My understanding ( I know I'll get corrected if I'm wrong) is that S&W was bought by the people that owned the patent on the lock. They couldn't get any existing gun company to use it and pay them royalties. Smith just happened to be ripe for an aquisition. My only compalint is the need to make a machine less relaiable just to cya with our warped tort system. I own both lock and pre-lock guns. If I had the money I would convert all of them with better quality parts than are used in the manufacture and delete the lock.
Cheers,
ts
Cheers,
ts