I have an all black melonite 4566 (less than 100 made) that I recently returned to the factory under warranty to have the tritium vials in the night sites replaced. They didn't replace the vials but installed new night sites which was OK with me. Having been gone for the holidays today was the first chance I had to inspect the weapon and it appears they had placed it in an unprotected vise as it was down to bare metal in quite a few places on the left rear of the slide. I just e-mailed S&W and am awaiting their response. Has anyone had this type of issue on warranty or other work S&W has performed?

That sucks I hope they replace it for you. After you posted earlier this year about getting the melonite 4566, I contacted my S&W LEO rep about getting one. At that time (IIRC June 07) he told me they still had some in Springfield.

The asking price was $900+ so I passed. I hope they replace yours. Good luck, and let us know what they do. Regards 18DAI.

There's been many postings on the forum by members that had their guns abused by the S&W service department.

Man, that does suck and this post just adds more fuel to fire why I won't risk sending any of my vintage S&W's there for repairs.

Springfield, OR.... know it well, my brother lives on Hill Rd.

I don't want a replacement as this thing shoots as well as my 1911's but a complete refinish would be appropriate I believe. If they just do the slide then the frame more than likely won't match as the gun was made 10 years ago. I had a hard enough time convincing them to do the sites under warranty as they kept stating "well it was made 10 years ago, what do you expect" but when I proved I am the original owner and I bought it new this year they went back on their words.

I certainly hope you can get satisfaction from this.
I don't think I'll be sending any older S&W's to Smith & Wesson either,as this is not the first complaint I've heard. I'm fortunate to have two local men who are Smith and Wesson "smiths" and know their stuff.One of them can duplicate the original S&W bright blue finish and has refinished some for me in years past. They have parts galore for everything S&W.
Good luck with this dilemna.

DocH - Can you check with you smiths and see if they have one of these original 645 white outline rear sights in new condition. Can't find one anywhere.

Made the mistake of letting a friend handle it and down it went landing on the rear sight.

Smith & Wesson sent me a replacement and is was a two dot Novak style, not the original. They said that was the correct one for my 645. I question their choice of personnel some times!

Sorry to hear about this. One would think all S&W vices would have some sort of rubber strip on them, or that S&W would use some cloth between the gun and metal vice jaws. It does not take a master gunsmith to realize that metal vice jaws and metal gun surfaces contacting is a bad thing.

Torrejon, Sorry to hear about your gun. That is a rare and fine gun. I'd throw a serious fit it that happened to me. They should refinish the gun. I've had gun I had to send back more than once, but I've never had the finish ruined on any of the guns I'd sent in. Hopefully, someone from Smith reads this forum because it sounds like you really have not been treated right.

jed,I'll make contact tomorrow or Wed,and let you know what I find out.

I've seen a few S&W factory refinish jobs, and I've been disappointed to say the least. It's always looked like the prep work was rushed, with rounded edges and light lettering.

You may be in for a fight with them, but don't give up. They screwed it up and should make it right.

The repairs are done by the Performance Center. See why I don't send them any custom work anymore? Everything I've had done by them has been a disappointment. Karl Sokol at Chestnut Mountain Sports is the only person I let touch any gun I own.

I'll have to give a big +1 to Karl Sokol,esp. for any custom work.

quote:

Originally posted by torrejon224:
it appears they had placed it in an unprotected vise as it was down to bare metal in quite a few places on the left rear of the slide.

Sounds about right, they were forced out of work for 3 weeks right at the most difficult time of the year. You have some pissed off employees in there!

Good luck with it, I too have one in for laser work, the worst possible timing for me too!

quote:

Originally posted by jed1177:
DocH - Can you check with you smiths and see if they have one of these original 645 white outline rear sights in new condition. Can't find one anywhere.

Made the mistake of letting a friend handle it and down it went landing on the rear sight.

Smith & Wesson sent me a replacement and is was a two dot Novak style, not the original. They said that was the correct one for my 645. I question their choice of personnel some times!

I don't know if you're interested, but I have a new 645 slide that is complete. If you want it, send me an email and we can discuss specifics. My address is in my profile.

Had a Smith Stainless PPK/S that I purchased new. OK I’m a James Bond nut and always wanted one. When I picked it up I also picked up 500 rounds of .380 and 4 magazines to break it in. I fired 400 of those rounds and in that time I only got 5 or 6 full magazines to go through the gun clean. Sometimes 2 or 3 failures on each mag. Mostly failure to feed the next round.
I sent it back to Smith 2 times. The first time I don’t think they even took the gun apart. The report back with the gun was that they could find nothing wrong with it.
I found that a little annoying when they also wrote that it was an ammo related problem. I had explained to them that I tried 3 different manufactures ammo.
The next firing session with both Winchester and Remington all hard ball of the 2 boxes (100 rounds) I had 7 failures with 6 different mags.
It went back again.
They polished the ramp and “worked on the trigger”.
They also made a large scratch on the black plastic grips.
The first mag had 2 failures.
I went to Gander Mountain and traded it on a Glock 26.
That was 3 years ago.

jed1177,I printed the picture of the sight and took a copy to both guys today. One doesn't have it,the other is going to look through his stuff and see if he has one.I'll let you know when I find out,but their parts supply is mostly for S&W revolvers.Maybe we'll get lucky.