ltwguns.com

I decided to take out and shoot my Smith & Wesson 945 last week. It's an early gun with Bo Mar sights and without a firing pin safety. Wow! That's all I can say. I dont know how the new ones are . But if they are like the one I have, it's a challenge to ANY 45 made today. Only the Springfield PC9404 (2795.00 retail + a year wait) or my Bill Davis PPC revolver can challenge it in off hand accuracy. Thats alot to say about any .45. Since the Bill Davis gun REALLY shoots 1.5 groups at 50 yards. I dont mean only from the ransom rest, but when I do my part , from a right hand barricade position. I wonder what the Performance Center knows that many dont. Plus , it's not that expensive.

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AP

I have a first run 945, as in the serial number starts with LEW, but I've put over 45,000 rounds through mine according to brass buckets, primer sleeves and a failing memory.

I've worn through the titanium nitride (I run my guns wet) on the barrel bushing, one ejector spring and two sets of grips and the damn thing hasn't ever missed a beat.

I don't know if the later 945's are any punk, but the early models roll on swole.

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The 945 is a gun that should have set the world on fire for S&W but somehow never managed to do so. I have two of the early production models, a full size (5") 'black' model and one of the 3.25" all stainless.

(Here is a photo or two of the latter.)




Both shoot extraordinarily well, the Briley-style spherical bushing makes for superb accuracy and the fit and finish are typical S&W Performance Center, i.e. superb!

Most people do not understand just how different the 945 (and the later 952 and PPC double stack guns based on it) are and assume they are just a modification of the 'normal' 1911. Wrong!

The basic construction is quite different, with a lock up system and barrel arrangement that is, IMHO, a 'step up' from the older design. See below:



The barrel is shown here:



The Briley style bushing, which makes for improved accuarcy is here:



I have shot the newest versions as well. Very nice guns. I also just acquired one of the newest guns in this line, the long, heavy slide 952 (6" slide.) A tack driver indeed.

Sorry for the extended reply, but I love these guns, no knock on my fleet of 1911s, but variety is indeed the spice of life. Dave

You said alot there. True enough. It takes all kinds.

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Heirloom Precision, LLC.
480-804-1911

"If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking."
- General George Patton Jr

So, is it fair to compare a 945 to a custom 1911? How do they get the slide to frame fit so tight, but yet the gun is so easy to cycle? The ballance between a reliability and accuracy is there too. I woul dnot hesitate for a second to put this gun in my holster to carry on or off duty. I cant say it about many of mine bullseye accurate 1911's. So finaly IS 945 a 1911 or not? What is it then? Just a state of the art S&W semi-auto?

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AP

A good slide to frame fit is not a function of squeezing up the slide to fit the frame, it's achieved by the slide and the frame being straight and close in tolerance to one another.

I'd consider the full-size 945 a good auto heavily influenced by the 1911. A good bit of the lower half is 1911 (trigger, hammer, sear and beavertail) and some of the upper half is 1911 (sights and barrel bushing).

I've handled but never torn into a compact 945, it didn't seem like it was a cut down 945 but one of S&W's other guns that they dressed up.

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"I've handled but never torn into a compact 945, it didn't seem like it was a cut down 945 but one of S&W's other guns that they dressed up."


I have torn down both the full size black 945 I kept along with this gun and a SS 945 I traded off. Bit to bit, as you can see above, the gun is simply a shortened 945, not another S&W Auto "that they dressed up."

I do agree, however, that frame/slide 'tightness' is not an indicator of how accurate a gun will be. The Les Baer mantra of 'silly tight, can't rack it back, means that is the only way to build it' is foolish. I have a slew of top of the line, custom built 1911s that all shoot well, and the slide/frame fit is the function of careful fitting and alingment, not just make them as tight as an idiot's watch. Of course, that is only one factor in accuarcy, and attention to the bushing fit, etc goes into it as well.

The S&W Performance Center guns I have owned show very careful attention to hand fitting. My PPC 6" double stack 9mm and the recently acquired 952 Long Slide single stack 6" 9mm show very, very careful fit of slide and frame, and they rack back and go forward as gently and precisely as my Sig P-210s and my customs. I believe they are all the work of one gunsmith at PC, Tom Gordon. Dave

I always wanted a 945. I held one at a gun show and it just "felt" right. I suppose I never bought one because spending that much on a Smith auto just seemed wrong at the time. I'm not sure if the first run had a similar sized laser etching on the slide as the compact shown above, but if it did I'm sure that kept my hand off the credit card. Why does S&W do that? Somewhere they lost the sense to mark these guns tastefully and not like a billboard. Does the guy ten shooting lanes down need to know the model your shooting from his position?

Consider the new long slide 952, another beauty from the Performance Center. It lacks the 'billboard' markings, and one of the most accurate and superbly built 9mm semi autos you can get. (Given the fact that the Sig 210 seems to be out of production now, I'd have to award the laurel for most accurate/best built to the 952.) A pleasure to shoot and a joy to behold. Think about one. Dave

Though I've not had a 945 in the shop, it appears, in large part, to be a large frame S&W auto (such as the 4506 or 1006), with the needed changes to adapt it to the 1911 type fire control system and safeties. I've worked on a 745, and converted a couple of 645's to SA years ago, and the barrel lockup system on the pictured gun is textbook S&W auto, as is the slide. It appears as though Smith did the usual conversion on the slide to do away with the hammer drop type safety, and that probably makes it work just fine with the converted lower. Smith has had the ability for a long time, to convert their autos into something a bit different (such as making the Model 39 into the Model 52), and they always seem to shoot.

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Don Williams
http://www.theactionworks.com
http://www.ltwguns.com

Thank You all. I took appart the 945 after shooting it and found that it is LIKE a 1911, but it is NOT a 1911. Its a VERY well made pistol. It sits in the safe next to a model 41, model 52-2 and a model 14 Bill Davis PPC 1500 revolver. Job well done S&W! But now iam thinking about checkering the back of the slide and a trigger guard.

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AP