Ah, the 645!
I'm butch enough to admit that I first took notice of the 645 as a result of the second season of Miami Vice, but it's fascinated me ever since. It's been one of those long distance relationships----I've shot a few, but never owned one, while a boxcar load of other pistols have come and gone in the safe.
If you look at it today, it doesn't look all that surprising---a DA/SA .45, but as I remember things, the 645 offered a pretty unique combination of ingredients, back in the day. Back then---when dinosaurs roamed the earth, you'll understand, and when M&P meant something very different than today---there weren't many double action .45s on the market. Yes, there was the SIG 220 (and it's rebadged incarnation as the Browning BDA), and the H&K P9S, but these fancy European pistols were rare, rare on the ground. And they were aluminium or polymer of frame, and everyone knew a real 'merican pistol needed to be steel and walnut. (That was the style at the time.)
The 645 was, essentially, a double action version of the 1911. (Oh, I know, no swinging link, no barrel bushing, no grip safety, yes, yes, yes----I'm talking about the "basic user impression.") While the 645 has always made an impression of "big and heavy" to me, it's seems very 1911-sized to me, and while the 1911 ain't no Chief's Special it is, for what it offers, a very packable service sidearm.
The 645 also offered---either initially or pretty shortly thereafter---ambidextrous safeties at a time, back when dinosaurs, etc., when you couldn't buy an ambi-safetied 1911 off the shelf. (Or not easily.)
Further, the 645 was always an ammo-gobbling beast. My first 1911---an e-nickel Series 70, for what it's worth---would feed hardball and only hardball, until I turned it over to the local gunsmith for a feeding job. Hardball, that's it. Meanwhile, the times I shot a 645, and everything I've ever read about them, says that the 645 isn't much worried by what you feed it. Hardball, softball, jacketed hollow points, jacketed truncated cone ammo, empty cases, whatever. Hear me now and understand me later: that was a big deal, back in the day. Nowadays we pretty much expect it, but back in the day . . . .
I've always liked S&W revolvers. The 645 was the pistol that said, "Hey, dude, look at the quality automatic pistols S&W is turning out" to me. It took me a long time to warm up to the S&W automatics: the first and second generation pistols (except for the 645 and the X69 series) mostly left me unmoved.
Now that dinosaurs no longer roam the earth, I still don't have a 645. My S&W automatic collection is limited to a 5946 and a 6944, both of which I absolutely trust and rely on. (The 9mm, too, has made great strides since "back in the day.") But that I have them is testament to the 645: a quality, modern automatic pistol from a major, high quality American manufacturer. I think it took S&W a while to really get to cracking on the autoloader questions, but when they did, they cracked the code.
My two cents!
