral part to a future SWCA magazine article your humble author has been working on for the last couple of months (writing is easy; research is the time-consuming part), West Virginian Wayne Novak's first serious Smith & Wesson contribution - beyond better fore-and-aft sights for Smith & Wesson guns - came after teaming "with S&W's Tom Campbell in developing the (Model) 745 for IPSC shooters," according to former Guns & Ammo feature editor and writer Wiley Clapp.

Clapp also noted that when S&W introduced its third generation of semi-automatics the manufacturer "credited the majority of the ergonomic improvements on the guns" to Novak, according to Clapp in a 1989 Guns & Ammo article.

Novak also contributed to the development of conceptual compacts that eventually helped S&W's entry into the "poly" gun market in the mid-1990s.

Bam, you were also correct in noting the lineage, or at least the effect of the ASP, Devel, et al, had on the 469, 669 and 6906 as well as the 3913, but all of those firearms - considerable departures from the maker's previous lines - should be attributed to the in-house efforts of Smith & Wesson designers.

There's more - a lot more, in fact - as I'll soon be publishing the above and shortly thereafter will either wither under a rain of arrows crashing around me or triumphantly ride a chariot captained by Vestal Virgins as the throngs throw rose petals so that my sandals might never touch the ground.

Uh-huh, and I'm Johnny Cash.