Was at my local fun shop today & saw two used smiths, one was a 952 two tone, long slide, the other waste the same, but shorter. They were priced 1791 & 1550 respectively.

Whats so special about these and are these good prices?

thanks

They are S&W Performance Center guns. Around here new ones go for about $1600 to $1750 for the 5" and $1750 to $1950 for the long slide version. For used guns the prices you saw are a bit high unless they are perfect and come with the PC metal case (or large PC plastic case for newer guns) all the paperwork and two magazines. However you could probably get at least 5% to 20% off that in my experience depending how long they have had the two guns.

I have the 5" version. It is a very tightly built gun and very accurate if you find the ammo it likes - as accurate as a M52 38 spl wadcutter gun. The sights are excellent and the trigger pulls are usually 3.5 to 4.5 lb out of the box but its very easy to get it down to 2.5 lb without much effort - that is what I have mine set at. Some people say this gun is very hard to field strip and reassemble because of the spherical barrel bushing but if you know the tricks its no big deal.

My gun likes Miester 150 grain LSWCs over 3.5 grains of Power Pistol or Penn 115 grain LSWCs over 4.4 grains of Power Pistol. Win 231 also works well but I have standardized in PP for 9mm.
The only issue with PP compared to 231 is it is a bit more smokey. Both of these loads are really nice light target loads that cycle my gun fine. However a long slide might need a bit hotter load to cycle properly.

Overall if you want a really fine, accurate single action, single stack 9mm handgun this is one of the best. Comparable guns are the Sig 210, Sig X-Five and I think a Pardini GT-9. There are a few others too that I cannot recall.

Hope this helps.

thanks

Not sure if these are out of my price range. Any big difference bewteen the long slide & 5" gun?

The manager who I usually deal with at this place is away at the shot shot. He usually gives me the best deals. I'll talk with him about them when he gets back next week.

I would imagine that the long slide is more muzzle heavy and more suited for fast shooting games where minimal muzzle flip is important.

Hi,
I just collected mine form the gun shop (after a 3 month wait, which is normal in this silly country) and the range is closed today. So I'll let you know how it shoots later on during this week. The trigger is not as crisp and light as the one on my Model 52, and that's a pity. But the finish (I have the blued version) is awesome and the fit is very tight.

I had to call in my wife - who is a lot more patient than I am - to put the barrel back in the elliptical bushing after I field stripped the gun. It only fits in one precise position, and it may take a while to find that position...

I hope it will outshoot my Model 52, but I think that will be hard to do. I'll keep you posted.

The price I paid here is 1900,- euros, around $2550, new.

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Si vis pacem, para bellum

I recently took the plunge on one of these and hope to pick it up Monday -- a black 952-1 with original aluminum case and accessories. Settlement price was $1300, which I thought was pretty good as the gun didn't look as though it had been fired more than a few times. The most notable evidence of use was some carbon smudging on top of the red plastic magazine follower.

The 952 was introduced in 2000, the 952-1 was produced in 2003, and the 952-2 in 2004. There is also a 952-3 that I know little about. I don't know the production statistics, but I don't think there can be that many of them.

The 952-2 is all stainless with a brushed finish. The 952-1 is carbon steel in black with a stainless barrel; the original 952 also had a carbon steel frame and slide with a stainless barrel. SCSW is not completely clear on the point, but the -1 designation seems to involve a minor modification to the backstrap and the -2 also has a hammer safety block that is decoupled from the trigger. (I'd probably have to hold one and operate it to see what that means.) I am not at all clear on the original 952, which based on other posts in this thread seems to have come in more varieties than I knew about. My understanding isn't helped by SCSW, which seems to print the same picture to identify two different 952 models.

This will be my first 9mm semi-auto and my first match-grade (or at least production-accurized) centerfire semi-auto. I'm looking forward to trying it out and will post a range report when I can -- if it is not too embarrassing. We all know that with a gun like this, it's not the gun's fault if the holes are all over the paper.

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David Wilson

Took my brandnew 952-1 to the range today and I suspect it might very well become my favorite pistol. The accuracy is awesome, the trigger is crisp and the recoil is next to non-existant, with the Geco ammo that I'm using.
I was planning to order some Nill target grips, but after shooting the gun today, I'm so satisfied with the original wooden grips, that I've decided to hold on to these.

The first 25 shots, I had to remove almost every empty shell manually, but after some 30 rounds, the 952 started throwing them out and by the time the box of 50 was almost done, I had only very few rounds that didn't load properly. I find that quite acceptable for a gun, straight from the box. I don't want to use more powerful ammo anyway.

The only pain in the neck with this very precise weapon is assembling it after cleaning. The grip safety system prevents the slide from moving up to the end, so I had to use a small screwdriver to push the pin down, in order to get the gun assembled.

But all in all, I think this gun is worth every eurocent I paid for it. Can't wait to go back to the range and shoot it again!

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Si vis pacem, para bellum