Written by: Greg Ellifritz
Notice anything wrong?
Here’s a quick cautionary tale…
I recently purchased a Smith and Wesson 351C. It’s a cool little titanium airlight .22 magnum 7 shot revolver. I have a couple of other similar guns. They shoot well and are great pocket “backup” guns. I was excited to shoot my new purchase. I took it to the range, loaded it up and started shooting.
It fired exactly four rounds before breaking.
After the fourth round, the trigger got stuck, failing to fully reset. It wouldn’t move. I had to force the trigger forward by prying it with a screwdriver so that I could open the cylinder to unload the weapon. Once the trigger was in its forward position, it became free. I could pull the trigger and it reset each time, but now the cylinder wouldn’t revolve.
I sent the gun back to S&W and they replaced the cylinder and hand. The gun works fine now.
It just made me think about all the folks who buy a gun, load it, and then rely on it for self protection without ever having fired it. That’s somewhat less than ideal. While someone would assume a $700 brand new revolver from a quality manufacturer would work flawlessly out of the box, that isn’t always the case.
Never carry a gun for defensive purposes without test firing it first!
