Bunker Bunch


The owners, staff, and frequent customers at The AR Bunker (www.thearbunker.com) are avid shooters and gun enthusiasts. Collectively, we have decades of active participation in various corners of the shooting sports genre, as well as Military and Law Enforcement experience and training. This makes us uniquely qualified to form valid opinions on the products offered at the store. We believe these opinions and product information might be helpful to those who might read them here and/or might provide food for further thought/research on possible future purchases. So; we’ll be offering “informed” opinions and product information here from time to time.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Smith & Wesson K-Frame Revolvers


Long, long ago, right here in our very own galaxy, on our watery blue planet, meticulously quality-conscious partners Smith & Wesson designed and produced revolvers based on a medium-sized frame. The company’s variously sized frames were designated using alphabet letters, with the smaller “J-Frame” and mid-sized “K-Frame” models becoming the most popular. Even today, these models are commonly chosen by discriminating wheelie shooters and remain good sellers despite the increasingly popular pizazz of tacti-cool semi-autos.

Recently we came across two examples of S&W’s stellar quality from 45 years ago in the form of a Model 17-3 and a Model 19-3 – both with 6” barrels and accessorized as the “Target” variant (oversized grip panels, adjustable rear sight, etc.). They came out of the S&W factory in 1970 and were purchased in 1972. These one-owner guns were fired a very few times and then properly stored so that their condition today is no less than “mint.” Even the boxes and original paperwork show very little handling wear. They will not, however, become safe queens. While the fit ‘n finish of Smiths from this era is excellent, the real beauty of the K-frames is their operational beauty much more so than their aesthetic beauty. The triggers are crisp and smooth, and they print lead consistently right on point of aim.

S&W offered the various K-frame models in numerous configurations (more so then than now) to accommodate various shooting styles and purposes, such as competition, target, self-defense, concealed carry, etc.  With the growing popularity of semi-autos, revolvers are in less demand today for some of these activities.  In the ‘60’s and 70’s, though, a K-frame revolver with a 6” barrel was about as good as it gets for target and competition shooting.  There were some mighty fine Colt wheelies around in those days as well; before Colt started – a few years later – its downhill slide in quality.

And, as good as the Smiths of those days were, a few were produced with slightly “off-spec” chamber bores which caused accuracy problems with certain ammo.  Test-firing the wheelies is the best was to determine if a particular serial number is one of the “good ones” (likely), so our intention was to give the newly found treasures a good workout with various ammo of known quality. Knowing already that the aesthetics and trigger feel were superior, it remained only to be proven that bullets could be thrown from the beasts with equal excellence.

The 17 (22lr) and 19 (357mag) we found contentedly resting in storage were inspected, oiled up, and taken out for some exercise at our first opportunity. 2” and 3” paper targets and 5” and 8” steel swinging targets were set up on the backstop so that firing could be accomplished at 10 and 25 yard distances.  A Caldwell front rest was set up on the bench so that most of the “shooter-induced” variance could be eliminated from the some of the tests.

A course of fire was followed for each of the guns to gauge its inherent accuracy and the ergonomic qualities which lead to the shooter being able to utilize the gun’s quality without distraction.

A few rounds were fired from each to familiarize the shooter with the sight picture and trigger feel, and to allow for sight adjustment.  During these tests, which were not really intended to gauge the accuracy of the gun, it became apparent that they were “keepers.”  Only a minor adjustment in the sight was necessary to bring the bullet hole group to point of aim, and the size of the group was surprisingly small – although not the real goal of these first few shots. With a bit of trigger time and sight tweaking out of the way, we were ready to subject the Smiths to some more rigorous accuracy tests.

One of our Bunch is a former competition champion who can regularly print groups of the half-inch variety at 10 yards (standing; freehand) on a good day – given a decent gun and ammo.  Both the 17 and 19 easily produced this kind of result, and our shooter reported the clean, crisp triggers aided in the production of the excellent results.  A big smile was noted on the face of the shooter after each session.

Next we moved to the Caldwell rest to allow for some 25 yard shooting from a sitting position.  We loaded up some ammo from a questionable (not safety related, but accuracy challenged) and got disappointing results.  It seems the venerable S&W was not capable of straightening out ammo that lacked the design quality to fly on a consistent vector.  Changing to our benchmark 357 cartridges (ones that have been accurate in other guns) settled the situation down, giving a 1 5/8” group at very close to point of aim.  Experience tells us that the group would have been “one ragged hole” if shot from a Ransom Rest.

Pretty amazing accuracy for 25 yards.  Two of the 5 shots went through one hole and the entire group would fit into the trigger guard. Forget that the group is at the bottom of the circle - that's where the shooter was aiming.

All of the above shooting was done in single action mode, where the hammer is “thumb-cocked” instead of being drawn back by trigger movement, because maximum “target-shooting” accuracy is attainable from a double action revolver when fired in this manner. Evaluation of the guns utilizing double action trigger mode is less important when the gun’s intended use is target marksmanship than it would be in some competition regimes or self-defense training/practice, but evaluation of the gun for its overall quality in that mode is important nevertheless.

While these guns are intended for “target marksmanship” use, evaluation of the D/A (double action) operation was carried out to determine the overall build quality of the pieces.  Remembering that both of these guns are, for all intents and purposes, brand new (fewer than 100 rounds on the 17-3 and fewer than 40 rounds on the 19-3) some “stiffness” or “roughness” is to be expected in D/A operation. 

The 17-3, to our very pleasant surprise for a gun not yet broken-in, handled like butter throughout the D/A pull on all chambers.  The trigger movement was smooth and consistent all the way back to the “break” with no “stacking” (variation in trigger pull weight along the way) and this made for achievement of excellent D/A accuracy.

The 19-3 exhibited a mildly unpleasant feel during D/A trigger actuation.  The pull weight was about as heavy as we expected and the weight was consistent (no stacking) but there were a couple of spots on a couple of chambers where there was some extra drag or roughness, as if one piece of the mechanism was having to overcome a burr or rough spot on another piece.  This is not unusual in any new gun and is typical of S&W’s of the era.  The condition will most probably work its way out as a few hundred rounds are fired and, if not, a qualified gunsmith will be able to polish a part or two and render the operation flawless.  Aside from this “glitch” the D/A feel is good-to-excellent and will (one way or another) not degrade the quality rating of this piece.

In conclusion, K-Frame Smiths from the late 60’s and early 70’s are excellent guns.  The operational quality of the two we reviewed here is seriously above average for these models and a better shooting mid-sized revolver in 22lr or 357mag would be hard to find.

Respectfully Submitted
The Bunker Bunch
September, 2015

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