Dave DeLaurant
Contributing Member
While there are several guns I’ve hoped to own during my lifetime, I don’t think in terms of bucket lists. If I had however, the new Dan Wesson 715 Pistol Pack I’ve just brought home would have been at the very top.
Here’s the backstory: My very first centerfire handgun was a Dan Wesson Model 15 with a 6” barrel, purchased well-used in 1983 from Herb Bauer Sporting Goods for $175. Two years later I saw a classified ad in the local newspaper from Dean’s Pawn Shop for a Model 15 with a 2” barrel, in near-new condition for $195 -- soon I owned another. In time I located a second 6” barrel plus some Pachmayr “Grippers”, so the two revolvers would handle the same.
They both had good triggers and excellent accuracy, and the only trouble I’d experienced was a seized windage adjustment screw on one of the rear sights. This lead to the purchase of an excellent MMC replacement sight.
The DW Model 15 is a fascinating design. Like the T/C Contender and later Ruger GP/SP revolvers, it uses a narrow rectangular stud rather than a conventional grip frame, permitting a wide range of grip shapes. In fact, one factory option was an inletted but unshaped block of wood that owners could carve however they liked. The cylinder latch is mounted on the crane rather than the frame, a very simple method for securely supporting the cylinder firmly at the front. The manual of arms for reloading differs from frame-mounted cylinder releases, but I quickly became used to it. Taurus later copied this latch on their “Raging” series of heavy revolvers. The action is quite similar to Colt’s Mk III/V Trooper and Lawman revolvers, using a transfer bar and clockwise cylinder rotation. And of course there are the easily removed and replaced barrels, allowing one revolver to be reconfigured for different uses. I also particularly like the way this system allowed me to thoroughly clean fouling from frame around the forcing cone
Over about two decades I’d put several thousand rounds through each gun, both my own handloads and factory Federal target wadcutters. Accuracy was everything I could ask for. The pair alternated duty on our nightstand. After I noticed a little rust forming around one of the rear sight cavities I learned that my wife had been in the habit of taking the revolver in the bathroom when showering when I was away from home. Evidently the movie Psycho had made a permanent impact on her. Soon I had both revolvers hard-chromed, by Armoloy and Accurate Plating & Weaponry respectively, and rust ceased to be a serious concern. Later I also switched to Hogue grips.
While the 6” barrels I had were OK, I’d long wanted to obtain a pair of 4” barrels for nightstand duty. In the late 1990s I’d read somewhere that Hamilton Bowen’s shop was offering a conversion for Colt and S&W revolvers to take Dan Wesson-type barrels and shrouds, so I phoned his shop to see if they had any for sale. I was surprised that Mr. Bowen himself picked up. He told me he didn’t stock barrels compatible with the DW frame threads and then mentioned, a bit offhandedly, that the Dan Wessons were not “quality” revolvers. I was a bit overawed by his authority behind the statement and didn’t have the nerve to ask for specifics.
Let me state here that I would not dream of disagreeing with Mr. Bowen. He's forgotten more about revolvers than I'll ever know. I just should never have listened to him; by this point in my life I was old enough to have a degree of confidence in my own opinions. His comment left a nagging suspicion that festered in me, and would later turn into a teaching moment. What I would learn from it is that superior quality firearms and firearms with superior qualities are distinct and separate considerations. Sometimes it’s best to look at the whole, sometimes at the parts and their sum. In any event, his comment did lead me to do some research.
The various incarnations of Dan Wesson, as a revolver company, always seemed to be struggling financially. While their products were innovative, they were definitely built to a price. Common alternatives to forging were employed to reduce production costs, investment casting and sintering to name two. These occasionally resulted in QC issues. Their designs also experienced teething problems. The initial versions with external barrel nuts and “pork chop” barrel shrouds were just plain butt-ugly.
Karl R. Lewis, the lead designer at Dan Wesson, had some peculiar ideas regarding aesthetics. Here’s his patent drawing covering the barrel system;
The parts of the lockwork were engineered to drop in with very little hand fitting, but I understand that it was not particularly amenable to alteration and custom tuning. While the DA trigger has a light pull and short hammer fall, the reset is longer than some other revolver actions and takes practice to avoid short-stroking. As they were my first DA revolvers, it wasn’t a problem.
To this day, my opinion remains that the Model 15 was and is an excellent, very refined design. In my sample size of two two Monson, MA production guns I never encountered evidence of obvious QC problems. However, by the end of 2005 some of my firearm interests had changed and I decided sell off a total of six handguns, including both of my Model 15s. I began regretting that sale in pretty short order. I also sold an NEF revolver in H&R .32 Magnum at the same time that I later regretted. The NEF wasn’t pretty or fancy, but it was functional and fairly rugged. All three revolvers had never let me down, and they certainly hadn’t netted very much at resale.
Before long I began looking around for at least one new-production replacement DW. New examples were evidently few, and used ones just weren’t to be found around here. When CZ announced that the Model 715 (the Model 15 in stainless) would start becoming available again in 2013 I became very excited, though my enthusiasm was tempered at the time by an MSRP north of $1K. Then barely five years later, after a very limited run, CZ cancelled production. I wasn’t sure that any of these had even reached California.
In 2025 the discretionary portion of my budget was a bit more generous than a decade earlier. I’ve been visiting my favorite LGS more often, and on a trip there last month I was shown a CZ/Dan Wesson 715 Pistol Pack, with 4” 6” and 8” barrel assemblies, in brand new, unfired condition. I asked the price and was told $2K. I didn’t so much hesitate as wince as I fished out my Visa card. I recalled that this was roughly the MSRP for the Pistol Pack (CZ evidently added the 'K', as it used to be Pistol Pac) while it was still in production. I also figured I’d never have another chance at owning one of these. I later emailed Dan Wesson and learned that the five-year total production of these Pistol Packs under CZ was only approximately 550 sets. For context, twice as many Walker Colts were manufactured at Whitneyville.
BTW, the build quality of this latest version of the 715 seems above reproach to me, though this time I’m not going to confirm this with Mr. Bowen.
The smart money move would be to store my gun away as an investment, but I fully intend to shoot the heck out of it. Given my experience with older Monson, MA examples, it should be able to shrug off any use that I’m able to put it to. In any case, the Dan Wesson Company in NY still offers warranty service on revolvers, and makes new parts and components.
Once I got the gun home, I installed the 4" barrel and an aftermarket fiber optic front sight as an aid for my failing eyesight. I've a smooth laminated rosewood grip on order from Hogue that should arrive a couple-three weeks from now.
Here’s the backstory: My very first centerfire handgun was a Dan Wesson Model 15 with a 6” barrel, purchased well-used in 1983 from Herb Bauer Sporting Goods for $175. Two years later I saw a classified ad in the local newspaper from Dean’s Pawn Shop for a Model 15 with a 2” barrel, in near-new condition for $195 -- soon I owned another. In time I located a second 6” barrel plus some Pachmayr “Grippers”, so the two revolvers would handle the same.
They both had good triggers and excellent accuracy, and the only trouble I’d experienced was a seized windage adjustment screw on one of the rear sights. This lead to the purchase of an excellent MMC replacement sight.
The DW Model 15 is a fascinating design. Like the T/C Contender and later Ruger GP/SP revolvers, it uses a narrow rectangular stud rather than a conventional grip frame, permitting a wide range of grip shapes. In fact, one factory option was an inletted but unshaped block of wood that owners could carve however they liked. The cylinder latch is mounted on the crane rather than the frame, a very simple method for securely supporting the cylinder firmly at the front. The manual of arms for reloading differs from frame-mounted cylinder releases, but I quickly became used to it. Taurus later copied this latch on their “Raging” series of heavy revolvers. The action is quite similar to Colt’s Mk III/V Trooper and Lawman revolvers, using a transfer bar and clockwise cylinder rotation. And of course there are the easily removed and replaced barrels, allowing one revolver to be reconfigured for different uses. I also particularly like the way this system allowed me to thoroughly clean fouling from frame around the forcing cone
Over about two decades I’d put several thousand rounds through each gun, both my own handloads and factory Federal target wadcutters. Accuracy was everything I could ask for. The pair alternated duty on our nightstand. After I noticed a little rust forming around one of the rear sight cavities I learned that my wife had been in the habit of taking the revolver in the bathroom when showering when I was away from home. Evidently the movie Psycho had made a permanent impact on her. Soon I had both revolvers hard-chromed, by Armoloy and Accurate Plating & Weaponry respectively, and rust ceased to be a serious concern. Later I also switched to Hogue grips.
While the 6” barrels I had were OK, I’d long wanted to obtain a pair of 4” barrels for nightstand duty. In the late 1990s I’d read somewhere that Hamilton Bowen’s shop was offering a conversion for Colt and S&W revolvers to take Dan Wesson-type barrels and shrouds, so I phoned his shop to see if they had any for sale. I was surprised that Mr. Bowen himself picked up. He told me he didn’t stock barrels compatible with the DW frame threads and then mentioned, a bit offhandedly, that the Dan Wessons were not “quality” revolvers. I was a bit overawed by his authority behind the statement and didn’t have the nerve to ask for specifics.
Let me state here that I would not dream of disagreeing with Mr. Bowen. He's forgotten more about revolvers than I'll ever know. I just should never have listened to him; by this point in my life I was old enough to have a degree of confidence in my own opinions. His comment left a nagging suspicion that festered in me, and would later turn into a teaching moment. What I would learn from it is that superior quality firearms and firearms with superior qualities are distinct and separate considerations. Sometimes it’s best to look at the whole, sometimes at the parts and their sum. In any event, his comment did lead me to do some research.
The various incarnations of Dan Wesson, as a revolver company, always seemed to be struggling financially. While their products were innovative, they were definitely built to a price. Common alternatives to forging were employed to reduce production costs, investment casting and sintering to name two. These occasionally resulted in QC issues. Their designs also experienced teething problems. The initial versions with external barrel nuts and “pork chop” barrel shrouds were just plain butt-ugly.
Karl R. Lewis, the lead designer at Dan Wesson, had some peculiar ideas regarding aesthetics. Here’s his patent drawing covering the barrel system;
The parts of the lockwork were engineered to drop in with very little hand fitting, but I understand that it was not particularly amenable to alteration and custom tuning. While the DA trigger has a light pull and short hammer fall, the reset is longer than some other revolver actions and takes practice to avoid short-stroking. As they were my first DA revolvers, it wasn’t a problem.
To this day, my opinion remains that the Model 15 was and is an excellent, very refined design. In my sample size of two two Monson, MA production guns I never encountered evidence of obvious QC problems. However, by the end of 2005 some of my firearm interests had changed and I decided sell off a total of six handguns, including both of my Model 15s. I began regretting that sale in pretty short order. I also sold an NEF revolver in H&R .32 Magnum at the same time that I later regretted. The NEF wasn’t pretty or fancy, but it was functional and fairly rugged. All three revolvers had never let me down, and they certainly hadn’t netted very much at resale.
Before long I began looking around for at least one new-production replacement DW. New examples were evidently few, and used ones just weren’t to be found around here. When CZ announced that the Model 715 (the Model 15 in stainless) would start becoming available again in 2013 I became very excited, though my enthusiasm was tempered at the time by an MSRP north of $1K. Then barely five years later, after a very limited run, CZ cancelled production. I wasn’t sure that any of these had even reached California.
In 2025 the discretionary portion of my budget was a bit more generous than a decade earlier. I’ve been visiting my favorite LGS more often, and on a trip there last month I was shown a CZ/Dan Wesson 715 Pistol Pack, with 4” 6” and 8” barrel assemblies, in brand new, unfired condition. I asked the price and was told $2K. I didn’t so much hesitate as wince as I fished out my Visa card. I recalled that this was roughly the MSRP for the Pistol Pack (CZ evidently added the 'K', as it used to be Pistol Pac) while it was still in production. I also figured I’d never have another chance at owning one of these. I later emailed Dan Wesson and learned that the five-year total production of these Pistol Packs under CZ was only approximately 550 sets. For context, twice as many Walker Colts were manufactured at Whitneyville.
BTW, the build quality of this latest version of the 715 seems above reproach to me, though this time I’m not going to confirm this with Mr. Bowen.
The smart money move would be to store my gun away as an investment, but I fully intend to shoot the heck out of it. Given my experience with older Monson, MA examples, it should be able to shrug off any use that I’m able to put it to. In any case, the Dan Wesson Company in NY still offers warranty service on revolvers, and makes new parts and components.
Once I got the gun home, I installed the 4" barrel and an aftermarket fiber optic front sight as an aid for my failing eyesight. I've a smooth laminated rosewood grip on order from Hogue that should arrive a couple-three weeks from now.
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don’t go well together. Thanks for the video. I subscribed so I could see when you have new ones posted.
