Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns HATING ON S&W..

I haven't bought one in years and I only own one (that I really like) a stainless 4" 41 Mag, but enjoy...

Saw that guy's video last year. Yeah, lots of quality control issues in recently production S&W revolvers are being reported. Almost never heard of pre-1980s. It's progressively gotten worse since the 1990s. I think they are cutting back on quality control to keep their revolver prices competitive. It seems to be a revolver thing, mainly, and that's likely because, since the 1980s, their large revolver contracts have entirely disappeared, i.e., with police agencies. Likely, they are diverting most quality control efforts to their police contract lines, and their best selling concealed carry lines, i.e., auto pistols.

In defense of S&W, I've sent two revolvers in for warranty repair, and had 100% resolution each time. Once when I bought my mom a scandium J-Frame .38 back in the 1990s and once a couple of years ago when I bought myself an Airweight 442 (also a J-Frame .38, but aluminum instead of scandium). In the first case, the action locked up on my first range trip with my mom, which was supposed to also be a coaching trip, but the action locked up on the first cylinder full. Sent it back, and they returned it quickly, 100% fixed. The 442 was sent back due to a shoddy metal work job on the forcing cone. Looked like it had been hacksawed off without any smoothing effort afterwards. Razor sharp and jagged edged. In that case, they chose to just replace the entire revolver.

I've also sent old revolvers in for repair (long past warranty) and got them back nicely fixed. They charged for those, of course.

Part TWO... it get better...

Fixed, IMO.

S&W has always had some problems, along with all the revolver manufacturers - they are complicated to make. The invention of on-line buying doesn't help because there is no inspection.

It would help if the guy in the video could articulate the problem to S&W (barrel yaw).

Saw his video on YouTube last year, too.

S&W should have taken care of him with a new gun. Period.

S&W's decline started when they were under the ownership of Bangor Punta which was between 1966-1983 .... the worst guns (generally speaking) were produced in the 70's into the early 80's. Since that time they've been plagued with a host of varied issues, none of which had anything to do with law enforcement or contract sales. It's reasonable to assume that the bottom line these days at S&W is resting on sales of their polymer pistols and AR's to a lesser extent.

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.

[quote=JOG

It would help if the guy in the video could articulate the problem to S&W (barrel yaw).
[/quote]
Nope, not Yaw, the FRAME was the issue. Barrel hole drilled off center. The "yaw" angle is S&W's way of confusing the issue...

S&W had the revolver largely perfected, then they screwed the pooch with decreasing quality. They weren't the first to screw the pooch, and sadly won't be the last.

Yep.

Good info. Thanks.

"Canted, crooked, and clocked" are the terms I heard used - never "yaw". Roll (rotation), pitch, and yaw are as familiar terms to you has anyone. Yaw can be cause by cutting the threads at a bias on either the frame or the barrel, although I agree with you the frame is the likely candidate.

I could definitely be wrong, the guy is all over the map trying to explain the problem, but the best I could decipher is the barrel is pointing to the side (left) - yaw.

Yes, ok...

Attending the Ruger armourer's school in the late '80's I met 2 guys from the SBI of a large east coast state.
They were there to learn the GP-100.
The reason: in a recent shipment of 80+ guns from Smith they had a 30% rate of not functioning right out of the box.

The fundamental issue with QC (from S&W and Ruger) for the last 40 years, is that the revolver design doesn't lend itself to being "assembled" ... it must be "fitted". You can pull components and parts from a CNC machine these days and assemble a fairly decent semi-auto from the get-go, but when you try that with a revolver, you get what we have now.

The lack of skilled labor is what has ruined things for S&W and Colt to a much greater degree. Couple that with a management philosophy that squeezes the bottom line too tight and you get the mediocre junk we have today.

i have quite a few s&w's, thankfully most of them are old guns and never an issue.
having said that, quite a few years ago i got offered for 150bucks a s&w 22 magnum, holster, and 500 rounds of ammo. Sweet deal.
till i went to fire it and found out why the owner sold it, casings were sticking after firing.
i took it to a gun smith who honed, smoothed out the cylinder holes, no more issues. that was a bankor punta gun.
Second i just had to pull out of the safe after watching the video.
it was a smith m29classic four inch. using his example of looking at the top, it does match up.
but, but, there is still a gap between where the ejector rod housing meets the frame, which my older smiths are flush.
i got into an argument with an ex friend a few years ago stating smith quality wasn't as good as it use to be, laying that
new 29 out next to an older gun looking at that gap.
As far as shooting it, it appears to work just fine. but it still isn't as tight as the old ones, when they were hand fitted.
I would have sent it back, but pretty sure they would have told me nothing wrong with it.

given i have disconnected the hillary hole, replaced the sights, they wouldn't talk to me anyhow.

I have some first hand experience with that, as well. Check out this Model 29 Classic (I didn't own it very long) ..... the lower barrel/frame clearance is .013!!

When you know/understand how they "fit" (a loose term) barrels these days, you understand why things are predictably wonky.

It's often the heat treating. Back in the day spot heat treating was standard procedure. Heat treating entire frames and barrels has taken over and is done after the component is milled and can cause the component to warp, which can affect the final assembly. The right alloy heat treated properly will work out just fine, but if something a little off and an unfortunate tolerance stack and gun shoots around corners.

For far too many years that was as common as dirt, I'm afraid.