Quote:
Originally Posted by DAOTSWGUY
I my wildest dreams I would get a call and they would say we found one in the back of the warehouse to send to you brand new  I agree tho I did buy it used so they are not even entitled to do anything really. Figures crossed maybe they can repair it (doubt it tho) |
Yeah, back before the TSW line (and the rest of the 3rd gens) were Discontinued (also known as being Obsolete
) they'd usually have "extra" overrun guns in their vault. Once those were washed out and sold off to S&W's usual distributors, that dream evaporated in the morning sun.
Kind of like how that suddenly available run (3000 +/- units) of the original 642-1's that appeared. I was told by someone at the factory that it came about when the company decided to clear out some "extra" unserialized 642-1 frames that had been taking up too much space in their parts vault. They pulled them, serialized them (new numbers) and offered them to a couple of their major distributors.
When I first heard about that short run of new guns made on old pre-ILS Centennial frames, I quickly decided I'd like to have a second one. I called back to find out about ordering one, as an armorer, and learned a couple of interesting things.
First of all, they had all been quickly sold to distributors and shipped out. No more remained at the factory. (They gave me a couple distributor names to call to see if I could find one, but the pricing was no longer something the factory had any control over.)
Secondly, not everyone even knew they'd been produced. I, spoke to at least one guy at the company who hadn't even been aware they'd pulled all those older frames to make a run of newer 642-1's. He said it hadn't really been announced or discussed in-house.
A little later I was told they'd done much the same thing with a smaller number of older 442-1 frames, and those had been dispersed to the Distributor pipeline, too.
The eventual rest of the story turned out to be that the quick sale, and resulting requests for more, of the -1 642/442 snubs made the company decide to reintroduce the -1's again in the regular catalog, alongside the -2 models (for the folks who wanted the ILS feature).
Of course, we asked in armorer classes if/when the company would reintroduce at least optional no-lock models in the regular revolver lines. The common reply was that the decision had been made that only internal hammer revolvers would be offered with and without the ILS.
Basically it was said that no revolver with an external hammer that could be thumb-cocked into SA (resulting in a shorter and lighter trigger pull) would be produced without the ILS.
Never say Never with S&W corporate thinking ... but I haven't been holding my breath.