It's probably too nice for the likes of me, but the price wasn't bad and the action is quite good! 1997 seems like a high water mark for S&W in regards to features and manufacturing methods. (Amongst others, my long-"suffering" 940 is 1997 vintage.)

Some "no artistic ability having" photos for your enjoyment:









Favorite features: The current type rear sight set-up, round butt with serrations, the old type cylinder stop, smooth trigger and the firing pin on the hammer. The bluing and polishing work look quite good as well, but I have a hard time translating it to photos.

If it was in any better shape it would be for sure a "safe queen". But...

It's one of the last ones before they were discontinued, yours has a late feature of the newer type cylinder release latch.

Nice find. I just bought a 6 incher. Would rather have a four inched gun like yours. Hope you get lot's of years of enjoyment out of it.

Jay

The latch does make it easy to date. The new shape looks racy but whether it has any functional advantage is questionable.

Have you seen any 586 revolvers with the integral cylinder stop feature, or is the 1999 discontinuance merely indicative of the last shipments?

The odd thing is that I don't think I've ever seen a 586 with the new style rear sight, much less the new style cylinder release latch before this one. (Photos on the internet don't count.) Plenty of the older version, though. But this forum seems overrun with new type 586s all of a sudden. Bad timing for a new thread, I reckon!

Thanks for the kind thoughts!

The 586 that continues to elude me is the 8 3/8" version with the integral scope cuts. Saw one years ago, but it had no rings. Now that i have rings, no revolver...

The four inch version certainly is a workhorse version. The advantage this one has over my 4" CS-1 686 is the red ramp front and current rear sight set. Much easier to install tritium sights. Which means this may become a replacement for the Python! Just have to decide if this will be a "working" revolver.
Most everything else is. That nice blued finish is the main reason it might remain reasonably pristine.

Well I have to admit that I haven't seen very many 586 S&Ws at all. I don't know if it is because of living in Michigan and people here want stainless steel over blued guns or what but they are pretty rare in my neck of the woods.

Jay

Of all the old school features that so many on here reminisce about - P&R, no-MIM, no-lock, bright white outline sight, TTT, factory combat stocks, no lugs, dash this dash that, on and on - the one of those I really appreciate is the serrated backstrap!

It's a really classy touch, that looks great. It's not important enough to me to search for one, but it's definitely very cool and I appreciate that I have it on one of my S&W's.

Nice. Bet there hasn't been a box of ammo shot thru her.

__________________
God spelled backwards is dog.

Not yet! I used to shoot many thousands of rounds through the 686 CS-1 every year, but not so much since about 2004 or 5.

This revolver probably will see a much lower round count. Fortunately, it's not anything that the serious collectors will wring their hands over, yet.

My NIB collection is very, very small. Quite frankly, most "new" guns get enough handling damage before they're sold to keep them from being NIB in my book. So that makes them "users".

Stupidly enough, the two most annoying things about new S&Ws for me are the integral cylinder stop and the flatter scallop from the rear sight to the knuckle of the grip. Neither influence function, but it just looks "wrong". The scallop particularly! Looks like some sort of "knockoff" wannabe Smith.