The Smith and Wesson 696 is a stainless steel, L-frame, 5-shot revolver chambered in .44 Special. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of it, I hadn't until I saw this one at the Marlboro show. The price was a mere $275 so I snapped it up.
The 696 features a 3" barrel with full shroud, a round butt, and came with Uncle Mikes Combat Grips from the factory. It has a smooth combat trigger, red ramp front sight, and a white outlined adjustable rear sight (I've always liked these). The fit and finish is typical of stainless S&W revolvers from this period (in other words, it's adequate, but not as good as older or very new models). This revolver was manufactured for only 5 years - from 1997-2002. I'm not sure of the exact quantity that were produced, but there are not too many of these around.
The first thing I noticed about this revolver was the trigger - it is amazing. The double action pull is smooth and light, the single action trigger is like breaking the proverbial glass rod. I bought this at the LaRocca table at the Marlboro show; this might have something to do with it.
It's a good size for carry, and weighs in at 36 ounces unloaded. You might be thinking, "Why would anyone want to carry this as opposed to a .357 Model 686?" I can answer that in one word: "recoil", or more specifically, lack thereof. The recoil was unexpectedly light. The first time I pulled thr trigger on this, I was amazed at the lack of recoil. It was like shooting a light .38 load. The two other people that shot it today said the same thing. It was a gentle push rather than a snap. I was firing some 240 grain lead cowboy loads from Magtech.
Tele_mark and myself ran a box of ammo through it. After he left, and as I was leaving, one of my fellow club members pulled up, so I unpacked and shot it with him for a while - using up another box of ammo. My best group size was a disappointing 3" at 50'. I'm going to blame a lot of that on the cold; because it was friggin' cold today - especially when you were standing in it for almost 3 hours.
One thing I learned when buying ammo for this: If you're going to shoot a .44 Special, you should seriously consider reloading. At over $20/box for the "cheap" stuff, you'd go broke quick if you wanted to shoot it a lot. Fortunately, I do reload. I've got some dies, brass and 240 grain plated bullets for it so I'm going to make up a variety of loads using Bullseye, W231, and Titegroup so I can figure out what it likes.
I'm a big S&W fan, and I love this revolver. I consider myself extremely lucky to have found this gun at the price I paid. A quick check on Gunbroker showed that the last three used Model 696s went for $715, $745, & $885
The 696 features a 3" barrel with full shroud, a round butt, and came with Uncle Mikes Combat Grips from the factory. It has a smooth combat trigger, red ramp front sight, and a white outlined adjustable rear sight (I've always liked these). The fit and finish is typical of stainless S&W revolvers from this period (in other words, it's adequate, but not as good as older or very new models). This revolver was manufactured for only 5 years - from 1997-2002. I'm not sure of the exact quantity that were produced, but there are not too many of these around.
The first thing I noticed about this revolver was the trigger - it is amazing. The double action pull is smooth and light, the single action trigger is like breaking the proverbial glass rod. I bought this at the LaRocca table at the Marlboro show; this might have something to do with it.
It's a good size for carry, and weighs in at 36 ounces unloaded. You might be thinking, "Why would anyone want to carry this as opposed to a .357 Model 686?" I can answer that in one word: "recoil", or more specifically, lack thereof. The recoil was unexpectedly light. The first time I pulled thr trigger on this, I was amazed at the lack of recoil. It was like shooting a light .38 load. The two other people that shot it today said the same thing. It was a gentle push rather than a snap. I was firing some 240 grain lead cowboy loads from Magtech.
Tele_mark and myself ran a box of ammo through it. After he left, and as I was leaving, one of my fellow club members pulled up, so I unpacked and shot it with him for a while - using up another box of ammo. My best group size was a disappointing 3" at 50'. I'm going to blame a lot of that on the cold; because it was friggin' cold today - especially when you were standing in it for almost 3 hours.
One thing I learned when buying ammo for this: If you're going to shoot a .44 Special, you should seriously consider reloading. At over $20/box for the "cheap" stuff, you'd go broke quick if you wanted to shoot it a lot. Fortunately, I do reload. I've got some dies, brass and 240 grain plated bullets for it so I'm going to make up a variety of loads using Bullseye, W231, and Titegroup so I can figure out what it likes.
I'm a big S&W fan, and I love this revolver. I consider myself extremely lucky to have found this gun at the price I paid. A quick check on Gunbroker showed that the last three used Model 696s went for $715, $745, & $885
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