Are the newer 686s bad compared to the older smith's?
See my post a few posts back. The advent of MIM corresponds roughly to the lock guns and many don't like MIM. I think the new guns are plenty good but prefer the look of the old guns. By the time you get done modifying new ones to look like the old ones, you might as well have paid extra for an older model.
MIM doesn't bother me that much. The early attempts at the process brought it into question, but I think its been used successfully enough throughout the industry to not base a decision on that alone.
The locks still have that stigma, as well. I deleted mine in my J-frame and (now gone) 329PD.
The show-stopper for me, however, is the over-clocked screw-in barrels and the canted barrels. I was considering a 3" 69 Magnum, but a significant number of barrels were really misaligned on the S&W guns I was picking up.
So yeah.....Here's one vote for newer Smiths being "bad" when compared to the older ones. They need to go back to pinning the barrel.
