Whelp, this saga comes to an "okay" ending.


This is the gun that has been sent back 3 times after I purchased it in June.

My requests for information on what was done to repair the gun were ignored, I have received no further responses or correspondence of any kind from customer service since being told "its done should be ready next week" 2 weeks prior to getting it back. When the gun arrived, it was devoid of the letter that states what was done to it (as I had been given the last two times) it was devoid of the paper showing it was test fired. Literally just had a shipping invoice in it. Cool....

So, upon inspection, the finish is pretty much flawless. No more factory provided scratches, no nicks or dings from tools used in repairs that were previously present.

Barrel appears straight, sight appears straight and solid and centered mostly.

timing is good, lockup is good, trigger feels fine except the over travel stop still allows over 1/16th inch of over travel. That matters not to me however.

Grips fit.

Crown looks good.

The sharp finish on the hammer has still never been addressed I. Three trips back. That’s fine I fixed it.

The only disappointment is that they didn't touch the barrel forcing cone/rifling. They have essentially refused to comment on that, and have ignored every request I have made for input on it, whether it IS an issue or whether I'm being ridiculous. They literally will not comment on the condition of the forcing cone and burrs in the rifling. They won’t tell me it’s an issue and they won’t tell me it’s a non issue.

Anyway, its back to me. Looks good, feels good, if it had come this way from the factory I'd have been fine with it, even with these only two minor issues... but unfortunately it took three return trips and 5 months to come to me the way it should have come on day one and it’s still not $1000 perfect. I give it a 9.5/10.

I'll shoot it and see if I wanna keep it. If it performs and the damn sight doesn’t fall off maybe I can learn to love it as I originally intended.

Hope it shoots good for you,glad it is finally back.

Glad to hear that your odyssey has finally ended.

Stu

Thanks for the follow-up. It's a shame you had to go thru all that.
It's a shame that S&W has fallen to such a low level of Quality.

I, for one, am still following this. Thanks for the final installment. You certainly had your patience tried, and that is unfortunate. Can’t quite close the book just yet though; we need to know how it shoots....

I don't know the whole story on this one but from time to time scenarios like this seem to turn up. It's hard to keep every customer 100% happy, and sometimes I have wondered if they even tried, in my case, but for the most part I've gotten pretty good service from S&W over the years - even if it wasn't always easy.

I hope you'll eventually develop a fondness for your 627. Persistence sometimes pays off!

Glad it is somewhat over...
Hope you hit the bullseye many times in your range trip..

__________________
NRA Benefactor

Whew! It looks like your ordeal is over. I would shoot it a bunch, clean the forcing cone area with a Lewis Lead remover and decide if it is to your satisfaction. If not it is easy to have a local gunsmith clean up the forcing cone.
At this point, unless it falls apart in your hand, I would leave S&W out of any further involvement in this firearm.
My 2¢

I'm following this one too. I recently had a similar issue with the barrel interior finish in a new 6" 586. There were burrs around the forcing cone and two of the rifling grooves were dark, one more than the other, and collected excessive leading. Inspection with a borescope showed a rough finish on those and a smooth finish on the other side of the barrel.

I sent it back, and it was returned in about two weeks with a note to the effect that it "met their specifications." Further explanation was that the finish was due to their new rifling process and should not affect accuracy. A manager I spoke to stated that he couldn't guarantee that a new barrel would be any better, so I declined to return it a second time.

Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed, both in the initial quality and in S&W's failure to correct it. I also have a new 66-8 purchased in June, and I'm delighted with it. So I decided to get the new 586 as well with the above results. I'm going to put a few hundred rounds through the 586 to give it a fair chance, but I'm not optimistic. I've got other Smiths including a 625-6, a 617, and a Model 41 with which I'm very happy. But apparently my luck ran out on this one. It seems their barrel quality problems may be more than just occasional, and they have designed their factory acceptance standards to accommodate their manufacturing abilities rather than the other way around.

It looks as though S&W's customer base reduction program is coming along nicely....

I will have to say , " I think every single person should have to work in retail for at least 3 yrs " . I don't mean sitting in some back office , I mean on the front counter . It really " moderates " ones attitude about themselves and towards customer service .
I have used S&W customer service numerous times . It hasn't always been successful . I didn't post a rant , I just contacted them and in a kindly manner explained my problem , sent it back and things were done right . Customer service is not some big machine that you can " recalibrate " for better performance . It's comprised of people , sometimes they make mistakes , just like we " ALL " do .
If you're so dissatisfied with their Customer Service , then start buying " Brand X " .

Reading through this thread, I have to wonder if anyone
actually shoots their guns before calling the factory.

It seems not.

The first two trips were due to cosmetic fit and finish issues which regardless of how the gun performed were unacceptable.

On top of that the front sight was clearly canted, though the barrel was not.

No need to shoot to identify several issues. That trip took over 4 weeks.

The second trip was because during the first trip they made more cosmetic damage to the gun, and didn’t fix the front sight they merely drifted it over. This was when I discovered the rifling issue. Still no need to shoot to know the sight and cosmetic damage neeeded fixed. That trip was fast at 2 weeks.

Third trip was because even after I accepted the ****ty rifling cuts seeing as it had a new barrel that was the same as the old, and even more cosmetic damage caused by them, I shot about 250 rounds through it and the front sight fell off after shooting all over the paper because it wouldn’t stay still.

That combined with the cosmetic issues got me to send it back the third time during which I asked them to look at the barrel and they did not. That trip was 7 weeks.

How the gun shoots isn’t the only signifier of a quality or acceptable build.

Ed: I did,shoot mine. How did you think I got "excessive leading?"

Cowboy: I've worked in retail and as a gunsmith for 44 years. Smith's people were very polite, and their return time was just fine. One reason for the return was that customers looked at the barrel and went, "Yuck!!" At least one of them has since purchased a Ruger GP100. I don't think Smith really appreciates how issues like this can snowball. I wasn't kidding about "customer base reduction program...."

I will post range report in the near future. I’m sure it’ll shoot well, this last barrel provided no issues other than the sight falling off so if that’s fixed then I have no reason to believe it will have any problems shooting :-)

The last 20 years of my 'real' job was in Quality Control for a large national company. After I retired, I worked part time , behind the counter, for 11 years at a large LGS. And I'm a firm believer that the guy that came up with the saying ,, ' that the customer is always right' ,, was full of dog *rap.

But, I have followed the story of the Dr. and looked at the pictures. And there is NO reason for such poor quality coming out of the S&W factory !

Two of the last five firearms I purchased from S&W had quality issues. One a Performance Center 929 and a Pro Series M&P. Plus I have seen several others S&W's that have had quality problems that should have never left the factory.
I have since advised anyone thinking about buying a S&W to check it over VERY carefully before getting their wallet out.

Dr., glad to see you finally got your 627 squared away.. Saw a guy shooting one like your's at a local steel challenge match about a month ago. It may not be the best choice for a steel challenge gun ,, but a really cool looking firearm.

You know, the above thoughts actually make a lot of sense.

One would think the design specs and standards are set first and production needs adjusted to conform. Well, one doesn't need to think, that's how it's supposed to be. However, it really does seems like they have been adjusting design specs/standards to better fit with their production abilities/outputs.

It sure seems that way with all their current "specs". Like .012" max barrel to cylinder gaps now. It just seems the max keeps growing to cover an ever widening range.

Good luck with your "new" gun OP. Hopefully you will get some enjoyment out of it eventually. Not sure it would work out for me.

I don't care if it's a motorcycle, auto, gun or a piece of furniture, if I spend my hard earned money on it I expect it to be in 100% condition in form and function. If we allow manufacturers to slack off at our expense they most certainly will. Good on you Dr.Marneaus for expecting and demanding what you paid for.

These stories make me want to stay away from new guns. I am happy to buy used but not abused guns.

__________________
Two Handguns every day

Sadly, I think that S&W has based their QC checks to be customer based in recent years instead of checking and fixing problems before it leaves the factory the first time. I bought a 627 Pro in 2016 and while it didn't have all the issues that Dr. Marneaus ran into, it did have a problem with light strikes when shooting double action with around a 20-30% failure rate to fire the round in double action mode. It wasn't a big problem for me, since I had a regular power Wolff mainspring on hand and simply swapped it out and the pistol functioned correctly. But it shouldn't have left S&W that way either. And just last week, I bought a S&W SW22 Victory 22 Automatic from Academy in Lafayette, LA and when I went to the range with it I was having horrible issues with failures to eject and stovepipes and such. With the help of our forum members here, they linked me to a simple fix posted here in a previous thread. The fix merely involed bending the ejector inwards about 1 mm or so. After I did that, my pistol then functioned correctly, so again there was no need to send it back for repair. But that pistol should never have left out from the factory in the first place without being fixed. And from the first magazine of ammo, it was immediately apparent that something was wrong with this pistol. So that tells me that the pistol was even checked for proper function before being boxed and shipped.

These are my exact sentiments. In previous threads so many people were like ‘whatever it’s fine just shoot it’ and my response was basically ‘you must either make way more money than me or just spend it a lot more frivolously because I work way too hard for mine to let it go towards sub par products’