I needed to amend my first post in this thread. Catshooter was absolutley right about the original 4516 no dash having DUAL recoil springs. Thanks Catshooter!
I ran into an old aquaintance at the range this weekend who use to run a local gunshop back in the day. They were a S&W dealer. He saw my 4516-3 and we started talking about the 4516 model. He recalled that the initial 4516 no dash slide was "2 ounces too light to insure reliable function." He claimed to have gotten this info from a S&W employee back in the day when he had a couple of 4516 no dash returned to the factory due to FTF problems.
He also said that he "couldn't understand why they made the slide two ounces heavier on the 4516-1 but removed the dual recoil spring set up." He claimed to have sent a few 4516-1's back for service for failures to feed as well. He couldn't remember if they were given the dual recoil spring set up to cure the functioning issues. "I guess they fixed them because the customers didn't bring them back a second time."
I told him that all of my experience with the 4516 no dash was very positive. I told him about shooting a filthy, bone dry example with terrible quality ammo. He surmised that due to "tolerance stacking" during manufacturing at S&W that "there was always going to be examples of a problamatic model which don't exhibit the problem or problems when properly maintained and lubed. And then there is always going to be a few examples which will run regardless of what you do to them. How do you think Kimber stays in business 18? Then you have all the guns of that model made in between the two extremes which have variable performance due to tolerance stacking."
I found his recollections interesting and thought I'd post them here in this thread. I will edit my first post and correct the wrong information. Sucks to get old timers disease.
Regards 18DAI