Been wanting to see one of these for a while now. Found one at a local show, and yes, the barrel was canted. It could be sent back, but you shouldn't have to do that with a $950 gun.

I bought two of the 2-5/8" 627s last year, and both had perfectly aligned barrels. I recognize that others have seen and received guns with assembly problems, but I am not one of them. I have no idea what the post-delivery adjustment percentage is. It should of course be zero. In a spirit of generosity I might accept an assembly error rate of 10-12 per thousand if the line is racing to keep up with demand. But if the rate is higher than that, the company needs to add an inspection step somewhere along the way to make sure no out-of-spec gun is shipped before it has received the necessary adjustment.

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David Wilson

I find it absolutely absurd that anything coming out of the performance center would be less than perfect.

Seriously...

It's one thing is S&W is hiring people off the street for minimum wage to put together the "300" series guns or the M&P's, but for stuff to come out of the PC like this is absurd. People pay such a premium for these things, and the appearance is that they are just regular guns running down the production line with different parts which have "Performance Center" stamped on them and they are just pocketing the cash.

So they are busy, backed up, demand at all time high? That's not the customers fault, hire some more people.

I agree they should def come out of the factory with greater expectations for the premium. Luckily mine is awesome but it did come with a hammer that wasn't centered perfectly. S&W repaired it in a week and gave me an extra plastic PC case as well. So in that regard, I was satisfied.

The only really canted barrels I've seen on Smiths are at gun show guns or at big box store display cases. I sometimes think dealers intentionally take them to shows and display them thinking they have a better chance to dump them on a casual gun buyer. I have special ordered three new Smiths in the last year with the option to take them or leave them. All three have been just fine and came home with me. I often wonder what would happen to the guns if I had declined them. Table at a gun show perhaps?

I have both a 627 and a 629 PC, and they are not canted, and seem to be just about perfect.
Sad to see some are not so lucky. Not sure that is the right phrase......
Sad to see some have not received what they should be entightled to.

Bought a 627 pro and yea it's got a few issues; Barrel slightly over rotated in frame and muzzle crown finish thats very sloppy...however with only a slight sight adjustment off zero it shoots great, accurate and consistent. I enjoy the gun and its slight flaws doesn't spoil it for me. Unfortunate that they won't make'em like they used to.

For the life of me I can not figure out the canted barrel situation with Smiths. Its been going on for 26 years that I can personally attest to. With computerized manufacturing it looks like they could figure out how to put a barrel on straight. How hard can it be?

My wife bought me a 4 inch Model 629 back in the mid '80's, and the the barrel turned while I was firing it! I wondered why the rounds were tracking across the target with the same sight picture, then I saw that the grooves on the barrel rib didn't line up with the grooves on the rear sight rib.

And they decided the pinned barrels were unnecessary?

ECS

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CPT, Armor (Ret)
Luke 22:36

Do you know why they don't seem to care enough to fix the problem? Because people keep buying their guns as fast as they can make them.

I don't believe Pythons ever shipped with canted barrels, though, due to their different approach to the design.

Guess you can add 2 more years to your 26 :-( Just got a new 627 pro series with canted barrel (Jan 2015).... didn't realize it til I started firing it... called smith same day... sending label... I sure hope they fix it.... I've seen many horror stories on YouTube about back and forth several times with no luck... one guy even had it come back worse... soon find out..

I just bought a 627PC 2.6" last week online sight unseen. It showed up and it is perfect in every way. Barrel is perfectly aligned.

Don't get me wrong I have had my share of problems with new S&W revolvers in the past year. I had to send 3 brand new 7 shot L Frames back for warranty repair for being out of time. But my 627PC 2.6" is perfect.





Given the ball and detent lockup, I don't see how the cylinder could close if the barrel was not in alignment? Can someone explain to me how this would be possible?








Only had time to put 3 cylinders through it so far, here is my first cylinder. First time I have ever shot an N Frame for that matter. It is going to take a little getting used to.

Blame this four eye guy! You tube Smith & Wesson Performance Center Part 3

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Stang1911

In case this got lost in my post above, I wanted to call it out because I am curious if someone knows the answer.

Given the ball and detent lockup, I don't see how the cylinder could close if the barrel was not in alignment? Can someone explain to me how this would be possible? The ball on the yoke in the pic below matches up to a detent on the underlug. If the barrel was canted, the ball would not align properly with the detent and the cylinder could not lock into place.


Here is a picture of the detent on the underlug the ball locks into. It is hard to get a good picture.

Individual guns vary, new and old. Lemons get through. Don't buy them or get it fixed.

HarrishMasher: I don't own one of those, but it appears to me that the spring-loaded ball simply wouldn't be fully seated in the bottom of the detent. I'm thinking that the center pin at the rear of the cylinder could still be locked in, and that there would be sufficient play in the extractor rod in front to allow the locking pin there to snap in. I could be mistaken, but apparently those who have canted barrels are still able to close the cylinder, which would seem to confirm my analysis.

Regards,
Andy

I'm sure you could "close" it, but not properly. The front would not be locked in at all. Pushing the front of the cylinder on the right side would verify that and be clear to anyone the cylinder is not fully locked. Sounds dangerous to me. Just glad mine is correct.

Evening Andy

That front spring loaded ball doesn't seat in the bottom of detent notch. You wouldn't want it there as there would be no positive camming to hold the cyl closed.

All that ball needs to do is seat on the outer slope of the groove so it imparts closing pressure on the cylinder all the time.

^^^^^^correct^^^^^^

Have 3 627PCs. Two with a 5" barrel. One with 2+5/8" barrel.
All straight.
All shoot great. The .357 MAG - 8 TIMES with 5" barrel may be the best revolver I have ever had.

Hello, wolverine. I miscommunicated. What I should have said is something like: "won't touch both sides of the notch, or land in its normal position". I know how it is supposed to work. Thanks for seeking clarification.

Regards,
Andy

My 627 Pro Series has a canted barrel. It kind of bothers me but I added an Allchin mount and a Burris Fastfire III so I'm not using the front sight and it makes the misalignment less noticeable. I guess this winter would be the time to send it back.

I get that even with limited-run guns like the PC builds one or two bad ones can slip through, but how long does it take to verify a straight barrel? Ten, maybe fifteen seconds at the most? You could hire a guy to do that all day, and even assuming a couple of coffee breaks he can check 150 guns an hour.

Say we pay him ten bucks an hour. It's not real skilled work but we don't want the guy not to care, right? That's seven cents a gun. Seven cents out of the take on a gun they're selling for maybe fifteen hundred bones. I think their profit margins can handle that.
Heck, how many guns does the Performance Center even produce in a day? Our inspector friend might not even have to be a full-time employee, pushing that per-unit inspection cost even lower.
We could even get REAL clever and inspect only every other gun, maybe even every three for the more 'off the shelf' pieces, and check every gun for the fancier or custom jobs. There's tons of ways you can reduce the cost and waste of inspection while still ensuring that misassembled firearms only leave the factory once in a blue moon.

It's totally feasible to inspect every gun for proper barrel clocking, and they choose not to do it, and that's unacceptable for the prestige line of a prestige brand with more than a century and a half of experience doing this exact thing. Simple as that.

The answer is the milled grove for the ball detent could be off location or radially while the barrel is perfectly centered . The ball detent in the crane can also be off location.

Its a stack up of tolerances and if one or more is off design intent you will either get a mechanical problem or a cosmetic one.

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NRA Certified Instructor & RSO

sent 627 canted barrel back on 15th... S&W got it on 22nd... as of the 29th they still haven't logged it into their system.... just an FYI.

I'll toss my opinion in here for the hell of it. The Performance Center charges a premium for their weapons, and I think that for the extra money spent you should get a perfect example of what S&W can do. My feeling is that any of the small problems that seem to get by the QC department are unacceptable on a $500 gun, much less a $1200 PC gun. And as far as looking at margins of profit for a gun compared to what it would cost to pay someone...how much does it cost to pay BOTH WAYS for shipping a gun back to them, and having it redone like it should have been before leaving the factory. I see A LOT of members on here that bought something, had an issue, and called and got a shipping label sent to them. Good customer service, but not good for the profit margins if it happens on a regular basis.

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1st smiles,lies.Last,gunfire.