I have thousands of rounds through my 52-2 and it has never broken anything. I'm not saying it isn't true but I've never heard of the barrel bushing breaking. The bushing is actually screwed in to the slide and is tightened by s special wrench that is included with the gun. If you over tighten it ...like all the way down...I guess you could break one. The gun won't cycle with the bushing screwed too far down. It doesn't give the barrel enough room to drop down and unlock.
However, this is one of the best features about this gun. As everything wears, barrel, bushing, lugs...whatever. You can adjust the barrel bushing to take any slop out of it.
You also have to remember that the loads these guns shoot are VERY low power. We're talking 10,000 psi or less in some cases and very low velocity, relatively light weight lead bullets. 770 fps or so seems to be common. The amount of abuse from shooting these take is really very low. The cyclic action of the 52-2 is so very gentle compared with almost any other automatic. Compare this to firing a Coonan 357 mag I have...which is like a flamethrower versus a Bic lighter.
Now mine is a bit different. I have a Bar-Sto 6' barrel and the gun was has a brushed stainless hard chrome finish. (Yes I know…I shouldn’t have done it but this was over 20 years ago when guns like this were meant to be shot) I don’t know if it’s the hard chrome finish or gentle. Low powered action but there has been no wear in this thing and I have never had to adjust the bushing in 20 years....and it has been shot and shot and shot. Now let’s face it, Bar-Sto were the ones that fitted and tuned it and you can't get any better but I never had any reliability issues before I did it.
There are a few tricks to handloading it to make it reliable and accurate. It boils down to just enough power to make sure the slide holds back after the magazine is empty, the style of wadcutter and the exact seating depth. Just short of flush with just a bit of the bullet showing past the case mouth works pretty well with a taper crimp or Hornady Profile crimp. I've also played with the bullet below the case mouth and actually using a slight roll crimp over the top.
Anyway, very minor changes in powder, powder charge bullet style and seating depth can be used to tune it in.
As for spare parts, I expect that it's true that many are tough or impossible to get. However, many still are or can be adapted from S&W 39/59 parts buy a good gunsmith. I'm not sure how this is different from any other high quality, limited production gun.
The guns are works of art...If you want something you more pedestrian, less finicky and sort of a really good plow horse, this isn't it. If you want a thoroughbred and all that entails...good and bad. This isn't a bad choice.
