S&W Revolver, Internal Lock removal/plug

[Malibu]

I didn't know some DA triggers had serrations, I can see those tearing up your finger

An example of particularly bad serrations are on the 2020 Colt Python models. After a few days of running those in class will teach you. The outside edges of the trigger face on those is squared off as well, which I find to be totally useless for anything but single-action use, and even after some time that will be quite noticeable as well.

 

[Fatcat]

Kinda spendy for a small bit of metal, bit it plugs it up. https://www.originalprecision.com/reviews-and-pictures.html

 

[Calibreeze]

Has anyone done this? I saw a video on it and I'm not sure I want to tackle this job. I will likely look for a gunsmith to do it. Anyone know of one that has experience with this? OC / Long Beach area.

Why would you do this? This along with the removal of the magazine disconnect is overrated and not necessary. I have never had any problems or do I know anyone that has had any problems with these two mechanisms.
Save your money and use it to purchase ammo.

 

[Malibu]

Why would you do this? This along with the removal of the magazine disconnect is overrated and not necessary. I have never had any problems or do I know anyone that has had any problems with these two mechanisms.
Save your money and use it to purchase ammo.

The internal lock has indeed caused some issues. While rare, it is one more mechanism that serves no purpose other than to appease the legal industry.
Magazine disconnect: Any pistol (or other firearm) so equipped becomes NOTHING MORE than an inefficient impact weapon when it cannot fire ammunition. If you elect to carry only one magazine in your carry weapon, or out in the hunting field and for some reason drop or loose it, it is a club. If you fail to fully seat the magazine while attempting a quick reload the result will be that the weapon will not fire as well.
If you ever attend really good training or practice, the skill of being able to drop a single round into the chamber from slide-lock and getting the weapon back into action quickly when you have no magazine becomes a moot point.
The above reasons are why I will NEVER rely on any weapon with a magazine disconnect. If it cannot be disabled or removed altogether, it is nothing more than a range toy.

 

[Calibreeze]

The internal lock has indeed caused some issues. While rare, it is one more mechanism that serves no purpose other than to appease the legal industry.
Magazine disconnect: Any pistol (or other firearm) so equipped becomes NOTHING MORE than an inefficient impact weapon when it cannot fire ammunition. If you elect to carry only one magazine in your carry weapon, or out in the hunting field and for some reason drop or loose it, it is a club. If you fail to fully seat the magazine while attempting a quick reload the result will be that the weapon will not fire as well.
If you ever attend really good training or practice, the skill of being able to drop a single round into the chamber from slide-lock and getting the weapon back into action quickly when you have no magazine becomes a moot point.
The above reasons are why I will NEVER rely on any weapon with a magazine disconnect. If it cannot be disabled or removed altogether, it is nothing more than a range toy.

Well said. This is why I stick to my sp101. Every trigger pull goes bang!!

 

[treelogger]

While rare,

Failures of the S&W lock are indeed very rare.

How many times does it save someone's life? We don't know that, since most examples of the lock working correctly (preventing someone, typically a small child, from firing the gun) don't get recorded at all, since nothing happened. I'll talk about the safety versus usefulness tradeoff more in a moment.

it is one more mechanism that serves no purpose other than to appease the legal industry.

It's actually not the "legal industry", it was politics.

During the Clinton era, in the 90s, S&W (and a few other gun makers) came into the cross hairs of the federal government. Just like big tobacco had been caught doing lots of shady things (like knowingly lying about the fact that smoking is unhealthy), the big gun makers had been found to be at least very sloppy (closing their eyes to supplying the black market was the big one), and there was plenty of evidence that they were doing this with full knowledge. Just like big tobacco had been forced into a giant settlement, under threat of being sued out of existence, the Clinton administration wanted to do the same thing to the biggest gun companies. But the nature of the settlement had to be different: While the tobacco companies were making money hand over fist and sitting on billions, the gun makers were actually barely making ends meet. In particular S&W, the archetype of American gun companies (together with Colt, which was in even worse shape) was so poor, they had already been sold to various investors several times over.

The settlement that was reached was that S&W would improve its business practices, police its dealers to not sell to children nor to prohibited parties, have the dealers implement theft prevention, and that all S&W handguns would have a a safety, and later also loaded chamber indicators and magazine disconnects. In exchange, federal and state government dropped all the lawsuits against S&W (and the other gun makers), and made them a "preferred supplier", in particular to law enforcement. The safety for pistols was implemented as the little hole with a key. The "preferred supplier" agreement was explicitly intended to compensate the gun makers for the expectation that consumers would be boycotting them (as they ended up doing). Without the settlement, S&W would have certainly been wiped out. Since then, government sales have been the lifeline that has kept S&W barely afloat. I think their net profit these days ends up being a million or so per quarter; not a way to run a company.

Magazine disconnect: Any pistol (or other firearm) so equipped becomes NOTHING MORE than an inefficient impact weapon when it cannot fire ammunition. If you elect to carry only one magazine in your carry weapon, or out in the hunting field and for some reason drop or loose it, it is a club.

Interesting viewpoint. If that is really so, how can you explain that the service handgun of the Swiss military has had a magazine disconnect since 1950? As do most military handguns? Wouldn't one think that of all people, soldiers would need something better than a club?

If you fail to fully seat the magazine while attempting a quick reload the result will be that the weapon will not fire as well.

A correct engineered magazine disconnect will not do that. Look at the Sig P210: As long as the magazine is about 3/4 of the way in (not even fully seated, nor latched), it will fire.

If you ever attend really good training or practice, the skill of being able to drop a single round into the chamber from slide-lock and getting the weapon back into action quickly when you have no magazine becomes a moot point.

I hope you won't claim that the Swiss army is badly trained.

The above reasons are why I will NEVER rely on any weapon with a magazine disconnect. If it cannot be disabled or removed altogether, it is nothing more than a range toy.

Strange. Millions of soldiers disagree with you. They go to war with what you would consider a "range toy".

Seriously: Like most things in engineering, the magazine disconnect (as well as the safety on a gun) is a tradeoff. Yes, it adds complexity to the system, and typically extra weight, extra parts. And extra failure modes, although those are very very rare. If implemented correctly (and not all gun makers are actually good at engineering), they should not impact the feel of the trigger, as they should not be even touching the trigger itself, the linkage, or the sear when in the "fire" position. The tradeoff of that little bit of extra complexity is that the gun is safer to operate, namely less likely to get fired when the user doesn't with it to fire. Users that want to carry these guns need to be trained in the manual of arms, namely that firing requires (a) releasing the safety, and (b) having a magazine (even an empty one) fully inserted. For guns that are commonly carried, the general consensus seems to be that this is a good tradeoff. For your personal gun purchases, you are free to disagree. But please understand that people with your attitude would be thrown out of the military in most countries.

 

[Seeed]

Has anyone done this? I saw a video on it and I'm not sure I want to tackle this job. I will likely look for a gunsmith to do it. Anyone know of one that has experience with this? OC / Long Beach area.

You can do it yourself. Very simple. Don't have to pay anyone...

 

[AR15barrels]

Kinda spendy for a small bit of metal, bit it plugs it up. https://www.originalprecision.com/reviews-and-pictures.html

If you think it's spendy, you should manufacture and sell them for less.

 

[AR15barrels]

Why would you do this? This along with the removal of the magazine disconnect is overrated and not necessary. I have never had any problems or do I know anyone that has had any problems with these two mechanisms.
Save your money and use it to purchase ammo.

Those magazine disconnects on revolvers are really annoying.

 

[Malibu]

Failures of the S&W lock are indeed very rare.

How many times does it save someone's life? We don't know that, since most examples of the lock working correctly (preventing someone, typically a small child, from firing the gun) don't get recorded at all, since nothing happened. I'll talk about the safety versus usefulness tradeoff more in a moment.


It's actually not the "legal industry", it was politics.

During the Clinton era, in the 90s, S&W (and a few other gun makers) came into the cross hairs of the federal government. Just like big tobacco had been caught doing lots of shady things (like knowingly lying about the fact that smoking is unhealthy), the big gun makers had been found to be at least very sloppy (closing their eyes to supplying the black market was the big one), and there was plenty of evidence that they were doing this with full knowledge. Just like big tobacco had been forced into a giant settlement, under threat of being sued out of existence, the Clinton administration wanted to do the same thing to the biggest gun companies. But the nature of the settlement had to be different: While the tobacco companies were making money hand over fist and sitting on billions, the gun makers were actually barely making ends meet. In particular S&W, the archetype of American gun companies (together with Colt, which was in even worse shape) was so poor, they had already been sold to various investors several times over.

The settlement that was reached was that S&W would improve its business practices, police its dealers to not sell to children nor to prohibited parties, have the dealers implement theft prevention, and that all S&W handguns would have a a safety, and later also loaded chamber indicators and magazine disconnects. In exchange, federal and state government dropped all the lawsuits against S&W (and the other gun makers), and made them a "preferred supplier", in particular to law enforcement. The safety for pistols was implemented as the little hole with a key. The "preferred supplier" agreement was explicitly intended to compensate the gun makers for the expectation that consumers would be boycotting them (as they ended up doing). Without the settlement, S&W would have certainly been wiped out. Since then, government sales have been the lifeline that has kept S&W barely afloat. I think their net profit these days ends up being a million or so per quarter; not a way to run a company.


Interesting viewpoint. If that is really so, how can you explain that the service handgun of the Swiss military has had a magazine disconnect since 1950? As do most military handguns? Wouldn't one think that of all people, soldiers would need something better than a club?


A correct engineered magazine disconnect will not do that. Look at the Sig P210: As long as the magazine is about 3/4 of the way in (not even fully seated, nor latched), it will fire.


I hope you won't claim that the Swiss army is badly trained.


Strange. Millions of soldiers disagree with you. They go to war with what you would consider a "range toy".

Seriously: Like most things in engineering, the magazine disconnect (as well as the safety on a gun) is a tradeoff. Yes, it adds complexity to the system, and typically extra weight, extra parts. And extra failure modes, although those are very very rare. If implemented correctly (and not all gun makers are actually good at engineering), they should not impact the feel of the trigger, as they should not be even touching the trigger itself, the linkage, or the sear when in the "fire" position. The tradeoff of that little bit of extra complexity is that the gun is safer to operate, namely less likely to get fired when the user doesn't with it to fire. Users that want to carry these guns need to be trained in the manual of arms, namely that firing requires (a) releasing the safety, and (b) having a magazine (even an empty one) fully inserted. For guns that are commonly carried, the general consensus seems to be that this is a good tradeoff. For your personal gun purchases, you are free to disagree. But please understand that people with your attitude would be thrown out of the military in most countries.

Swiss military? They can do whatever they want. I don’t have the benefit of a logistics system that can easily replace missing or broken stuff, nor do I have the luxury of a group (or even one) extra person to help me if I were to loose a critical component to a primary weapon, whereas the average soldier is likely to have a rifle as his primary.
I never said the Swiss military, or anyone else for that matter was poorly trained. What I do say is that learning how to run your pistol in the event that you don’t have a magazine may help save your life if that pistol is all you have. If your pistol is designed in such a way that prevents you from being able to fire it because a part that is easily lost is not there, you might as well use it for what it has now become: a short, inefficient club.

As to the “millions of soldiers…”, do they have a choice in the matter, or are they simply doing as they are told? Did you ask them? I certainly did not. And I can see it any way I want. For me, a pistol that I can’t fire because the magazine is gone is useless. I won’t carry one for defense, as it is my primary weapon. If I loose the magazine I can’t fire it, and I don’t usually have a second gun or a rifle as the primary.
Lastly, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about consensus. It means nothing to me. I only want a sidearm that I can still use in a pinch if I don’t have a magazine. Being that I’m not in the military (my kids are), my attitude about what the military does is irrelevant.

 

[HammerDown]

Plugging that Hillary Hole can be very satisfying.

 

[SargeMojave]

I see. Here is a video, pretty good actually. He is taking the flag indicator out but leaves the key lock cylinder in the side plate.
Both parts need each other to work. You can take out the key cylinder replace it with the plug and put the flag indicator back in to avoid having a gap which could introduce dust or dirt.

I actually had the flag fall out by itself when I was cleaning my 629. I had flipped it over to remove the yoke and when I turned it back over the flag was lying on my work bench. I've seen a few videos on this including this one and they all show that it has to be picked out. The key cylinder and retainer are still in place but I'l get the plug now and replace them.