Got my cs1 up for sale here and on our local forum, A former Customs special agent commented on it and some one asked for more info so he posted this in my for sale ad what do you guys think?

"The CS-1 was the idiotic brain child of Mark Humphreville, who Customs hired on to the National Firearms & Training unit. The guy had been a researcher at Aberdeen Proviging grounds, and somehow got in with Customs.

He had never been in law enforcement, or the miltary. He reads some gun magazines and makes the statement that the only reliable "one shot stopping" bullet was the .357 Magnum. So he makes the call that all Special Agents and Inspectors were to be issued a .357 Magnum revolver that could have a service life of 10,000 rounds of full power rounds.

He contacts S&W and they say their 686 will fill the bill. They give him the specs on the 686, and because he is a precision rifle competative shooter, he elects to have S&W build the revovlers with closer tolerences.

He doesn't take into comsideration that at the time, very few Agents or Inspectors fired the full house .357 round. Most everyone who carried a revolver, used the .38 +P+ Treasury round. So with the closer tolerences of the CS-1 design, the unburned powder from the .38 round would rapidly start building up under the extractor star.

At the time, the U.S. Customs qualification course was a 60 round course. When the CS-1 came into the field, we immediately started to have malfunctions with the revolvers. After as little as 30 rounds, the unburned powder build up under the extractor star would not allow the cylnder to rotate, effectively rendering the gun inoperable. You had to stop, and take a brush to remove the unburned powder from under the extractor star. Obviously this is a real problem for a weapon people have to rely their lives on!

And not to mention that the CS-1 is a HUGE revolver, and made it very difficult for Special Agents to carry the weapon concealed.

At the time, the Customs Service firearms policy allowed Agents and Inspectors to purchase privatley owned handguns for duty use. Most Agents (me included) never carried a CS-1 because it was just too unreliable and big. Thats why most of the CS-1's have not been shot very much, and some are even unfired.

The CS-1 lasted less than two years in the field before it was recalled. Customs replaced the CS-1 with a S&W 6906 9mm semi auto pistol.

Some were converted to Simunition guns for training, but a large amount were sold at exchange sales to buy other weapons for Customs. Of course when President Clinton came into office, his adminstration was appaled that the government was selling guns to fully licensed and leagal distributors who were in turn, selling the guns to fully licensed dealers, who also in turn, sold them to the law abiding public! Attorney General Janet Reno then ordered all government agencies to stop the practice of exchange sales.

I know Lew Horton sold quite a few of the 3" and 4" CS-1's before the exchange sales were stopped. There were many of the CS-1's given to foreign governments as part of aid packages. I am quite sure at some point, a lot of those revolvers were destroyed.

So there you have a little inside history of the CS-1. Yours is the first 4" I have seen for sale in quite a while. After I got my 3" many years ago, I took it to a gunsmith friend of mine who went in a took care of some of the tight tolerence issues. Mine now serves as on of my "house" guns."
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