GP100 or 686 for ESR: What are you actually paying for?

Question

The 686 costs more. Full stop. You're looking at $150–200 premium over a GP100, sometimes more depending on the shop.

Here's what you get for it: the 686's L-frame is slightly slimmer. The trigger out of the box is cleaner—not by much, but measurably. S&W's cylinder lockup is tighter on average. Some shooters swear the 686 points better. None of that is wrong.

Here's what you don't get: a wheelgun that works harder than a GP100. The Ruger's timing is solid. Its double-action press is heavier but honest. You can tune either gun, and the GP100 rewards that work. A competent gunsmith will make a GP100's trigger as good as a stock 686. Cost you $200 in labor. You're even.

For ESR, you need six reliable rounds in a gun you can draw and shoot fast. Both do that. The 686 does it a hair more naturally. The GP100 does it just as *reliably*—it just asks you to work for the polish.

Buy the GP100 if you're willing to put in trigger time and maybe take it to a smith later. Buy the 686 if you want it right now and don't care about the money. Either way, you'll finish the match. That's the real story.

Vic Calloway · Accepted Answer

You're measuring the right things, but I need to push back on the cost equation a little. When I get a GP100 on the bench for a DA tune, it's not just the trigger. What I'm actually doing—and what gets billed—is hand-fitting the trigger to the sear, checking crane fit, verifying headspace, and adjusting extractor tension if needed. That $185 labor often assumes the gun doesn't have the other problems baked in.

Here's what I see more often than not: a stock GP100 with timing that's fine but not tight. The crane rocks slightly under trigger press. The extractor has too much spring tension. The gun *works*, but the DA press feels gritty because you're fighting mechanical bind, not just a heavy spring.

The 686 comes from S&W with tighter hand-fitting in the first place. The crane fit is dialed. That's partly why the press feels cleaner—the gun's already sorted at the factory level.

So for ESR, yes, either gun finishes the match. But m.delacroix's testing started with a GP100 that was already mechanically honest. Not all of them are. If you're buying used, or if the new one has any slop in the crane, you might find yourself back on my bench anyway—and now you're at $300, not $185.

Before deciding to trigger-tune a GP100, have a smith actually *feel* the gun. Sometimes the press is heavy because the tune's needed. Sometimes it's heavy because something else is rocking.

Margot Delacroix · Answer

I ran both guns through a trigger-time comparison over six weeks: 500 reps draw-to-first-shot on each, measured with a shot timer at 7, 10, and 15 yards. GP100 baseline split times were 0.31s (7yd), 0.47s (10yd), 0.68s (15yd). Stock 686 ran 0.29s, 0.44s, 0.66s—marginal delta, exactly what you said.

Here's where the math shifts: I sent the GP100 to a gunsmith for a DA-only tune ($185). Follow-up testing put it at 0.30s, 0.45s, 0.67s. That closes the gap to measurement noise.

But the labor cost isn't the whole equation. The stock 686 required zero prep. For ESR specifically—six shots, one target—that polished trigger *out of the box* matters because you're not managing multiple positions or long stages. You're managing accuracy under time pressure in one evolution. The cleaner press reduces reset lag on shot five and six. It's small. It's real.

The GP100's trigger job is worth doing *if you're already working the gun*—dry fire, live fire, taking it to class. If you buy it and run it stock for six months, you're leaving split time on the table that the 686 gives you free.

For ESR? Buy the one you'll actually shoot more. That's the only number that matters.

Dave Kowalski · Answer

Neither of you mentioned the only thing that actually matters for ESR: moon clip compatibility. The 686 doesn't have it. The GP100 does.

You're running six shots. Reload speed on a revolver matters—not because you're slow, but because the match isn't written around a slow reload. The GP100 with moon clips cuts your reload time in half, maybe better. The 686 forces you back to loose rounds or speed loaders, which means you're managing two different reload systems if you ever shoot anything else.

Shop.rat's right about the hand-fitting. Crane fit matters. But that's an argument for *having a gunsmith look at the gun*, not an argument for spending $200 more at the counter. A competent smith will sort a GP100's mechanical honesty for less than the S&W premium.

For ESR, you need reliability, accuracy under pressure, and speed. The GP100 gives you all three—and it gives you the reload advantage the 686 can't touch. That's the tiebreaker. Buy the Ruger, take it to a smith if the crane's sloppy, and you're done. You've got moon clips. You've got a match gun.