Originally Posted by steve696

I bought this 625-5 in .45 Colt back in '94 brand new. It was one of my favorite Smiths. The 5" barrel was just the right length, the gun balanced well, and was a pleasure to shoot. On top of it all, it was in .45 Colt. The gun has an "SDS" serial number, which meant it was a stocking dealer special. Not too many of them made from what I understand, and they only went to the larger S&W dealers at the time.
Anyway, the sad part of the story. I was shooting the gun a while back, and all was going well. Shooting at 25 yards, the gun was grouping as well as I could shoot it. I took a few shots on a new target and didn't even hit the paper. Took a few more shots and still not on the paper. My first thought was that the rear sight had gotten loose, and so I checked and everything was tight. Nothing seemed wrong, so I took one more shot. Still not on the paper. It turned out that the barrel cracked right at the frame. It did not split lengthwise at the forcing cone, but broke almost all of the way through just in front of the threads. The barrel was skewed off to the right, and I believe that one more shot would have blown the barrel clear off the frame.....I was able to unscrew the by a few threads to take these pictures.
So...after the shock wore off, I contacted S&W and told them what happened. They asked that the gun be returned to them for warranty repair.
Long story short, S&W fixed the gun no charge...Except, they didn't have any barrels like the one that came with the gun. All they had was a 4" barrel, or one of the new (ugly) mountain gun barrels. I had no choice but to have the 4" barrel installed. On top of it all, I asked Smith to return the original barrel to me. They assured me that they would, but I never got it back. It turns out that their policy is not to return old parts from a warranty repair....
Now, I'm looking for an original style barrel to put back on this gun. It's a 5" full underlug s.s. barrel with laser engraving on both sides. Left side of barrel has "Smith & Wesson" and "45 Colt" and right side has "625 Classic".
It also has the interchangeable front sight.
If anyone knows where I may be able to find a barrel like this, I would appreciate it. My searches so far haven't turned up anything. Thanks for reading this long post,
Steve