The Brazilian Contract Smith & Wesson I talked about here arrived while I was in Michigan. I got home yesterday and dinked around with it a bit. I’d like to thank the GunBroker seller who tossed in some half-moon clips for free as well; I’d hate to be at the range punching the empties out with a little dowel.
The gun itself looks great; the blue is still pretty well intact, the stampings are are clear. It has the S&W logo on the left side of the gun, and the Brazilian stamp on the right side. On the barrel, it just says “Smith & Wesson .45”. One of the neat features about this gun is that one of the previous owners removed the original grips (decreasing the collector value to be sure) and replaced them with a really gorgeous set of stag grips. I had been thinking before the gun arrived that I would replace the stag grips with a replica of the original grips. However, when I actually held it yesterday, the stag grips fit my hand perfectly, and I’ve got to admit that they look really sharp on the gun.
I’m going to take it out to the range this weekend and see how it shoots. This gun has done something that none of my other guns have – I am excited to shoot it based entirely on the trigger pull. My Ruger GP100 has a good DA trigger pull. My Taurus Tracker has a good SA trigger pull. The DA pull on this Smith is so crisp and smooth it’s unreal. The DA pull is so good that it feels better than the SA pull on my ’35 Beretta. The Single Action pull on the Smith is…well…it’s amazing. I have never been excited to shoot a gun based entirely on the trigger pull during dry-fire until now. I have visions of ragged one hole groups dancing in my head.
Like I said, I’ll take it to the range on Saturday – I’ll post some pictures and a full breakdown then.
–
