Production runs?

[Rick016]

After reading around for a while, I get the idea from reading various posts that S&W may only do production runs of specific guns at a certain time of the year or on some type of schedule. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I may have misunderstood or could have read into things too much. But if that is the case, does anyone know when they do batches of 686's? I've had my 686 Competitor on order for 3 months now and I'm just curious if there's some way to gauge when I might be blessed with its arrival. My understanding is that my gun dealer puts in his order to a distributor who deals direct with the various manufacturers, but the only info I've gotten so far is that the distributor has said that I'm "on the list". I'm just trying to understand how exactly the process works behind the scenes. Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

If it helps, I saw a M686 today with a "CYB" s/n and a ship date of May 5, 2015. Making it one week old.

Based on nothing but my own observations, I don't think the M686 is a batch-production gun. It's a very popular model that sells in large numbers, and I believe they are making them everyday.

Looking on Gun Broker just now, there are sixteen "686 Competator" for sale and ready to ship, so they are out there. Going the internet route, you could have one in your hands in a couple of days.