My wife purchased a new keyhole S&W 638 a few years ago, which locked up maybe 6-8 cylinders into its short life here. I slapped the damn thing around, got the cylinder open and washed out under the ejector star/behind the crane, with some brake cleaner I had in the pickup. When it dried I gave it a shot of RemOil and ran three cylinders of 125 grain Remington SJHP through it as fast as I could shoot it. But neither of us trusted it after that and my old LCP, which replaced it, has never choked in the five years I owned it.
It's not just the absence of LE contracts, TRH. The academy class after mine was the first department issue of S&W 686s I am aware of. 18 new guns, 12 of them sent back because of a gas ring problem that caused them to bind up when run hard enough to get hot.
My first year out of the academy included my being adopted by Lt who was the Dept. armorer and chief firearms instructor. They had just issued new Model 15s and one of them quit firing during a string. We traced it to a loose trigger stop plate screw. They had kept a dozen of their old heavy barrel 10s as a backup, and those guns were tested and reissued so we could get the 15's back in and pull the trigger stop plates.
Good info. Thanks.
