TJ's Gun Blog

The Smith & Wesson 6906 9mm

The hair on the back of the officers neck stands up as the radio breaks its normal silence. After the squelch clears the speaker rings out "All units respond to shots fired at the Main Street Bar involving unknown number of suspects." Sometime in 1994 a cop in small town America receives this dispatch. His adrenalin rushes as he picks up the microphone and advises he is en route. As a thousand thoughts run through his head a smile comes to his face when he thinks of his service weapon. Holstered on his duty belt is a New Smith and Wesson 6906 holding twelve rounds of 9mm hollow points. The department just replaced their Smith and Wesson Model 10 38 specials with the new Smith and Wesson 6906 semiautomatic 9mm handgun. The Model 10 is a fine weapon but it and its 38 special round no longer met the needs of law enforcement.

One summer weekend, we brought the Green Cove Springs gun show to the Clay County Fairgrounds. The summer crowd was a little slow. They did bring some nice guns in to trade though. There was a pretty nice Winchester Model 42 for $1000. It is very hard to find a Winchester 42 that cheap today in any condition. There was a Winchester 9422 and a Winchester 1890 that came and went Saturday morning. The gun that caught my eye was a nice Smith and Wesson 6906. Around ten years ago most of our nation's police departments replaced their Third Generation Smith and Wesson semiautomatic 9 mm handguns with Sigs or Glocks. Their Smiths showed up at gun shows and could be bought fairly cheap. Today they still turn up at gun shows even though they are not as inexpensive as they once were.

The third generation Smith and Wesson semiautomatic handguns were some of the most reliable guns on the market at the time and still are. They are a reasonably priced alternative to the modern plastic guns that control the market. Although I am a Colt 1911 advocate two of my all favorite handguns remain the Smith and Wesson 3913 and the 4516. The 6906 is a double stack 3913.

The Smith and Wesson model 6906 semiautomatic 9mm hand gun was produced by Smith and Wesson from 1989 until 1999. The 6906 is an alloy framed stainless steel slide version of The Smith 6904 (alloy frame with blue slide) which is a compact version of the Model 5904. The compact gun weighed 26 ounces. The 6906 is a double action gun could be had with a 10 round flush fit mag or a 12 round mag with a finger grip extension after 1994. The gun came with fixed sights and a 3.5" barrel.

I have owned several Smith and Wesson Model 6906 over the years. All of them were superbly made, super reliable and a pleasure to shoot. I am guessing most of them today are still serving the people I sold them to well. Until next time, be safe everybody! -Terry Jewell

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