Excellent! Glad they are taking care of this (as they should).

As a totally WAG observation:
Blued carbon steel guns are now a small part of S&W's business.
It would not surprise me if they quit making them entirely.
It's possible that the craftsmanship required to make these correctly is disappearing.
This is happening in many manufacturing arenas including firearms.

Oddly enough, I have just been reading Hatcher's Notebook in which he details the process by which
they decided (some of) the first 300K Springfield rifles had been over-heated and became brittle.
They were blowing up using normal GI ammo.
This was due to inattention and lack of scientific measurements during both forging and heat treatment.
Just because it is 2016 doesn't mean this kind of thing can't happen again.

My experience with S&W customer service is almost all positive with only one MEH.
Both Ruger and the former Dan Wesson were excellent when I needed them.
I do, in fact, have one of those 44 magnum Redhawks that have been mentioned and it did get a new barrel.
Been perfect for the last 30 years.
Charter Arms has kind of blown me off.
You get what you pay for.

__________________
NEMO
"Everything 44"