Great - looking forward to a range report after you've given it some exercise. Did they have a good supply of them at Collector's?
He said he bought quite a few. S&W has some sort of promotion right now where you get a discount if you buy "X" amount of guns, so he ordered enough to qualify, which is why he can offer the low price.
So far the gun is living up to the hype. The trigger is fantastic. Light and crisp with virtually no over-travel. I just put two boxes of CCI standard velocity ammo through it with zero malfunctions and impressive accuracy. After tweaking the rear sight a few clicks to the left I was getting consistent, golf ball size groups at fifty feet with a two-hand grip. I'm sure the gun is capable of much better than that with a steadier hand.
I haven't played the bullseye game in many years but I tried two mags off-hand at the same distance and was very, very happy.
I think a person interested in getting into NRA bullseye pistol matches could start out with this gun without any modifications at all and have a very good time.
I'm trying to think of any other .22 handgun out there that you could buy for under $350 and be competitive in a bullseye pistol match without at least installing a new trigger, if not paying a gunsmith to tune it.
If I were to compete with it about the only thing I would change would be the sights. For informal target shooting as well as hunting and plinking I think the stock fiber optic sights are fine. They're super bright and easily adjustable. But for bullseye shooting I would either install a fine blade front sight or I'd use the included mounting rail and install a target optic. But for all other purposes the three dot fiber optic setup is pretty nice.
All in all, I think if S&W charged $500 for this gun they'd still outsell and out perform anything in its class.
