The demand for revolvers in the US is pretty consistent from year to year and is a small percentage of the handguns sold. Most of the revolvers made by Smith go out of the country. I'm guessing that these decisions are based more on global market demand. Smith is not going to get out of the revolver market and creating new revolver models is not a big deal as they are basically all turned out on the same machinery. Most of the influx of new sales is semi auto for self defense. The increased capacity created by turning away from revolver production will go towards semi auto production to meet this new demand. Once the new demand is met or the demand for revolvers increases, you will see production ramp up again. I find it hard to believe that the model 64 is gone forever.