I asked a similar question a while ago on a different forum. The answer I got was that they were no more or less reliable than anything else in their class/Tier. Those who carried them on the job had mixed reviews. Some had their department send back entire lots due to failures while others never had a problem. One guy had serious issues with his 4586

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"Smith 4586 was my first duty weapon and at times it made a better bludgeon than a sidearm. There were two big problems...One was the magazine followers and springs. They came in green and orange but, you wanted black. These weren't new issue guns. The second big issue is that they were like a Swiss watch inside. Lots of levers and lots of teeny parts. I had the DAO which omitted the manual safety. Heavy trigger.

I remember my night sights dying and extractor going bad and the armorer was a bit of a....different person. I couldn't get through a mag without tap rack bang. He finally believed me and replaced said parts.

With Zero or WWB it could still occasionally hang up. But with +P Rangers it was noticeably better.

There's still nostalgia for the pistol but it wasn't without flaw"

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"I hate to be the voice of decent, but here goes:

I work for an agency of about 1,100 officers, depending on the year and the economy. My first issued gun was a S&W 5906. The gun was ok, but not so much in the accuracy department. Bench rest at 25 yds, 4.5" was about as good as it got. The newer guns issued out when S&W started using MIM parts were more accurate. These were easily identified as the MIM hammers were black.

The extractors sucked. We would buy spare extractors by the gross. I had this gun about 5 years. Went through two extractors. Broke one while shooting a dog that had bitten me once and wanted seconds.

We transitioned to the 5946. This was a more accurate gun than my pre-MIM 5906. This gun was also made just prior to a period where S&W upgraded and replaced a lot of their machinery with new CNC machinery. The DAO trigger took some getting used to though. In time it smoothed up to where it wasn't bad, for a DAO trigger. (Side note, I hate DAO triggers)

This gun uses the same extractor as the 5906. It still sucks. It's too thin. The 9mm guns we saw that were made in the custom shop used a larger extractor, either the 40 cal or the 45 cal, not sure, but it was explained to me by the LE sales rep carrying a custom shop pistol.

I had the 5946 for about 8-9 years when the agency started seeing issues with the guns. The armors just kept a box of parts on the firing line so as to not disrupt training. Parts needing replaced were guide rods and/or barrels. The issue was the little notch where the guide rod rests in the barrel.

Our last year with the 5946/6946, we estimate about $80k worth of parts were used to keep the guns up and running. We estimated the round count before a pattern of issues showing up to be around 30K for the 5946 and about 20K for the 6946.

When we transitioned away, officers are permitted to buy their issued gun for what the trade in value would be. I declined.

When looking for our new gun, the agency received the first 3 9mm M&P's to leave the factory. Some minor changes later and the production guns started shipping.

Now after almost seven years of carrying the M&P, I can honestly say I don't miss my 5946 at all.

I do own one 3rd gen Smith auto though, my favorite 3rd gen gun they ever made. A 3913."
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