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Pre-WW2 S&W. At least not for street carry.
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Agree on that. Five screw S&W’s had this hammer block safety, this is a Victory Model. The cylinder hand pushed the safety, located in the side plate, out of the way. Gummed oil, or what not, could keep the safety retracted, then there was nothing to block the hammer.
I don’t have pictures of modern S&W lockworks, but I like the hammer block safeties of the post WWII S&W’s.
However modern design philosophies have taken a “fail safe” approach. That is when the mechanism fails, it fails safe. That can be very good, or very bad, depending on the situation.
The hammer blocks safeties of S&W’s if they break, the gun can still be fired if the broken piece has not gummed up the mechanism. I like that. Transfer mechanisms, like the one on my Ruger, when it broke, there was no way at all to fire the mechanism. I did not like that.
I like “battle shorts” in my extreme danger mechanisms. There are so many mechanisms around now that fail inoperative and when they go, it can be extremely frustrating to say the least.
