Steve here, stole my wife Utradot off her 41 and put it on my new to me 686 no dash, I used a b square no drill mount. First outing at 50 yds
used some cast 160 Gn semi wadcutters dropped from a vintage H&G 51
Mod. 686-3 Midnight Black (blued stainless) w/ 4" barrel. (Pic below was to compare "bare stainless" in background on my 629-4 and "real blue" on my 586 [no dash] in the foreground to the "midnight black" 686 in the middle.)
Some close-ups of the wear and tear on the supposedly "weak" black finished stainless steel (this is after 4 years of duty use in all weather):
This is also after thousands of draws/reholsterings and shooting at least 1x per month (and frequently more) for those four years... I think the reputation the Midnight Black finish got was unfair. I can't imagine a straight blued carbon-steel gun would have held up any better!
I bought this one in 1984, slightly used. Had it when they announced the recall, and sent it to my friend Mike Stuckschlager in Great Falls to do the modification. Came back with a sweet trigger job. I have since polished out the trigger serrations for a smooth trigger. Shot PPC with it quite a bit. Still one of my favorite and most accurate revolvers.
Heck no on the too heavy M3Stuart. Stick with her and with practice I think you will start to embrace the extra heft, as well as the extra 2" of sight radius. She is one sweet piece.
I saw a 686 Plus Talo Edition for sale on another forum several months ago, and I made a deal with the seller. Beautiful revolver with the non-fluted cylinder. The day before we were to meet for the transfer, he discovered that the barrel was slightly cocked to one side, so he told me he was sending it back to S&W for repair. When he got it back, he decided to keep it.