Buying a model 69 combat

Well tomorrow my son and I are going to the gun range. I will finally get to shoot my 69. This will be my first time firing a large bore pistol. I have 100 rounds of 240gr 44 mags (I had to do it). Ready to have some fun!
 
My model 69's serial number is DPE1925. Anyone have a idea what year it may be?
 
tylerlayne said:
Well tomorrow my son and I are going to the gun range. I will finally get to shoot my 69. This will be my first time firing a large bore pistol. I have 100 rounds of 240gr 44 mags (I had to do it). Ready to have some fun!
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100 rounds of full power .44 Magnum is probably quite a bit more than the two of you will want to fire in one range session, but please give us a range report.
 
stansdds said:
100 rounds of full power .44 Magnum is probably quite a bit more than the two of you will want to fire in one range session, but please give us a range report.
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Yes, Neither one of us has ever fired a 44 magnum. The largest we have shot is a 45 auto. Will follow up tomorrow.
 
I carried a 44 mag on duty for many years and fired 60 or 120 magnum rounds per session many times. When I first got it I fired gobs of fairly hot hand rolled 44 mags just to get to where the 44 felt natural and normal to me. Granted it was a 6" 629 and I did have Pacs on it. I'm not intimidated by 44 mags. However, my skin on my hands does not like the recoil with the small checkered Bantam wood grips. A few is ok but a 40 round qualification was too much for my skin. Not a big deal for a carry gun. I'm never going to fire 40 rounds fairly rapid fire out of it in anger. For one thing I never carry 40 rounds when I'm out and about.
 
Only managed to fire 35 rounds out of the 100 rounds of 240 gr 44 magnums we took with us. I have got to get some new grips before I shoot it again. The grips that are on it are uneven cut on the sides. They are hard plastic or wood one. Every time I fired a round the grips would dig into the palm of my hand. I have done and still do auto paint and body work for the past 40 years so my hands are pretty callosed. The back of the grips stick out from the frame on the 69. They do not fit well at all. The protruding grip on the back took a big chunk of skin out of my sons hand between his thumb and fore finger the last time he fired it. With a new set of softer grips I could handle the recoil. You can see how badly the grips fit the frame in the picture.
 

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As much as I like wood stocks, rubber does soften the felt recoil of the big magnum caliber revolvers.
 
oink said:
I wonder if those are N frame grips.
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That or just poorly fitted to that revolver. What am I saying? S&W does not seem to fit anything these days, they just put parts together to form a firearm.

Edit: I have been advised that the pictured stocks are NOT factory S&W stocks.
 
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stansdds said:
That or just poorly fitted to that revolver. What am I saying? S&W does not seem to fit anything these days, they just put parts together to form a firearm.
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The grips are aftermarket, don't blame S&W for this one.

With modern manufacturing there should be no need for hand fitting. If I was buying a new car or power tool and learned the manufacturer had to file to fit and paint to match to make the parts fit to together I would run from that brand as fast as I can. Which at my age isn't very fast but still, I would be running.

Give me a gun where the parts are mass produced with enough precision to be interchangeable any day over one that has to be assembled by a skilled craftsmen that assembles the gun from sloppily produced parts.

S&W needs to improve their quality, I had a couple of problems with the Shield Plus I purchased a couple of years ago that should have been caught by the factory. But S&W needs to fix those sort of issues without going back to manufacturing techniques from 100 years ago.

Note to the OP: When I owned a S&W 69 I put S&W 500 grips on it and they really helped by both being wider so the recoil was more spread out and putting some rubber between the metal backstrap and my hand. I think those were rebranded Hogue grips that others have recommended.
 
tylerlayne said:
Will these fit my model 69?
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.
Yes, those will work on the M69.
.
Also available from Hogue - they are called Tamers
.
OverMolded(R) Rubber Grip (Tamer™ Conversion) - Black
.
on My M69s
.
69s%20thumbnail_IMG_4830.jpg

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And a set modified (removed finger groves and rounded butt) with a belt sander or dremel sanding drum (can't remember). Take your time and a more aesthetic outcome can be achieved. I'm impatient and heavy handed with tools at times LOL.
.
M69%202.75%20%20%202%20%20%20%20cropped%20%20thumbnail_IMG_4597.jpg
 
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Hawg Rider said:
The best I can tell from the "SCSW 5th Ed." is that your triple-alpha s/n "DPE1925" would equate to a manufacture date sometime 2020-2021.
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Awesome! Thanks. On the box it has the numbers 111721. I was wondering if that was the date. There is no seperation between any of the numbers.
 
Dave Lively said:
The grips are aftermarket, don't blame S&W for this one.

With modern manufacturing there should be no need for hand fitting. If I was buying a new car or power tool and learned the manufacturer had to file to fit and paint to match to make the parts fit to together I would run from that brand as fast as I can. Which at my age isn't very fast but still, I would be running.

Give me a gun where the parts are mass produced with enough precision to be interchangeable any day over one that has to be assembled by a skilled craftsmen that assembles the gun from sloppily produced parts.

S&W needs to improve their quality, I had a couple of problems with the Shield Plus I purchased a couple of years ago that should have been caught by the factory. But S&W needs to fix those sort of issues without going back to manufacturing techniques from 100 years ago.

Note to the OP: When I owned a S&W 69 I put S&W 500 grips on it and they really helped by both being wider so the recoil was more spread out and putting some rubber between the metal backstrap and my hand. I think those were rebranded Hogue grips that others have recommended.
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Thank you, I will add an edit to my post.
 
Got my Hogue Tammers yesterday and installed them. I like the way they look and feel comfortable in my hand. Now I need to head back to the range. The grips I took off said they were for a N frame. I like the Hogue grip much better.
 

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tylerlayne said:
Got my Hogue Tammers yesterday and installed them. I like the way they look and feel comfortable in my hand. Now I need to head back to the range. The grips I took off said they were for a N frame. I like the Hogue grip much better.
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That would certainly explain the poor fit on your Model 69 as it uses the K/L-frame size stocks.
 
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