Posted by Silvers on March 16, 2007, 10:50 am, in reply to "Re: Boomers???"
Don't get me wrong. Smiths are wonderful classic guns but any experienced gunsmith of old would tell you he saw more Smiths in for stock repairs that ALL the other makes combined. Unfortunately it seems that neither Hunter Arms nor Marlin saw fit to significantly redesign the very limited bearing of the wood in the head of the stock. Marlin advertised they had done so but a close inspection of post-war Smiths made by Marlin doesn't show much different. Personally I think the Hunter Bros and Marlin were riding the laurels of a 1900's design and should have known better when service pressure were raised in the 20's. If you want to load low pressure handloads and limit yourself, you'll probably be okay and not see any wood splitting. But using 3+ dram equivalent and 1-1/4 ounce loads is just asking for trouble. I still have one of my Smiths and shoot it occasionally but most of my classic double shooting is now done with Foxes and Parkers. Personally I consider them to have much superior designs. Before someone answers and tells me they have a Fox or Parker with a cracked stock let me say that will happen with any gun with vintage wood, but the simple fact is you'll see it a great deal more with Smiths. The advice to use low pressure loads is right on. However if you don't or won't handload, and you want to shoot more than moderate shot charges, you'd better not be doing that with your collector quality Smith. Silvers