I have owned 4 original Pythons, 2 Troopers and 1 Detective Special back when they were being made. I can also work on them, so very familiar with the internal lockworks. I think the Python is the best looking revolver ever made. None of my Pythons would hold up to being used for competition. Back then, I was shooting around 30,000 .38 Specials and 3000 or so .357 Mag. per season.
The M19 I had then ran fine for 3 years of that diet. The forcing cone on that one never cracked (pretty amazing). The Pythons at their best never had as good an action as any of my S&W guns, all with action jobs. Out of the box, the Python actions were better than S&W actions for smoothness and lightness (2 different things). The Trooper actions were heavy and clunky. The D/S was the best of the lot, wish I still had it.
I shot M10s built into PPC guns a lot, their forcing cones always cracked between 50,000 and 100,000 rounds of bunny fart wadcutters. Once the L frames came on the scene, I switched over to them and never looked back. The 586 and 686 have served me very well for many years.
Pythons are cool guns to look at, but S&W ones are better for shooting a lot.
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