M29-10 Long Term Review (w/ one repair)
Hey guys, haven't posted here in a while but I wanted to do a long term review of my only Smith and Wesson so far, the 6.5" 29-10.
Gun's (very short) history:
I bought the gun brand new about 10 months ago and since then I have fired 950 rounds of .44 mag through it, most of which have been reloads with various powders, 200gr LRN bullets, and loaded to a little above the starting loads (I made all the reloads feel about the same as store bought ammo recoil).
Accuracy:
This was my first handgun, so it was a lot of fun (not to mention challenging) to practice and learn to shoot accurately with all the recoil. At first I was flinching terribly, but after about 450 rounds I started to get the hang of things. Now I'm very happy with my accuracy (still not what many of you would consider great, but I'm getting better) and I can hit just about exactly where I aim when shooting within 20 yards or so. I have come to the conclusion that this gun is extremely accurate when shot well.
Reliability:
This gun, as a revolver should be (and any gun for that matter), is very reliable. Only had one major problem with the gun, which I will elaborate on in the repairs section of this review. Other than that, everything worked exactly as it should, no problems whatsoever with the lock.
Repairs:
The only thing that went wrong with this gun was that the hand that rotates the cylinder broke in half. No joke. It happened at about 800 rounds. I know the hand broke because I took the sideplate off and the hand was in pieces. I apologize, but I totally forgot to take a picture until after I mailed it back. I did, however, make a quick drawing of where it broke in PowerPoint, which I attached to this thread. It broke clean in half at the point where that fixed pin that goes into the hand is attached, and after it broke the pin fell out. See pic 1. To my understanding, this is a MIM part. I'm not, however, ready to blame this on MIM. It's my humble opinion that the piece must have had a flaw in the metal to break the way it did, which I don't blame on S&W or the MIM process. From research on the web and the knowledge I have gotten from some mechanical engineering classes at school (not claiming to be an expert by any means), the modern MIM parts should be just as strong as forged parts. I also have a theory that this potential flaw was exploited due to my first 50 or so reloads. I was brand new to reloading and didn't completely seat the primers, so many of them rubbed on the breach face (probably not the right term, but hopefully you know what I'm talking about) when the cylinder rotated. I think this put a lot of unusual stress on the hand. That's just a possibility. Anyways, S&W fixed the problem for free and the revolver is back to working perfectly. I'm trying to get my mind past this breakage so I can fully attribute it to being a fluke and trust the gun again.
Overall Quality:
Aside from the already discussed warranty repair, which I'm going to say is a fluke (hopefully), this revolver has been as awesome as I had hoped plus some. Fit and finish is perfect, literally. No crooked barrel, no lock issues, trigger is perfectly centered in trigger guard, action is really smooth, cylinder locks up tight, etc. Seriously I tried to find problems with it after reading all the horror stories online and couldn't find a single thing. The bluing is beautiful, and comparing it to older 29s I have seen in person is just as good, at least in my opinion. I love the gun. The stocks that came with it, on the other hand, suck. They're slippery, checkering isn't sharp, they're skinny, uncomfortable, and nothing like the older target stocks. That's why I replaced them with the older target stocks, and now the gun is perfect in my mind.
In short, I love the gun and for any potential buyers, I would advise not to rule out the new guns. All the stuff about them on the internet makes them out to be ****, but they really aren't (from my limited experience). They definitely aren't collector's items like the older guns, though. I'm going to call the hand breaking a fluke, because I honestly think that's what it was. The lock is not an issue. Action is awesome, and the gun is beautiful. But it ships with ****** stocks. Pics attached.
Anyways thanks for reading, if I forgot anything or you have any questions about anything that happened with the gun just let me know, and let me know what you think!
Edit: The red line in the first pic is where the hand broke, literally all the way through.
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