{"id":406204,"date":"2023-08-11T17:00:07","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T22:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/?p=406204"},"modified":"2024-10-10T08:55:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T13:55:44","slug":"guns-we-miss-the-third-generation-sw-autos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/guns-we-miss-the-third-generation-sw-autos\/","title":{"rendered":"Guns We Miss: The Third Generation S&W Autos"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the late 1980s to the end of the 20th<\/sup> Century (and in some models, a little beyond), we had the Third Generation Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistols. To appreciate them, we have to understand what preceded them.<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/div>\n

After the sales failure of their little pocket autoloaders during the Depression years, Smith & Wesson avoided \u201csquare guns\u201d and made only \u201cround ones\u201d until after WWII. When the US Government indicated a desire to switch to 9mm military service pistols the company was motivated to design one, and after that fell through attempted to recoup their losses with their \u201c9mm Automatic,\u201d later dubbed the Model 39. Gun writers loved it; cops, not so much. Illinois State Police head of Ordnance Louis Seman convinced the superintendent to adopt the Model 39 in 1967. Good news: in a study assigned by Troopers Lodge 41 of the Fraternal Order of Police for Illinois Trooper<\/em> magazine, I was able to identify 13 officers who had survived situations in which they would probably have been killed if armed with their old service revolvers. Four were saved by the greater firepower, the rest by the gun\u2019s safety devices when a criminal got hold of the pistol. Bad news: in a survey I conducted of troopers with approval by ISP headquarters and the Troopers Lodge, a majority of troopers reported they were \u201cless than totally confident\u201d to \u201ctotally insecure and unsafe\u201d with the gun, owing to malfunctions experienced during training. ISP ordered all magazines downloaded by one to reduce stoppages.<\/p>\n

Seman and his heirs in the Ordnance Unit, Bob Cappelli and Sebastian Ulrich, gained the ear of Smith & Wesson. The company\u2019s improvements began with the 39-2 and went next to the Second Generation, designated by three-digit model numbers. The single-stack magazine Gen 2 series still felt great, and the double-stack series still felt as blocky in the hand as the first generation Model 59, which had been the first \u201chigh cap\u201d 9mm to gain American police acceptance. With Gen 2, one no longer needed to put the gun \u201con safe\u201d to make it drop safe, and reliability improved. Gen 2 included the introduction of S&W\u2019s first .45, the aptly named 645 which lasted for only three years. The ambi safety\/decock levers on Gen 2\u2019s were a bit rickety on the southpaw\u2019s side, though.\u00a0 The Second Generation was good, but the best was yet to come.<\/p>\n

Gen 3<\/h2>\n
\"S&W
Author\u2019s premium grade Performance Center 5906. Great trigger, precision accuracy, but so tightly fitted it needed cleaning every few hundred rounds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was at the gun writers\u2019 seminar in Springfield, Massachusetts where S&W previewed the Third Generation. We were impressed. The double action trigger pulls were smoother, and the single action pulls were outstanding and had shorter reset than the SIGs and Berettas they were directly competing against. The grip shape had been changed: much more user-friendly, so SIG-like that some of us nicknamed them \u201cSmIGs\u201d. The ambi safety levers were much sturdier. The poor accuracy of the First Gen guns had been remediated.<\/p>\n

\"S&W
Gen 3s fit the hand well, and a 45-degree thrust of the thumb popped the safety off reliably.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They would be made in blue and stainless, all-steel or with lightweight aluminum frames, sizes small, medium, and large, in grades resembling Sears\u2019 old \u201cgood\/better\/best.\u201d Decock-only would become an option, as would double action only (DAO). DAO\u2019s were very popular among police during the transition from revolver to auto, and I always thought the Smith DAOs were the best: very smooth, with a shorter reach that fit more hands than the Beretta or SIG counterparts. Many 9mm DAO Smith 5946s still work the streets from NYPD (where it became the second most popular optional gun after the lighter, cheaper Glock 19) to Chicago PD. Calibers included 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP and .356 TSW, which debuted in the Third Generation.<\/p>\n

\"S&W
The Model 410 Stainless was an economy grade Gen 3 in .40 S&W. Photo courtesy Smith & Wesson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Personal Experience<\/h2>\n

In 1988 I got the department I served to adopt the S&W 4506, the fourth agency in the world to do so, and we never regretted it. These big .45s grouped 2.0 to 2.5 inches at 25 yards, fed empty cases, and proved utterly reliable. I committed to the platform and for a few years carried the 4506 on duty and on my own time under winter garb, with the lighter 4013 .40 for spring and fall concealment and the little aluminum-framed 9mm Model 3913 under an un-tucked tee or polo in summer. All were tuned: the 4506 by Bob Houzenga, the 4013 by Rich Devoid at Tarnhelm (www.tarnhelm.com), and the 3913 by Karl Sokol. All had the same \u201cfeel,\u201d the same 8+1 capacity, and the same easy-to-operate safety\/decock lever.<\/p>\n

\"S&W-3953\"
3rd Gens lent themselves to customization. Rick Devoid at Tarnhelm smoothed up Mas\u2019 DAO 9mm 3953 and added a thumb safety for weapon retention factors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They lent themselves to customization. Ray Saltzman in Indiana built a compact 7+1 4016 into a carry comp that gave it the silhouette of a 4506 with a shorter butt and tamed the recoil of .45 ACP. Ace Hindman turned one of my 4506s into a .45 Super with a sweet action. Wayne Novak took a 4506 I won at a police event and turned it to single action only with a trigger like a Model 52 target pistol that won multiple matches for me, and S&W\u2019s own Tom Campbell turned another of my 4506s into the first double action only .45 auto to leave the factory. The S&W Performance Center turned many Gen 3s into exquisite target pistols, and Gen 3 was of course the vehicle of the short-lived .356 TSW round that we might just discuss in a future article.<\/p>\n

The trend to polymer guns sounded the death knell for the Gen 3 Smiths; the company came out with its own Sigma series of \u201cplastic pistols\u201d and then their more successful M&P series<\/a>. For some years in the 20th<\/sup> Century, they made short runs of the DAO 9mm 5946 for NYPD and the RCMP, which still have them. But in their short life span, the Gen 3s were made in so many models that we all joked about needing a decoder ring \u2014 more variations than we have space to discuss here. When S&W pulled the plug on spare parts it saddened many. For years, Gen 3 S&Ws sold for $300 or so, but today the \u201cyou don\u2019t know what you\u2019ve got \u2018til it\u2019s gone\u201d factor has jacked prices up significantly.<\/p>\n

\"Mas
Author double-taps with DAO Model 5946, a trade-in from Memphis PD that he bought for $300 a couple of years ago.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the late 1980s to the end of the 20th Century, we had the Third Generation S&W semiautomatic pistols. To appreciate them, we have to understand what preceded them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":406216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2333],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-firearm-reviews"],"small_media_thumbnail":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Massad-Ayoob-SW-5946-muzzle-blast-300x225.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406204"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":440739,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406204\/revisions\/440739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunmagwarehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}