I will NEVER send anything to S&W again, the last time I did my custom 624 was stolen on its way back to me and I had to fight S&W for partial compensation.
If you want your revolver tuned, I highly recommend Ahlman's in Morristown, MN. Ahlman's pistolsmiths are at least as good as those anywhere else that I've tried, plus their prices are great and their turn around time fast. I have Ahlman's do what they call an action job to smooth and tune the action and trigger and ream the forcing cone on all of my shooter, not collector, revolvers. I recommend Ahlman's to anyone who will listen and have yet to hear from a dissatisfied customer. The last time that I looked, the action job fee was $95 and the forcing cone ream job was $40, money well spent IMO.
Who was responsible for the gun getting stolen? S&W, or the shipping company. Insured?
At that time S&W didn't insure firearms that they were returning to an owner who had sent them in for service work unless the owner specifically requested insurance and agreed to pay for it. Otherwise, S&W would replace the lost/stolen firearm out of current production AT THEIR DISCRETION. I had sent the 624 to S&W to be engraved and had specifically requested and paid for insurance during the return shipping phase. Whoever packed the 624 for return shipping didn't buy the insurance for it, so when it was stolen out of UPS, this was before UPS required handguns to be shipped via next day delivery, I didn't have my revolver and S&W didn't want to compensate me for the loss. They finally agreed that they had failed to buy the insurance that I'd paid for, and they agree to send me a 629 Classic, as the 624 had been out of production for some years, but they didn't want to either refund me for the engraving that was done on the 624 or repeat that engraving on the 629. It took several months of back-and-forth dialog before they finally agree to duplicate the engraving on the 629 that had been done and paid for on the 624. Instead of just accepting responsibility for their error, S&W fought me over the fair compensation. Sometimes you only get one strike before you're out. It was a truely miserable experience and not one that I'd want to repeat or see someone else experience.
