Smith & Wesson Ladysmith Smith & Wesson Ladysmith The S&W Ladysmith (later styled LadySmith) is a series of handguns manufactured by Smith & Wesson starting early in the 20th century. Early models, branded were chambered in .22 Long. Starting in the 1980s, under the slightly modified "LadySmith" moniker, S&W manufactured several short-barreled revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. Smith & Wesson has produced firearms over the years in several standard frame sizes. "M-frame" refers to the small early Ladysmith frame. Later LadySmith small revolvers were made on the somewhat larger "J-frame", the standard S&W small-frame revolver. The tiny M-frame .22" hand-ejector Ladysmith revolver was produced from
Smith & Wesson production equipment and instituted additional testing which significantly increased product quality. However new gun sales in the United States lagged in the 1990s, some of which was attributed to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. Also there were numerous city and state lawsuits against Smith and Wesson. After the success of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, municipalities thought they might be able to succeed through tort law against the gun industry as well. These political and legal challenges provided a lot of risk and uncertainty for Smith and Wesson's future. On March 17, 2000, Smith & Wesson made an