My unscheduled lightning struck on Friday at 6:30PM. The car was on autopilot, so I stopped at the MSR emporium. It was very slow, so I had a chance to say hi to all the guys. Knowing the drill, each one said, "nothing new today."
Except for the last one I talked to, who said, "nothing new, except three old S&Ws that one of the distributor had in a back room. The boss called him, and begged for anything to sell. He was told 'nothing except three discontinued S&Ws'. The store owner than said, "what part of anything don't you understand. I don't care what the are, send them right out."
The discontinued handguns were three S&W M&Ps that were never popular, and while still in the catalog, aren't made except for large orders from large police departments, and even they haven't been made for years. So what was ready to be put on the shelf was one of these guys.
I immediately ordered on wrapped up due to the magic words,
The owner is a big .357SiG fanatic, and had one put away for himself. I got the second, and the third sold sometime Saturday. Everything showed a production date of 2009, probably the first and last time Smith made this model.
Knowing my priorities, the first thing I did was order another case of Remington Disintegrators, since suddenly .357SiG is one of the few handgun calibers available online in case quantities. I have no idea how long a line of ammo hinted at as "LEO only", and an uncatalogued caliber, at that, will remain available, so I pounced just as fast on the ammo as on the weapon.
The rest shouldn't be too bad for too long. M&Ps are about as common as Glocks, and .40 cal double stack magazines should once again be as common as dirt. Another reason to love the .357/.40 combo when all that's needed is a second barrel. A .40S&W barrel is next on the list, just for insurance purposes.
It pays to ask the one guy who remembers to poke around through the incoming paperwork for the oddball items he knows I've developed a taste for. :)