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Old 01-23-2013, 06:13 PM
Yournamehere Yournamehere is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 912
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I'm on the fence with whether or not to get a 3913 or a 6906 myself, since the 3913 has better ergos but the 6906 holds 4 more rounds in the mag, and the older versions have the exquisite looking square guard. Perhaps the one benefit of living in Florida's humid climate is the abundance of stainless Classic S&W Autos too, since although you and Shooter seem to have a hard time finding them, I trip over them whenever I go to any gun store here.

The TSW is cool in a few respects I'll admit. S&Ws laser etching isn't quite as traditionally cool as stamping, but it looks very clean, and the TACTICAL as part of the rollmark sort of helps the gun mesh up to current trends in the practical shooting world. However I only think it does so in appearance and not in function. Being pre-rail, it isn't functionally TACTICAL and it's more or less just a word they put on the slide for marketing purposes. Being a later production 3913, it also has the blued small parts (I'm not sure whether or not they are cast as opposed to forged, or if that matters) which is an accent some like and some can do without. I prefer the stainless parts myself for aesthetic and corrosion resistance purposes.

I will say that one feature that makes this gun TACTICAL is the recessed beveled magazine well which you don't see on standard 3913s. I'm not sure if yours is the same but it's definitely interesting. I'm not sure I like it though since it means proprietary magazine, and since 3913 mags are relatively hard to come by to begin with, that may pose a problem. The mags are 7 rounders to accommodate for this too as opposed to the regular 8, and they don't make the butt any shorter for added ease of concealment as you'd expect.

I know why you bought it though, and no, I'm not going to say it was the TACTICAL rollmark and you buying into stupid marketing for a joke at your expense, I'm not that cruel sir. You got it for the same reason Predator bought the 4505 and why I bought my 92SB. It has some of the mystique and functionality of it's relatives and a peculiarity all its own from it's rarity and different (not necessarily better) features. You probably wanted a 3913 as well, and this was the only thing available, and it was damned interesting at that. The divide between the 4505/92SB and this though is that this is a gun one buys for a highly functional purpose, concealed carry, as opposed to it being a collectible plinker. The inhibitions of the functional peculiarities therefore mean more. You wanted change for a five and you got three ones and then a two dollar bill. It's weird, it's probably not as functional as five ones, but there's something about having it that makes you feel... special, I guess.
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