Nicer guns in my opinion, but not as strong as the later dash models. S&W upgraded the lockworks to better cope with heavy recoil, in the late dash 4/early dash 5 on the 29's and the dash 3 on the 629's, I believe. What happened is that until handgun silhouette came along, no one shot these guns for long stretches with full power ammo. Once they started, it became apparent that the guns didn't stand up very well. It's why you didn't see a lot of Smiths on the shooting lines at the silhouette matches, just lots of Rugers, TC's, and Dan Wessons. However, if you aren't going to compete with it, the dash 2's and earlier are usually a much better finished revolver, and worth more to collectors. FWIW - dan