Originally posted by Dot_mdb:
I don't own any revolvers with the lock but I have not made a decision not to buy because of it. What I would like to know from members here is whether they think the lock is mostly just a bad idea or is it a bad design? Is there anyone here who understands the mechanics and can say that the design is a reliable one?
Bill
I do not like the lock for reasons of appearance, however, I am not prepared to say it is either a bad idea or a bad design.
The ability to render the revolver inoperable IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES is a good feature, in theory. Leaving it in a car, for example, when going into a "gun free zone" comes to mind. You do not always have a lockable gun vault (rental cars come to mind).
I am sure there are many other times when locking the unattended revolver seems like a good idea. Could we accomplish the same thing by swinging out the cylinder and putting a pad lock around the top strap? Yes, but not many people carry their pad locks!
S&W's lock is certainly a much better design than Taurus', which is subject to unintentional activation by recoil, so said the S&W engineers at the SHOT Show when the S&W lock was first introduced.
I asked Herb Belin the question of why put the lock on the frame, therby putting the keyhole where it destroyed the appearance of the S&W revolver. I suggested that putting it on a part, such as the hammer, as Taurus had done allowed the owner to remove the offending part and replace it with a non-lock part, etc.
He said they had tested the Taurus lock and found it activated after many thousands of rounds, especially in hard recoiling revolvers. He said the S&W design did not do so.
The bottom line is that S&W felt that they had a better design. Since I have never had a failure, I am not prepared to say that it is not. I simply do not like the feature. It might break and tie up the revolver.
There are certainly many anecdotal incidents of such failures. Massad Ayoob documented some actual examples in his column in one of the FMG publications (American Handgunner or Guns). Like him or not (I do, so I might be biased), he always "tells it like it is" even if that screws up his relationship with the subject of an article he writes or testimony he gives. That means he has integrity and should be applauded for that increasingly rare feature in today's world.
Amazingly, in the only story I have ever thought was a "whitewash" out of that same gun magazine, Charlie Petty came along a few months later, "toeing the company line," and quoted the key people at S&W, all of whom said there were no problems.
If Mr. Petty did any independent investigation (read outside of talking to S&W employees and officials) into the matter, such as interviewing Massad Ayoob, or going to the sources Massad had quoted and quoting them, it was not apparent in the article.
In fact, I thought at the time that Mr. Petty must not even read the articles that appear in the very magazine he writes for. If he saw Massad Ayoob's article on the subject, he certainly did not admit it. Normally, I think Mr. Petty writes good articles, but this one, in my opinion, was his all-time low.
I am not an engineer, but I have never had a failure with the S&W design, nor have I ever seen it fail at any match. The few failures I have read about seemed to come from heavy recoiling scandium/titanium revolvers, so maybe there is a problem, but I am not completely prepared to condemn it, and I certainly would not use its presence as a reason to not buy a currently made S&W revolver, which, by the way, are likely the best built, of the best materials, with the most precision of any revolver in the company's long history. Admittedly, the current revolvers do not match the beauty of the pre- or post-war revolvers, but frankly, what product does?
I will continue to read and listen with an open mind and await photos or, better yet, video, of an S&W revolver internal lock "falling apart" without warning during shooting. Don't get me wrong - I think there have been some failures, and I do not doubt some of the anecdotes I have read on this forum and elsewhere. But, if the problem is one of design (as opposed to a run of bad springs, for esample), then failure should be able to be duplicated and the weakness identified.
What I really wish is that the lock would just go away entirely. Since it is for storage only, it seems that the lockable box and the cable lock are acceptable options. I suppose it is thought that the owner will not carry the box or the cable, but that is, and should be, the owner's decision, and the owner's actions should not be held against S&W.
Remember that if you ever get picked to be on a jury. It does not matter what the lawyers say - if the juries would stop ruling in favor of the plaintiffs lawyers in these cases, the lawyers would go pick on someone else.
