I promised myself not to reply to this thread – can’t help myself. I’ve had at least four lock failures. Not a lock gun hater, on the contrary, I have multiple S&Ws and only one is a pre lock gun. The failures were directly related to the lock – the first two were on a S&W 329, and the latter two were on a 6” half lug 629 (a range only gun) – yes, they were lock related and occurred twice and when the lock was removed never happened again. The 329s had 9,000 +- of hi intensity rounds and the 629 5,000 +. These are unnecessary parts that can fail. If you use these guns for personal protection then make your choice wisely. My all day, every day carry gun for the better part of a decade was a 329 (without the lock). The “I’ve never been hit by lightning, so it can’t happen crowd” is ubiquitous on the internet, so make your choice wisely. One last thing – replacing the lock with the plug, or removing just the flag still leaves unnecessary parts that can fail. Here’s a picture of the lock cam that failed on a 329.

Yeah, it may never happen, but it can and Murphy is always with us.

FWIW,

Paul