by Massad Ayoob
Contributing Editor

With exciting new products for hunters, competitive handgunners, armed citizens, and cops, Smith & Wesson (S&W) returns to the contemporary scene with a bang.

It seems only yesterday that Smith & Wesson's ill-advised knuckling under to the Clinton Administration had sounded the death knell of the 150-year-old firm, whose name was synonymous with quality handguns. Bob Scott, the man who bought the firm from Britain's Tompkins LLC and almost single-handedly brought S&W back from the grave where a vast boycott of outraged American gunowners' rights activists had buried it, can now report good news. Nearly bankrupted, savaged by massive layoffs, and dumped by its English owners for pennies on the dollar of its real worth, the restructured Smith & Wesson has already turned its first profit year under Scott's stewardship. The infamous HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) agreement is history. The new S&W management spat on the benighted "Boston Agreement" of its predecessors, and made the spittle stick (See earlier reports in Gun Week).

As if to celebrate with fireworks its 151st birthday and its return to American ownership and American values, S&W will have an exciting line-up of new products to debut at the 2003 SHOT Show in Orlando, FL, Feb. 13-16. A month prior to SHOT, the firm invited a group of gun writers to visit the factory, wring out the new products, and participate in an impromptu focus group. American Handgunner, American Rifleman, Combat Handguns, Guns & Ammo, Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement, Handguns, Gun Week, Shooting Times, and Women & Guns were among those represented.

Perhaps the biggest news was the largest handgun the company has ever produced, the new Model 500. Built around a proprietary cartridge to be known as the .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum, this massive 5-shot revolver weighs 72.5 ounces and launches a 440-grain flat nose hunting bullet of hard-cast lead at some 1,600 feet-per-second (fps) out of its 8-3/8-inch barrel, generating a muzzle energy that S&W calculates to be greater than 2,500 foot-pounds (fp).

S&W execs told us that when they explored building a revolver more powerful than the .50 Bowen, the .50 Action Express, the .475 Linebaugh, the .480 Ruger, the .454 Casull, or any of the other "super-large bore" revolvers of our time, they approached Peter Pi at Cor-Bon. Pi in turn approached Marc Jamison of Jamison International in Sturgis, SD. Jamison did the initial design work, and the rest shall be known as handgunning history.

More powerful than a .45/70 rifle with some of its loads, the .500 S&W Magnum is the first new revolver cartridge to bear the company's name since the introduction of the .357 S&W Magnum in 1935. Testing showed it to be much less unpleasant to shoot than we would have imagined. For an in-depth "shots fired" report on this new revolver, catch the next issue of The New Gun Week.

S&W 1911
The Smith & Wesson 1911 .45 auto was a little like a creature from space. Some among us had unswervingly awaited its coming for decades, undeterred by the jeers of colleagues. The rest of us said it was hokum, and we'd never see it in our lifetime.

Well, the S&W 1911 is here. It has landed, another wave is coming in behind it, and best of all, it's pretty friendly.

Initially, it will be in .45 ACP only, taking all conventional 1911 magazines. Construction is stainless, with full-length spring guide rod and, curiously, right-handed thumb safety only-at least for now. I would have suggested a conventional spring guide rod and ambidextrous safety, but what do I know? The pistol is rendered in stainless with a good-looking "frosted" matte finish. Trigger pull on one of the four samples I tested was not good-it tended to stick-but the other three were sweet indeed. I saw no feeding or cycling problems with any of them. Accuracy seems to be good; a colleague at the seminar who had put one in a machine rest told me his S&W 1911 gave him pretty much one-hole 10-shot groups at 25 yards.

The long-awaited Smith 1911 should be the best seller of this year's crop of new handguns from Springfield, MA. It will be priced at the low end to compete head-to-head with the Kimber Classic and the "loaded" Springfield Armory 1911A1. S&W has made wise use of Wolff, Briley, Les Baer, Wilson Combat, McCormick, and other proven "out-source" vendors of top quality 1911 components. Only the slide and frame assemblies, front sight, and firing pin are actually made at 2100 Roosevelt Ave., Springfield. The guns will be assembled for the time being by the Performance Center custom gunsmith team, who has the strongest storehouse of institutional knowledge of that archetypal product of their arch competitor, Colt. As time goes on, look for the Performance Center staff to train line personnel to assemble these guns. After the first thousand are built, S&W will be producing their own 1911 barrels to replace the ones furnished for the first production run by Briley.

My one beef with this gun was that the grip safety did not always depress for me. This does not occur when I grasp other 1911s, which I've been shooting for 42 years now. It's in the dimensions of the upper rear of the grip-frame and the grip safety. Herb Belin, the wise old head who is in charge of S&W handgun production, is looking into this. It only seemed to be a problem for me and for one other of the shooters in the focus group, however. Look for Commander- and Officers-size models to follow the traditional Government-size original before long.

More Bigbore Wheelguns
Several exciting sixguns join the S&W line this year. In standard production, we'll see the blue steel Model 29-the original .44 Magnum-return to the line for the first time in several years, this time in the Mountain Gun format with slim 4-inch barrel. The stainless Mountain Gun they introduced around 1990 has become my favorite among the many S&W .44 Magnums I've owned and shot, and the finely-finished blue version will please traditionalists. A very few were produced for a group of gun collectors some time ago, and this 2003 run will be limited to 1,000 revolvers, to be sold through S&W Stocking Dealers only.

More exciting, however, is the new Model 329. It is a sub-27-ounce .44 Magnum. No, that weight figure is not a misprint. S&W's recent adventures with ultra-light, ultra-strong Scandium and Titanium alloys have led us to this predictable extreme. Is it ridiculous or sublime? That depends on the grips.

Here is the ultimate high-powered revolver for the weight conscious outdoorsman. We shot the test sample Model 329 at the state-of-the-art S&W Academy and commercial indoor sport shooting facility. With Federal American Eagle full-power .44 Mag ammo, it was not only nastier in kick than even the mighty .500, but for several of the seasoned crew of gun testers was the most viciously recoiling Smith & Wesson they had ever fired. I would put it second in that category; the sub-11-ounce Scandium Model 340 is even more brutal with full-power .357 Magnum.

But that was with the furnished grips, the sleek, slim fancy-grain Kim Ahrends cocobolo handles that traditionalists love. Put a pair of Pachmayr Compacs, particularly the Decelerator version, on this baby. Put on some of the Hogues with Sorbothane backstraps, which S&W so wisely made standard on the monster .500 Magnum. I'm betting that you'll see a gun that jumps a lot, but doesn't really hurt to shoot anymore. We'll find out soon: look for an in-depth test of the Model 329 in just a few weeks. Other .44 Magnum variations will come from the Performance Center: the tricked-out Next Generation Hunter, and a Two-Tone.

For many, the favorite new Smith bigbore will be, not a Magnum, but a true .45 ACP snub-nose, the Model 625 Ultra-Carry which takes six-shot moon clips. The cylinder and frame have been shortened (as they should have been so long ago) for the auto-length cartridge, resulting in a gun about the size of a 2-inch Model 10 .38, with a slightly fatter cylinder. The ultra-light frame will make it a joy to carry on the belt, but again, narrow wooden grips make it a bit painful to shoot. This too can be corrected with more appropriate stocks.

Sizzlin' Smallbores
The Model 617 stainless .22 Magnum returns, with a heavy 6-inch barrel. Expect delicious accuracy. It is joined by the more trendy Model 647, an 8-3/8-inch K-frame chambered for the .17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire (.17 HMR) that has some sportshooters all atwitter. Belin notes that with this barrel length, the new .17 loses remarkably little velocity and energy compared to what the cartridge generates from rifle barrels. The Performance Center has a 12-inch barrel version with a barrel that comes right out of Buck Rogers, all fluted with an integral Picatinny rail for scope mounting and even a provision for a bipod. Recoil is like a mouse burp, and the hyper-velocity projectile should give varmint hunters a laser-like trajectory.

Smith's Value Series of traditional double-action autos harkens back to the Model 46 .22 target pistol and the Highway Patrolman .357 revolver that many of us fondly remember. It's the fancy, expensive S&W rendered with more pedestrian metalwork, and a flat matte finish that saves polishing. The Model 457 (aluminum frame compact .45 auto) is a particular "best buy" in this writer's opinion. Those guns continue in full-size 9mm and .40 S&W, plus compact 9mm and .45, but now in satin finish stainless as well as the flat gray models. Still good guns, still affordable, and now, for some, more useful.

The SW99-that crossbreed of Smith & Wesson technology with the Walther P99-is expanded in options to include a full-size .45 auto that fits the hand very well, and compact 9mm and .40 models to compete with the "baby Glocks." In the Performance Center line, the exquisite Model 952, an ultra-reliable 9mm version of the old Model 52 Master .38 wadcutter bullseye gun, gets an ingeniously safety redesign that makes it "drop-safe" under the most rigid tests.

R.I.P.
When there's a birth here, there's a death there. S&W has dropped several guns from the line this year. The 6-inch Model 66 stainless .357 is gone, along with 8-3/8-inch barrel length in Models 629 (.44 Mag.), 617 (.22), and 686 (.357 Mag.). Double-action autos are out of the S&W catalog except for the polymer-framed Sigma, though they'll still be available to law enforcement agencies. These include: RCMP; Idaho State Patrol; Chicago PD, and NYPD who have issued them as standard-like the first two, or made them a popular option-like the last two. The Model 337 Chief Special in Titanium is deep-sixed; people who liked it preferred the Scandium version, which remains in the line.

"Walther USA" is gone. However, S&W remains the exclusive Walther distributor for the United States.

That beautiful Schofield from the Performance Center is no more; about 1,000 guns were made, and that's it. Turns out that it cost more to make them than they got for selling them. If you see a genuine Smith & Wesson new model Schofield, my advice would be: grab it! The old-style double-action Heritage series has run its course, with many sub-variations, totaling about 1,000 revolvers. There may be more, but that will depend on distributor orders to the Performance Center.

In a move to consolidate toward its strength-handguns-S&W is no longer making their popular police bicycles and will outsource them instead. But, oddly enough, they are getting into optics and a gun storage unit they call Versa-Safe. The binoculars seem particularly nice, but time will tell whether this was the right move for the company.

Suffice to say that Smith & Wesson is back from the dead and ready to party. This is the most exciting array of new S&Ws I've seen offered in many a year. The new management has foresworn the ways of the old, confirming a lesson that our readers and many others who respect the Second Amendment so sternly taught them: "Don't sell out our rights!" The old S&W management is scattered to the winds, and the new management is listening to you.

Stay tuned to these pages for in-depth reviews of the .500 Smith & Wesson Magnum, the Model 329 27-ounce .44 Magnum, and other hot new Smiths in the weeks to come.