Range Report and Photos - S&W 696

EddieCoyle

Consigliere
Moderator
NES Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2005
Messages
21,325
Likes
9,769
Location
Northern, MA
Feedback: 160 / 0 / 0
The Smith and Wesson 696 is a stainless steel, L-frame, 5-shot revolver chambered in .44 Special. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard of it, I hadn't until I saw this one at the Marlboro show. The price was a mere $275 so I snapped it up.

Click on any picture for a larger image



The 696 features a 3" barrel with full shroud, a round butt, and came with Uncle Mikes Combat Grips from the factory. It has a smooth combat trigger, red ramp front sight, and a white outlined adjustable rear sight (I've always liked these). The fit and finish is typical of stainless S&W revolvers from this period (in other words, it's adequate, but not as good as older or very new models). This revolver was manufactured for only 5 years - from 1997-2002. I'm not sure of the exact quantity that were produced, but there are not too many of these around.

The first thing I noticed about this revolver was the trigger - it is amazing. The double action pull is smooth and light, the single action trigger is like breaking the proverbial glass rod. I bought this at the LaRocca table at the Marlboro show; this might have something to do with it.

It's a good size for carry, and weighs in at 36 ounces unloaded. You might be thinking, "Why would anyone want to carry this as opposed to a .357 Model 686?" I can answer that in one word: "recoil", or more specifically, lack thereof. The recoil was unexpectedly light. The first time I pulled thr trigger on this, I was amazed at the lack of recoil. It was like shooting a light .38 load. The two other people that shot it today said the same thing. It was a gentle push rather than a snap. I was firing some 240 grain lead cowboy loads from Magtech.

Tele_mark and myself ran a box of ammo through it. After he left, and as I was leaving, one of my fellow club members pulled up, so I unpacked and shot it with him for a while - using up another box of ammo. My best group size was a disappointing 3" at 50'. I'm going to blame a lot of that on the cold; because it was friggin' cold today - especially when you were standing in it for almost 3 hours.

One thing I learned when buying ammo for this: If you're going to shoot a .44 Special, you should seriously consider reloading. At over $20/box for the "cheap" stuff, you'd go broke quick if you wanted to shoot it a lot. Fortunately, I do reload. I've got some dies, brass and 240 grain plated bullets for it so I'm going to make up a variety of loads using Bullseye, W231, and Titegroup so I can figure out what it likes.

I'm a big S&W fan, and I love this revolver. I consider myself extremely lucky to have found this gun at the price I paid. A quick check on Gunbroker showed that the last three used Model 696s went for $715, $745, & $885
 
Last edited:
That gun was a true pleasure to shoot, thanks again Jim! It's true -- the perceived recoil of this gun was less than my .38 Airweight, which I also shot today. 240 grain loads?!? I didn't know those bullets were so heavy! You got a hell of a deal Jim. I want one!
 
I have a couple of Model 24s, including a 2-1/2" bbl one. Try 6.5 gr. of Unique pushing a hard cast 240 grain Keith shape (SWC) and CCI regular large pistol primers. About 750 fps from a 6" barrel, with little recoil (out of an N-frame revolver, at least) and quite accurate.

I can't prove it, but I suspect you'll find the SWCs a tad more accurate (i.e., consistent) than the truncated round nose that were used in your "cowboy" loads.
 
Last edited:
Not a Smith, but I just shipped a Ruger New Vaquero off to be extensively, or was that expensively, modified.
David Clements is going to convert it from .357 to .44Spl and add adjustable sights.
Similar to the 696, the New Vaquero is a medium frame, well sized to the .44 Special.
The classic Keith load for the .44 Special was 7.5Unique under a 250gr. SWC.
I keep hearing reports of how accurately it shoots and how well it performs on game. Probably a place to start.
The other Keith load was a wopping +P+ helping of 2400 that gave magnum performance, but at pressures that are generally too high for most guns, even today.
 
Your killn me! I had that gun in my hand and thought about the 400 clams I just spent on ammo. I put it back down [crying]
Good to see a member here found it though.
 
Back
Top Bottom