AveragEd
Member
I purchased one S&W revolver from Fugate Firearms perhaps 10 years ago. It is a 686-4 PowerPort and was advertised as being used. The photos looked great as all theirs do and the price was possibly a bit on the high side but the gun looked worth the money so I bought it.
I had my Internet S&W purchases shipped to an S&W-trained gunsmith who gave them a good looking-over for me. He pronounced it unfired for, among other reasons, the porous surfaces inside the port were (and still are) way too clean for powder residue to have ever been on them. The turn line is almost non-existent and there were other characteristics that suggested it was unfired.
But I was a skeptic so I called Matt Fugate and asked him how he got that ported area so clean as I would have liked to keep it that way. I had a 629 PowerPort as well as another 686 PowerPort and I could not remove all the dark staining no matter what I used. He told me he hadn't cleaned it at all; that was how it was traded to him. He agreed it looked unfired but since he could not document that it was, he advertised it as used so as not to mislead anyone.
As I mentioned above, the gun remains in that condition. I overcame my fondness for PowerPorts when a side-by-side comparison test by several of my friends and myself shooting the same ammo through my 629s and other 686s with and without PowerPorts resulted in little difference except for combustion debris being blown back into our faces from the PowerPort guns (there was a slight headwind). Perhaps that is why the feature has been discontinued. I since have sold all my PowerPort S&Ws save the 686-4.
I would not question the quality of anything Fugate Firearms is selling. Yes, his prices can be a little startling but if you want something badly enough, that's easily overcome.
Ed
I had my Internet S&W purchases shipped to an S&W-trained gunsmith who gave them a good looking-over for me. He pronounced it unfired for, among other reasons, the porous surfaces inside the port were (and still are) way too clean for powder residue to have ever been on them. The turn line is almost non-existent and there were other characteristics that suggested it was unfired.
But I was a skeptic so I called Matt Fugate and asked him how he got that ported area so clean as I would have liked to keep it that way. I had a 629 PowerPort as well as another 686 PowerPort and I could not remove all the dark staining no matter what I used. He told me he hadn't cleaned it at all; that was how it was traded to him. He agreed it looked unfired but since he could not document that it was, he advertised it as used so as not to mislead anyone.
As I mentioned above, the gun remains in that condition. I overcame my fondness for PowerPorts when a side-by-side comparison test by several of my friends and myself shooting the same ammo through my 629s and other 686s with and without PowerPorts resulted in little difference except for combustion debris being blown back into our faces from the PowerPort guns (there was a slight headwind). Perhaps that is why the feature has been discontinued. I since have sold all my PowerPort S&Ws save the 686-4.
I would not question the quality of anything Fugate Firearms is selling. Yes, his prices can be a little startling but if you want something badly enough, that's easily overcome.
Ed
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