Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Your favorite smith and Wesson 357

Which is your favorite? Smooth accurate and classy..... Old or new

Pinned and recessed 19's with 6" (or better) barrel.

3.5” and 8 3/8” S-prefix Model 27’s.

Clark's pick.

686 in any barrel length. Hands-down THE best .357 ever made, though there are many others that are good. N frames are next. Definitely pre-lock and pre-everything-being-round-butt. Make mine a no-lock, square butt 686.

Model 19 4"

That's tough... All old M27's are great. Snubbed M66's are cool. For me and all around packing and shooting it's a 6" M19.

19's and 66's are glorified 38 Specials.

The one in my pocket every day is a 360 J . My favorite to shoot is a 4 in 66-3. The one at my front door is a 640-1.
Depends on the situation. Hasbeen

A pre-83 Model 13/65 with three inch barrel and round butt frame. Ideal IWB everyday carry piece. A close second is the pre-83 snubby, round butt, Model 19/66.

5" Model 27, followed closely by a 3-1/2" Pre 27, followed by a 3" Model 65....

I've had several, but my favorite is my 27-2.

27-2 5", next up 19-3 4", then a 586-4 4"

Plain Jane 4 inch Model 28..... even when empty i can pistol whip the chit outta somebody and not make a scratch on it.

Favorites:

Most pleasing to the eye...5" 1950s vintage Pre-27

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-hand-ejectors-1896-1961/583425-pre-27-estate-auction-purchase.html



All-around shooter/carry...66-2 3" Ashland Special




Backpacking/fishing/boating/Trail Gun....60-10 3"





That said, I do have a 6" 1952 vintage Pre-27 that would probably be the last gun to go...as it lettered to the day I was born... Gun was shipped to the George Lawrence Company, the holster maker... A few years later I found a long out of production Lawrence 120 Keith holster for it brand new in the package... So what are the chances of finding a gun shipped on the day you were born and then a holster from the company it was shipped to designed by your favorite gun write....stars were all aligned just right... And I actually like shooting the 6" more than the three 5" 27s I had...







Bob

These.

for balance, weight, a bunch of criteria, for me it goes to the 19 or 66. Having said that in terms of durability in firing magnum loads it goes to either a 2 7 or a 28.
I pretty much have never fired anything in the 19's except 38special.
the N frame different story.
But they are heavy to me.

The 686 with the 4 position front sight in the center. The M65 in the lower left has a smoother D/A trigger

A friend of mine, back in the 1990s, was looking to fund an African safari, and was selling most of his accumulated guns. I didn't really want anything he had, but figured I'd help him out by buying his Performance Center custom, four inch, Model 586. This was a pre-lock, but had MIM trigger and hammer. But, man, was this thing sweet. Action like velvet. Super light and crisp trigger, with factory installed over travel stop. I really liked it, but it wasn't my cup of tea (as a backup to a hunting rifle, I prefer aluminum alloy handguns, and for a daily concealed carry revolver, the largest I'm interested in is K-Frame, and that with a barrel no longer than three inches), so recently sold it for a tidy sum.