I took delivery of my Performance Center 29 last week after much hassle with JSC. (Jerry's Sports Centers, the exclusive distributor) My dealer literally sent his FFL to them four times before they managed to get things straight and tell him which location to send it to. Spending nearly $900 has never been so difficult. That aside....
Overall I'm impressed with the piece. The dark wood grips are gorgeous, the frame blueing is good, and it handles and shoots well. I'm a big fan of the unfluted cylinder look, but am told that the revolver is available with either cylinder type. The PC stainless matte trigger and hammer contrast nicely with the blued finish. I put a variety of .44 ammo through it, both my target loads and some factory full power rounds, without issue. The PC trigger is crisp and compares favorably to my early 70's 29. The DA needs some breaking in, but the SA is very nice much like the other PC guns I've handled.
The fiber / flourescent front site might be nice for some but my range uses orange / red targets which makes it a liability. I've swaped it out for the gold bead partridge style sight which should improve things a bit. Changing the sights was very easy.
It's a "4 screw" with the 4th screw at the top of the sideplate much like older smiths. However the screw is a different diameter/type, it looks more like the sight adjustment screws than the other sideplate screws. This sort of detracts from the vintage look I think Smith is going for. I don't own any vintage 4 screw Smiths so perhaps this isn't odd?
Gripes:
Cylinder Blueing is lousy, I own almost a dozen blued S&W's from the 60's to the present and this the worst blueing I have ever seen on a smith. It's mottled, unevenly and thinly applied. The extractor star was also poorly blued. Cleaning of the cylinder after one shooting session showed wear on the finish. Perhaps this is a symptom of smith not blueing much anymore? I'm considering sending the gun back to have the cylinder redone. Has anyone with a new 586, 520 or 10 seen this?
The grips are massive and blocky around the trigger guard. I'm used to the older smith target grips on K/L/N frames and they fit my hand better. The PC grips are gorgeous but I may swap them out with some hogues or miculek wood grips like on my 625.
There's a provided weaver rail scope mount that you afix with four allen screws. Unfortunately there's also matte metal place holder on top of the barrel which substitutes if you don't use the mount. It's unfinished metal and looks butt ugly on such a nice piece.
Just my $0.02.....
