INTERNAL GUN LOCKS
Earlier blog posts on new Smith & Wesson products here in the last few weeks triggered a visceral storm of criticism in the Comments sections for S&W’s continued installation of an internal lock on most of their revolvers. The turn of the key locks the mechanism and renders the gun unshootable, even if it is fully loaded.
S&W has departed from the current policy twice. First, as mentioned here in comments, they quickly sold out a run of Airweight .38 revolvers made on older frames in stock, which did not have the controversial feature. Second, they’ve had good sales of their “lemon-squeezer” series, so called because these models come with a grip safety that the company feels, apparently, makes the internal lock redundant. These are still available, and can now be had in Airweight, the Model 42-1.
My experience and research has shown that spontaneous locking of the guns during firing (characterized as an ILF, or Internal Lock Failure) has occurred, but rarely. It normally involves very powerful guns with very violent recoil, and also very light guns (Scandium, Titanium) firing these extremely hot rounds. The buffeting from the heavy “kick” seems to be what’s jarring the parts out of alignment. However, one of our readers reported in the comments section that he saw an all-steel S&W spontaneously lock after it was accidentally dropped. Again, a violent impact to small parts seems to have been the culprit.
I know several folks at Smith & Wesson, some highly placed, who don’t much like the locks either. However, prevailing corporate policy says the locks are going to stay for now.
Personally, all the S&W revolvers I carry or use for anything serious are older models without the locks. While I’ve bought several of the lock-equipped later models, all but one were for sport. The single exception is the Model 340 Military & Police, a roughly 14-ounce five-shot pocket revolver chambered for .357 Magnum. This gun has a unique sight concept: a huge XS Tritium Big Dot front, and a humongous U-notch rear. Developed by S&W engineer Jason Dubois to the best of my knowledge, this arrangement allows the very rare combination of fast sight acquisition in poor light, AND extreme accuracy. This gun puts every shot in one hole at 7 yards if I do my part. I’ve shot hell out of it with hot .357 Magnum loads and never had a spontaneous lock, but I still carry it with milder 135 grain Speer Gold Dot 135 grain +P .38 Special just to be sure. (And because, in a gun this light, the Magnum rounds are just painful to shoot.)
I did not remove the internal lock, for the simple reason that I’ve seen a prosecutor raise hell about a deactivated safety device when trying to establish the element of recklessness that is a key ingredient in a manslaughter conviction. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant was so reckless that he DEACTIVATED A SAFETY DEVICE ON A LETHAL WEAPON, and so arrogant that he thought he knew more about the gun than the factory that made it!” That’s a mountain I’d rather not have to climb in court, nor debate in front of twelve jurors selected in part by opposing counsel for their lack of knowledge of firearms.
Smith & Wesson makes their Military & Police semiautomatic pistol line with options: the customer can have it with or without manual thumb safety, and with or without internal magazine disconnector safety. I wish S&W would offer the same options with their revolvers, but it’s a much more complicated and expensive thing to do in revolver as opposed to pistol manufacture. In the meantime, we simply have the choice to buy a different brand. If you have chosen to remove the internal lock feature from your late-model S&W revolver, do yourself a favor and download copies of threads on gun forums in which this issue is discussed, and cases of lock failure are documented. Keep them on file. If you become the test case, that material may help to defuse arguments that removing THIS particular safety device means you’re a reckless person.
When the sights allow a five-shot group that all hit the aiming paster at 7 yards like this, without even using the Crimson Trace Laser Grip’s projected red aiming dot, Mas can forgive the internal lock. Keyway is seen above cylinder latch on this Model 340 M&P .357.
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I can understand that S&W pretty much has to offer guns with locks, and that they are not willing to make and stock two different sets of frames. Is there any good reason they could not offer an optional non-functional filler button for the lock mechanism?
I have a centennial with a lock–I would rather have no lock, but not enough to modify it myself)
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
The extra locking safeties currently on various hand-guns seem to be a solution to a problem that truly does not exist. If you don’t want unathorized persons to fire your hand gun, keep it on your person, locked in a safe, unloaded, and or all of the above. No fuss, no bother. I understand it really isn’t about safety either on the part of the entities wanting the safeties or on the part of the manufacture. For the manufactures it is about avoiding the possiblity of liability. Law suits against them can and have consumed huge amounts of dollars even though most are won by the gun industry.
Having been an “unauthorized” person for access to various locks and security systems and areas in my life, I found it was to easy to acquire the keys to systems I was not supposed to have access too. With the advent of the internet it is even easier that 20-30 years ago. The extra gun locks aren’t going to stop a criminal smart enough to steel, copy, aquire or manufacture the key needed to open it. I’d wager it is possible to defeat either the Smith or Taurus locks with common hand tools, might need to disassemble the Smith though.
Stick to your guns, but I’d say if you like the new models of Smith and Wesson or Taurus revolvers, keep buying them and learn to live and work with the safeties. Keep bugging the companies to stop including them too.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Well, I don’t particularly like the idea. It isn’t a necessary feature for one thing. The topic has been much discussed on the net, but here goes anyway. Assuming that the failure rate of those locks is exceedingly low, that is still an added layer of complexity and added parts that can break. It adds an extra .00000whatever % chance that the gun won’t work when you need it to.
Take two otherwise identical S&W revolvers. The Smith without an internal lock has a 0.0% chance of the lock ever causing a problem. The Smith with one has an unkown % chance of developing a problem with the lock. Whatever that number is, it is certainly somewhat slightly greater than zero.
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Simple solution: boycott S&W.
September 4th, 2009 at 8:17 am
A company that sells stuff and doesn’t listen to its customers has a problem. Mr. Golden may be a great guy and wonderful CEO but he doesn’t get it. YOUR customers are speaking, LISTEN !
Now S&W may continue on as a company for another century or two, but how many potential buyers have they alienated? It comes down to arrogance. That’s ok. Buyers will go elsewhere. The brand will be damaged. As a public company, shareholders will suffer. How shortsighted. The end result of letting lawyers run a company.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:35 am
My newer S&Ws have the lock installed with Locktite Black for my pease of mind.
I would sure like to see someone, Brownells?, Wolfe? engineer a really powerful spring for the lock that would make certain it stayed where put, even if it took a large wrench to switch the safety.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:49 am
The internal lock is redundant. All my modern firearms already require a “key” to enable them to fire. It’s called a cartridge.
September 4th, 2009 at 10:08 am
I agree that deactivating an internal safety might cause problems if the pistol were unfortunately required to be used in a self defense scenario. I find it interesting, however, that the FBI’s Quantico gunsmiths immediately deactivate S&W magazine safeties from all pistols to be carried by FBI agents in the field. Apparently, the FBI knows what makes sense and what doesn’t for a self defense firearm!
I personally will not purchase another S&W as long as the internal safety is present. Murphy’s Law assures that if something can go wrong, it absolutely will, and at the absolute worst possible time.
September 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
The gun locks up 1 the key is at home in safe or gun box or on table- SOL 2 key gets lost – SOL 3 high adrenaline situation fumbling through key ring for gun key of right maker amide house and car keys- SOL. Scares the crap out of me.
September 4th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Shut off valves in plumbing have a real and valuable use. There really are many times you are gonna need to turn off the water or the gas, especially if you need to work on older fixtures and furnaces.
Locks on guns are exactly the opposite, they actually impair the real functioning of the weapon, do nothing to improve its service life, and subtract from operation.
Here is a question, what is so safe about a weapon that might not fire when you need it to? My family is not gonna find it any safer. I am not gonna find it any safer, the only one who is gonna enjoy greater safety is the one making a victim of me and mine, the Deer I am hunting, or the critter that is on attack.
When are the lawyers and paper pusher gonna learn that the whole point of a gun is that its dangerous and can take a life? Putting a little turn off valve on it might make it less scary, but is that what we really want? Do we want the youth to loose respect for guns and what they can do, all because they can shut it off?
I try to be a safety minded guy. I will never remove the lock. I love S&Ws and will keep buying them as long as I can honestly afford to, but forever, there will always be the question-whose side is the shut off really on?
September 4th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Mas, I wish you would stop making gun recommendations. My fiance and my checking account would appreciate it as well.
When I saw the sights on the 340 when compared to the sights on the J-frames I already own I had to have one the moment I found a good deal.
September 4th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
My Mother is in the process of getting her CCW,so I took her shopping today for a suitable carry gun. She had almost decided on a S&W 642 when a Black S&W 442 caught her eye. While She was looking them over & debating which one to buy,the gunshop owner said “let me see that little 442″ and after looking at it for a second he exclaimed “this doesn’t have the lock!”.
My Mother didn’t know anything about the locks, but I as well as the owner recommended that she get the 442 since it lacked that asinine internal lock. I own a couple of S&W Centennials myself(both with the locks)so, they are not a deal breaker for me, but I would much prefer to see S&W do away with them completely.
September 5th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Sadly, we (informed shooters) are in the *vast* minority these days, so S&W has to play to the larger market of folks who may not know any better. There is also the 800lb Gorilla Family of lawyers, legislators and their ilk…
Remember, if S&W can’t sell guns, they can’t make guns.
September 6th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I think that the main objection with the S&W revolver locks is that it is in the sideplate, thus being a physical disfigurement and a potential entry way for dirt. Ruger, which puts the lock under the stocks, has no similar problems with complaints. If S&W moved the lock under the stocks in a similar fashion, most of the complaints would probably cease.
September 7th, 2009 at 12:06 am
I own two guns with internal locks, a Taurus PT745 MillPro and my Ruger P345. Never use them. I use to use them when at home before I got a small locking safe to store my guns that I was carrying that day due to three teenage kids running around. Now I just put them in the safe and the key hangs from a shoelace around my neck. I find it much easier to use.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I am one of those viscerally opposed to internal locks on firearms. I see them as unnecessarily complicating the mechanism. Life experience has taught me that what can go wrong, will. Aesthetically, I just don’t like the extra holes on some. I also don’t like having to keep up with an extra accessory for the firearm. A retired soldier (and infantryman) I believe in K.I.S.S.
BUT, I do own a couple (3) of the Ruger SAs with the internal lock. I never use it. The grips haven’t been altered to permit its use. However, these aren’t really self-defense guns either.
All that aside, the guns I like are cheaper used but in very good condition than new production. Makes my illogical, visceral objection very easy to live with!
Keep writing Mas, love your stuff and have been reading you for a long time now.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
FYI, last night while dry firing my S&W 442 (with lock), I had the trigger mechanism freeze up; the firing pin was poking through the hole in the frame and the cylinder couldn’t be opened. I tried fiddling with the lock and found that the key would some times turn to the locked position, but other times would free spin in both directions; locked and unlocked.
Am waiting for a reply from S&W regarding sending it in for repair.
I too have heard of locks failing from firing hot loads, but from dry firing? It’s got me stumped!
September 26th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Buy an older barely-used S&W revolver and not only won’t this problem of the internal lock exist – but the gun will cost much less, particularly if it’s a model that was popular with police.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I just won a bid on a smith 29 a later model with the internal lock. I how I did’nt make a mistake I thiught I got a fair deal on it $549, in the box in excellent shape.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
You mentioned that S&W quickly sold out of their run of 642s and 442s that were made from old stock, without the internal lock. I was wondering if they are still available for sale, since they are still listed in their on-line catalog. Is S&W still making them? They certainly should. I would purchase a Scandium version without the lock if they made it, too.
November 6th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Scott, a dealer friend tells me another quantity of new no-lock J-frames has just become available. I haven’t had a chance to ask S&W about it yet, though.