Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Are new S&W Airweights any good?

The long, manly trigger pull is part of what makes the 442 in my pocket safe. You do have to dry fire enough to let your finger learn to pull without moving the gun. A death grip to try and tame recoil does not help in this endeavor.

White shirts... what a pain in the azz.

They, the Agency mandated the following: No external hammer, No grip safety , only, striker fired semi autos with a Minimum 6 round magazine capacity. Approved cals, 380, 9mm. 40 S&W and 45acp. They never even asked us, firearms instructors for input. After it was approved we asked about us recommending changes and were told our input was not needed. Yes, all the 1911 guys were pissed off as well as the Springfield XD crowd. Later, we found out the Admin folks just cut and pasted bits from other agencies policies and made it into a Frankenstein policy of our own. We were not happy about it, in any way, shape, or form!

In my first agency, after a good bit of training and experience, I ended up being the firearms and tactics instructor. At the time we were using a Level 1 security holster, essentially just a thumb break model. On top of that, they were worn and floppy, and several of us had our handguns pop out of the holster when chasing a suspect or in a nasty fight. I went to the Chief and laid out why the holster we were using wasn't up to modern standards and training and pointed out the very real potential for a bad guy to end up with one of our guns when in a tussle. It had happened to me. He asked me to give him a few recommendations and I set to work on that. A couple of days later I had all the information, prices, ect. pulled together to present to the Chief and when I approached him he said, "Oh I had Lt. XYZ go ahead and order us some new leather." When we got our new leather it was a Level II Don Hume holster and not nearly the quality of the Safariland rigs I wanted. I asked the LT how he came about choosing those Don Hume holsters and he said "They were the best price." Fuggen white shirts!

The downhill slide for law enforcement appeared to have its beginnings in the late ‘70s, as ‘60s Hippies aged and began to infiltrate government, demanding that auto thieves be cited and released, and significantly downgrading narcotics offenses. It only got worse after that, with officers in some nearby jurisdictions ultimately being directed not to refer cases for prosecution from robbery calls unless a firearm was used or great bodily injury resulted. My inability to tolerate such dangerous foolishness motivated me to reposition myself from road patrol officer (also on the state pistol team) to prosecuting attorney, where I could personally see to it that bad guys received the kind of attention they truly deserved. It was most satisfying for me. Judges, on the other hand, became somewhat miffed at the cases which went to trial because of the prosecution’s stubborn refusal to offer a reduced charge. But, arresting officers loved the results, and my DA thereafter got himself re-elected five times, so far (none of his predecessors had served more than two terms). Not satisfied to leave us relying solely on our abilities to make friends easily, that outstanding DA had a couple of us more aggressive (and properly qualified) DDAs carrying concealed firearms, both on and off the job with our ID cards endorsed pursuant to LEOSA. (In California, while DA investigators are specified by statute as peace officers, prosecutors are not. But, California prosecutors can be law enforcement officers under LEOSA, if it’s arranged correctly.)

I apologize for venting, off subject and on your time.

In answer to the OP's question about old versus new Smith Airweight revolvers here is my experience with a couple of them. The "old" S&W Centennial is a Model 642 no dash I purchased new in 1991. It has maybe 500 rounds or so through it and now has what what I consider a smooth trigger and has held up great showing very little wear from being carried a lot. It weighs exactly 15 ounces. Just to have a spare I bought a new one in 2022, a Model 642-1, again in 38 Special WITHOUT the lock. I haven't shot it a bunch but it had a very good trigger right out of the box. It weighs 14.5 ounces so a tad lighter than the early one. This 642-1 is on the Magnum J-frame which is about an eighth of an inch longer and also has the longer .357 Mag cylinder even though still only chambered for 38 Special. It does have the MIM internals instead of the forged internals which are possible lighter? It also has the original type one piece barrel but also has an overall coating of some type on it that seems rather easily marred and will wear quickly. It's just me but I much prefer the older one. Either way I believe that they are great. And FWIW they are now loaded with Mackay Sagebrush's standard pressure wadcutters.

That's also what makes them suck at distance and against multiple targets, aside from being slow in those applications. People like Mackay_Sagebrush and Jerry Miculek do fine because they shoot them a lot.

P.S. I have interacted with a gentleman who shot himself in the thigh pulling a J frame out of his pocket under what he considered to be life threatening conditions. No one was injured but him.

Firing a single normal factory 357 round out of a 340 will convince any normal, sane person that that's a really bad idea..........38's only, please.

I use the 340 or 442 with Houge grips a lot for pock or BUG carry............far better, IMO, than some micro semi.

JMHO, YMMV

MM

The issue with modern S&W revolvers is really bad quality control. The last modern S&W I bought (purchased new online) was a Model 442 (no lock). The forcing cone looked like it was fresh cut with a hack saw. Totally unacceptable. Completely unfinished. Someone at the factory literally forgot to trim and polish the steel there, so it was totally rough, like fresh from the cutter. You couldn't even put a patch on it or it would instantly shred from all the sharp points sticking up, and you'd have to pull patch material out with your fingers. I called S&W and they gave me a free shipping label to send it back. They took one look at it and sent me a brand new 442, no questions asked.

That sort of thing never happened back in the day.

I recently bought this 637. It has one range trip and shot great. Being a custom shop gun it has the smoothest DA I have ever felt on a J Frame. I swapped the grips shown for a set of simple rubber two finger groove S&W grips. I have been pocket carrying it. I have yet to install the plug sitting on my bench.

There're a 638 and 642 sitting about my house, both with the locks. Neither are as smooth in da as their k and n frame pre-lock contemporaries. That's not to say they're bad, just not pre-model number sweet like the old iron.

Yup. Not pleasant.

.357 Magnum is unpleasant enough for a snub nose, all steel, K-Frame. No way I'd touch one off in an Airweight J-Frame.

On a dare, I once shot 5 full-strength .357s into a fairly snug group at 7 yards from a loaner S&W 360 AirLite Ti to impress some California Division of Forestry Law Enforcement Officers, with whom I was teaching an LE seminar on the North Coast. It was maybe 25 years ago. Never even remotely considered doing THAT again!

It was done all double action, and I was holding on so tightly that I could likely have bent that Scandium-aluminum frame.

You guys are tougher or more adventurous than I.

My only baseball bat to the hand experience was five rounds rapid fire of 158 gr. .357 Federal Hydra-Shok factory ammo from a 3" Ruger SP101, which is considerably heavier than the Smiths under discussion. It convinced me to not even try anything smaller - that was 25 years ago and the memory still keeps me from buying one of those 3" steel Model 60's in .357.

This is a 637 Air Weight, one of four I did up for my wife, daughter and grand daughters to get their CWPs. The Air Weight is very light, a 2" 38 Spl +p, hammer gun, not the hammerless.
The hammer spur on these guns is rough stamped steel, it rides inside the hammer coil spring and needs to be removed and polished on all four sides. The springs can be changed out if you wish. The pictured gun has Packmeyer grips to give one more finger on the grip. With 125 JHPs it makes a decent pocket pistol. They all got their CWPs.
My wife a licensed PI from Memphis, carried a 60 for years, she loves the Air Weight 38.

I bought a brand-new 642 about 5 years ago off gunbroker. When I got it in my hands I could barely open the cylinder so it went directly back to S&W where it was repaired. Whatever jig they put it in to repair it left two significant marks/scratches underneath the topstrap about 1/8" square.

That was the second new S&W revolver in less than a 2-year period that had to go back to the factory out of the box.

I decided then that I was done paying premium prices for a sub-standard product and have not purchased any more S&W guns since.

Same here. I wouldn't buy another new S&W firearm.

There will always be some people who disparage any new(er) product because of "the good ole days". While I do indeed love my vintage S&W revolvers, and while (like everyone else) S&W does experience some QC issues, they do still make good guns. Just stay away from 38 Bodyguard.

I read that part and had to smile.

I may have popped a few bunnies in the noggin on body with a J Frame, but I am not quite in the same league as Jerry.





I did however make it a practice to shoot out to 50 yards on a standard qual target when I was carrying a gun for a living with my 442 BUG. It really was not all that hard once you master the trigger (and have younger eyes). But again, it is nothing like JM shoots. Having shot the same matches such as SOF world 3 gun way back in the day and seeing him burn down targets, I can attest, he is on a whole other level. I am human..


BTW,, if you guys want dang fine J Frame, I would absolutely suggest you put your name on the list for one of the Lipsey's and Smith & Wesson Ultimate Carry J Frames.

They are very well thought out guns.

Plus they have sights that will make longer range hits no big deal.