Whose Idea Was This?

We’ve all used products, perfected over the years to the point where they suit our needs perfectly. All of a sudden you go to the store to buy a new gizmo and, hey wait — it ain’t the same. Some bright guy, more than likely a bean-counter in the lower caverns of the business, thought the company needed to subtract a doo-hickey from the thing-a-ma-bob in order to save two cents. The product is changed and, as we all know, consumers hate change and will desert that product overnight. By the time the company figures the economics of what they’ve done just to save a few bucks, the bloggers and Internet chat room “experts” have completely turned a once-great product into smoldering ruins. Maybe we can fix this one now.

Smith and Wesson recently changed their famous “L” frame revolver and it ain’t a pretty sight. They did something I’m sure they will correct at the usual snail’s pace large corporations correct mistakes at, but as for now shooters and gunsmiths alike need to know what’s going on. Internet chat rooms and bloggers are going wild trying to figure out whose really bad idea it was to create a shrouded barrel for the just-fine-like-it-was “L” model revolver. There is nothing wrong with shrouded barrels mind you, in fact there are many positives. Dan Wesson perfected the shrouded barrel and it worked pretty good for a number of years in the hands of silhouette shooters and hunters.

There's more from Alex Hamilton in the Jan/Feb issue...

• A Better Idea?
• A Fix

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