If you compare this to a car, you bought a Ford in 1980 and parked it in the garage. You never drove it. Lets say it came with a 50,000 mile OR 5 year warranty. Would you still expect Ford to fix it if you moved it out of the garage to clean and a wheel fell off? It was probably a defect from the factory? In 1980 S&W did not offer a lifetime warranty. They have no obligation to fix the gun now, fired or not. I believe back then their warranty was between one and three years.

OTOH, cs did say they would cover it. Maybe they should train their cs reps better from now on. Seems like your only option at this point is to pay the bill, get your gun back and write a letter explaining the situation to the president of the company. I've done this kind of thing before and you might be surprised at the response you're likely to get.