I’ve told this tale before but it’s been years. My college roomate was just out of the Army and a couple years older than the rest of our crew. I was the gun guy, and he wanted his first handgun. This was spring of 1992. He asked my suggestion. At the time there were three gun writers that had my attention more than anyone… Bob Milek, Jan Libourel and Jeff Cooper. (I was also a massive Skeeter fan but he was retired.)
So, first handgun? Definitely gotta be a 4-inch or 6-inch .357 Magnum of course! A 686 would be excellent.
“Yeah but honestly… I want an automatic.”
Well then let’s start looking at .45’s. A 1911? Maybe a 4506?
“Well maybe… but I want something with a lot of power!”
Well hell! How about a 10mm? A 1006 looks like a winner!
And so in early summer ‘92, it was a 1006, and it was him buying it, I was only 20 at the time and I think he was 23. If I recall, it was a few pennies under $600 OTD. And that was 1992 dollars!
To be honest, we BOTH bought ammo for it and that was just the first six boxes to get brass, after that I was handloading the ammo.
By the fall of 1996 his then new wife was worried about having a scary gun in the house given the arrival of their first child. (Ludicrous.) But he offered that 1006 to me for $400 and I was ecstatic.
That 1006 was my first ever S&W semiautomatic pistol. Of course I still have it. Of all six variants, the 1006 is my favorite and the race isn’t close.
If S&W hadn’t done the 3rd Gens with their (nutbar) approach of assigning different model numbers to guns with varying features, the 1046 would not be a $4,000 to $6,000 gun. It would absolutely be a crazy rare variant, but it wouldn’t be this complete craziness.
But S&W did give everything it’s own model number, and the TVA balked on their contract. If not for the contract, the 1046 wouldn’t even exist.
I do -NOT- wish for this to come off like sour grapes. I can tell you that if I was offered a 1046 back in the 1990’s or even in the 2000’s, I would have laughed at the seller. DAO? Haha no, you keep that. I’ll buy the DA/SA guns.
No 1046 sold for other-wordly money until Roy Jinks production numbers factory letter spread across the internet. Before that magical 151 number hit the mainstream gunboards, a 1046 was a snoozer of a model.
It’s a grail gun to many now, but it sits in an extremely strange place and keeps odd company.
