So many people hate S&W for the lock today that it colors everything else about them. Every time a "big" change occurs there is a huge outcry that everything new sucks. When S&W stopped making wheelguns with pinned barrels and recessed cylinders you would have thought the Russians were invading. During the Bangor-Punta era the world was coming to an end. Now it's MIM and The Lock.
If there is one hard and fast rule in the world it is this: "Things were always better back then" whether they actually were or not.
Personally, I can't stand the lock but the guns I've seen look/work fine. I think Rugers are great guns. Decent actions that can be worked on to be nice actions, very accurate. The only reason competition shooters don't use them is that their actions simply don't work as well for the warp speed shooting necessary to be a Miculek, but in every other sense they are excellent. I even think that the fixed sight models are quite elegant (the adj. models are clunky).
If there is one hard and fast rule in the world it is this: "Things were always better back then" whether they actually were or not.
Personally, I can't stand the lock but the guns I've seen look/work fine. I think Rugers are great guns. Decent actions that can be worked on to be nice actions, very accurate. The only reason competition shooters don't use them is that their actions simply don't work as well for the warp speed shooting necessary to be a Miculek, but in every other sense they are excellent. I even think that the fixed sight models are quite elegant (the adj. models are clunky).