>The post WWII success Smith & Wesson as producers of high grade sporting and police arms, typified by their revolvers and certain autoloaders (the Model 39 and 52 at S&W) was the work of two generations of skilled craftsmen, trained by men who were in their sixties during the Second World War. The fitting and timing of arms like Colt's Python or Smith & Wesson's Combat Masterpiece was a labor of love, no two guns were quite alike, and the lockwork was usually delivered to the tradesmen on the shop floor slightly over-sized in key areas, so they could be finished individually. This resulted in lockup, accuracy, and trigger pulls now attained only in custom firearms. The tools used in this work ranged from off-the-shelf files to custom designed, hand-built, manually operated machine tools, that were often modified on-the-fly and for which no written plans exist. The clearances on a finished S&W Model 19-2, submitted by the author to the Industrial Engineering laboratory at Purdue, are roughly 500% tighter than a comparable S&W revolver of 1996 production. They are slightly exceed by a Korth revolver of 1991 production.
THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF SMITH AND WESSON
>This massive decline in quality can be attributed chiefly to the death or retirement of the final generation of S&W assemblers (that is the internal title, they ought to be called craftsmen). The last one left the company, having suffered a stroke, in 1994. S&W refused to finance even the most basic apprentice program during the autumn of these men's years. Consequently, though they mastered their craft as apprentices to the men who designed and built masterworks such as the Registered Magnum, they were unable to pass their skills along. Many were let go to save money, the last being transferred to S&W's custom shop. They were never afforded the opportunity to work alongside the incoming generation of assemblers. This new blood, paid far less than the men they replaced, did not know what to do with the custom designed, long serving assembly and fitting tools, and no interest in hand fitting. A report from 1995 indicated that a one-of-a-kind hand cranked device designed to aid in the timing of K-frame guns, built in 1950 and dubbed "Lilly" by its original users, was smashed to bits with a sledge hammer (to make it easier to move by breaking it into pieces) and thrown in a dumpster because it was "taking up valuable floor space." Less dramatically, but equally tragically, most of the custom tooling was simply dumped from workbench drawers into trash cans by the new assemblers.
>Speaking off the record, a high level employee of S&W's research and development division admitted that "it would be totally impossible" for the company to build a gun as fine as an early production Combat Magnum (intended for mass issue to police, far from a custom gun) "even as a handmade one-off" because "the knowledge simply doesn't exist, sometimes we get older revolvers in for service and we cannot understand how they were put together. Frankly it's a lost art, like Damascus steel."
-John Taffin "The Decline and Fall of Smith & Wesson", American Handgunner, May, 1997.
post YFW when you realize that gunmaking as an art is totally dead in this country
>S&W
>Remington
So who hasn't went to shit in terms of quality?
Is ruger the last bastion of quality revolvers?
They're high quality for how ruthlessly mass produced they are, but they aren't high quality in the sense of the OP.
source? not that I don’t believe every word
Ruger's shitty things are much better now than they were, but they still don't hold a candle to classic Smith, Remington, Marlin, etc
I can't find anything related to this article anywhere online, archived or otherwise. I realize that there may not be anything from a magazine article from 97, but if you even have an image of the article could you post it?
There are still semi-custom shops out there that take pride in their work, probably just as much as those in the OP. Wilson obviously comes to mind first but they certainly aren’t alone.
You’re right though, the quality revolver market is lacking. If I had the dough for it, I’d definitely pick up a Korth in .357.
>Hey guys, the shit we churn out is essentially artisan
>I know what's good for this company and I'm not keeping grandpa just to teach a bunch of kids
>Decline in quality is not indicative of decline in profit
Is their management retarded?
>dead as an art in big name commercial brands
FTFY
Revolvers were dying off fast, it wasn't seen as being worth the money. Only in the last several years, thanks in large part to the relative cheapness of golden era S&W K and N frames, are people getting back into them.
If they had invested a bunch of money into the revolver training program as revolver sales continued to plunge throughout the 1990's they would have been seen as fools and possibly removed by shareholders/the board.
stop
Idk, I am finding rust patterns on my ruger 10/22 takedown. Particularly on the barrel.
Maybe training an entire division of engineers and gunsmiths, sure, but literally ignoring the fact that you had knowledge that was worth it's weight in whatever your revolvers cost and then not making sure that was passed on to anyone ever was kind of a dumb move.
Not really, when the art is no longer worth passing on.
I'm sure techniques and processes are lost during this switch from blackpowder to cartridge firearms, but that does not make it fiscally responsible to keep that antiquated knowledge around.
This just sounds like some old boomer waxing nostalgic about muh wheelguns and pretending the reason for their drop in popularity is ungrateful kids who don't remember the art of hand fitting rather than revolvers simply being replaced by wonder nines. Even if it's true that these classic S&Ws had "500% tighter" fitting than a modern S&W, 99% of people can't tell the difference and there's no conceivable way it would have any effect on the company's success. It would be stupid for Smith & Wesson to waste time and money training artisan craftsmen to use complicated unique machinery to perfectly fit their revolvers to some transcendent artisan level of perfection when the gun works just as well without all that and you need to send it to an Industrial Engineering Laboratory in order to even tell the difference in the first place. People don't buy revolvers because they're artistically crafted masterpieces, they buy them because they need a good gun that works. Which modern S&Ws still are and still do. Besides the stupid Hillary holes.
You don't understand the mindset of the corporate drone keeper. I have x workers and need to make more profit. I will fire the old expensive workers and hire a bunch of young cheap workers. I won't spend extra money training them to do something slower even though it makes a better product. The product they make is good enough the masses will buy it.
It will increase my production values while lowering my cost! I am so getting that promotion to vice drone keeper. The CEO and share holders will approve my decisions, since it makes more money.
Perhaps not, but it's not like revolver sales were reaching it's deathbed either. Even so, a company as big as S&W could easily afford to lose a bit of money training just a handful of guys for their special custom orders team would've been a wiser investment. We're not exactly talking about a mom and pop gunsmithing shop.
R.i.p
>well researched investigative article by a known expert
>boomerposting lel
>just bought a new SW 629
>it shoots great
>OP is a fag
>Even so, a company as big as S&W could easily afford to lose a bit of money
Lel, no. No company can afford to throw away a bit of money for nostalgia.
fuck a training program, they could have literally just had the guy take a few afternoons off from shop work to WRITE DOWN his procedures.
Nah, not how it works for masters, you do need to train, especially when it's something with your hands.
I get it, I'm saying that would have been better than letting literally all of the knowledge die.
This is a microcosm of what's happened across the manufacturing sector. There's a reason older stuff like cars and home appliances from the same era as the article is talking about lasted for 10-20 years, but now it starts having issues in 5. It used to be built by professional craftsmen who were paid enough care about their work.
I heard about armorers being specialized in some of these older models and they don't get allowed as carry guns anymore since the last one retired. Makes a lot of sense now.
All memes aside, the Mini-14 is a way better gun now than it was 15 years ago. Ruger is a consistently good company these days, and frankly, the LCR has nearly singlehandedly been responsible for a renewal of interest in revolvers lately.