Ordered a 686+ deluxe, barrel was just off center enough to bug me and I declined the transfer (big box store, they didn't care).

Had them pull a few from the case to compare, a new 610 which seems almost straight enough but had flashing up on the top (from setting barrel to length) on top in the sight grooves where it meets the frame.

A bit of variance in ejector shroud gap between the samples.

A 627PC on hand was straight as any of my vintage pistols, the 69 2.75" i ordered same time also looked great and came home as intended.

Seems Smith lacking a bit on QC maybe due to demand but a bit concerning at the price points of these "entry level" and now traditional construction revolvers.

The buyers of S&W firearms have become the QC department.
Corporate S&W has chosen to eliminate their QC dept. and gamble on whether the buyer will notice or care enough to return a defective firearm for repair or replacement.

Sounds like Taurus.

So, there are small variations in mass produced items, none of which affect the function. Shrug.
S&W will make more than 2 million guns this fiscal year, or about 6000 a day. Think about it.

I don't think anybody would care if we were talking about $10 box fans made in china, but a 686?
If they make that many guns they could at least afford a few more employees to look them over better.

I believe Taurus puts out a better product than Smith does, and has for several years.
This is coming from an S&W guy.

The point is a slighty offset barrel will not have an effect on its performance. I've seen plenty of older Smith's that aren't perfect either. You're not buying a collector's item. It's a gun that's meant to be used. I'm tired of these posts that nitpick every single tiny thing and make a mole hill into a mountain. Smith's aren't any worse than any other companies offerings and are better than most, despite people trying to make it sound otherwise.

I sure wouldn't pay for a new car where the body panels didn't like up flush and straight even though it does not affect the drivability of the car. Too much willingness to accept shoddiness in manufacturing.

But I imagine there are still a lot more pleased new Smith buyers than unhappy ones.

Unfortunately, this is the state of manufacturing in this country. It isn't unique to S&W. Once a company becomes publicly traded, it's philosophy of operation becomes predictable.
Many say that these firearms are "tools", so that level of quality doesn't matter, as long as it "works". Strangely enough, when these companies built their reputations, I dare say these guns were more important as tools than they are now. And yet the quality was there. There were many gun companies back then that didn't exhibit the quality of the Smiths, Colts, and Winchesters. They are simply gone and forgotten.
Maybe it's a coincidence that the days of such products were also the days of the United States becoming a world power and a country of greatness unlike any other.
Welcome to the age of mediocrity.

Ok, let's not nit pick. How about the last 2 new revolvers i bought wouldn't ignite the primers on ever other cylinder ? Not "hard" primers, any primers. And it wasn't the strain screw being loose.
How about sights falling out on $1200 guns ?
How about the cylinder out of time and blow back into shooters face ?
How about barrel/frame gaps i could slide a credit card thru ?
Their new stuff is assembled like ****, with good materials but to the point that it often,not always affects function
Just facts

I'll post a contrary view. My recent purchase of a now discontinued 625-8 (probably one of the last ones made?) is flawless. I have zero complaints. It is more accurate than I can shoot and has been 100% dependable. That is more than I can say for myself. Maybe I was just lucky. bob

Bob, like I said, not every revolver will have issues. Some will be ok. But 20 years ago, even 10 years ago I am pretty sure that Smith revolvers actually went off when the shooter pulled the trigger. You definitely got lucky

FWIW, the two-piece barrel revolvers (like your M69) have largely been immune to the canted sight/barrel issue due to the fact that their shrouds (& front sights) are indexed to the frame and not subject to under/over clocking that's too often found on the one-piece barrels.

I agree though, in this day & age, there's no reason why S&W shouldn't have an apparatus to connect to a revolver, as they tighten a barrel to the frame, that reads out the degree of cant from true vertical.

Doesn't seem like rocket science.

.

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Waiting for the break of day

Interesting that the most valuable car company in the world by far, has a terrible reputation for quality. Buyers don't care, they love the technology and the service centers will eventually fix the defects.

I bought a new 686-6 6" a couple weeks ago, I could find no issues with it other than the trigger, I replaced the factory trigger with a Wolf spring kit that took care of the problem. I am very happy with the gun, but if my barrel was not centered or a cosmetic issue that's not acceptable, you work harder now for your money and you should get a good product for what you spend your hard earned dollars on. I learned many years ago whatever you doing, put out your best!

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"Mountaineers Are Always Free"

I think it's important to remember that this is a forum on the internet. People who come here to post are not doing so to tell us that they just bought a gun and it was unremarkable and had no issues. I think that the posts are skewed towards problems and don't really reflect the whole picture. I can only go by my experience and it seems to be different than a lot of the posters here. I spend a lot of time skulking gun shops and I tend to look at everything. The S&W's that I have been handling, for the most part, are not displaying these defects, that if you look at in the context of this forum, are appearing on just about every gun that leaves the factory. That certainly doesn't apply to the 3 new Smiths that I have purchased over the last year and a half or so. Those guns have no defects that I can see and function perfectly. To be fair, the two Sig's and one Glock that I have bought over the same time frame are also problem free. Of course if I go to the Sig forum and read the posts there you would think I wasted my money and bought a couple of pieces of junk. (The Glock is a piece of junk but it's supposed to be and it shoots great!) Same house, different address. People come here lots of time to resolve problems and report a problem so it seems that there are noting but problems. It is important to keep it all in context and trust your own experiences.

But the older Smiths were much better.

Yep another post again and I’m glad it is posted. When we get complacent and start excepting the bad that gets through without any complaining it’ll never stop sneaking through or at least slow down.

What I think about, and what concerns me is, how many of the 6000 will have defects worthy of fixing before the new owners even shoot them.

The new S&W pistols I have are fine. I've got a half dozen or so, all models that weren't made back in the good old days, and I haven't had any issues with them. A Governor, a 340PD, a 442, and a 642, and a Shield 2.0. I've purchased some older Smiths recently as well, and several had issues I needed to attend.

It's my not all that humble opinion that the publicized issues are due to the interweb and the easy spread of bad news, which exceeds the spread of good news exponentially. The issues were present from since time began, we just know about them much faster now . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Smith autos in the M&P series are excellent weapons. There are dozens of similar pistols out there and I prefer the S&Ws.

Unfortunately, their revolvers are now overpriced "knock-offs" of themselves (with a few passable exceptions).

I’m sure many of you recall the late 1980’s and the then new S&W president Steve Melvin and his strategy to shift gears at the old Springfield plant. He introduced CNC machinery into production and told the world that such modernization and repeatable accuracy would essentially reduce if not remove the old hands-on part fitting process whereby revolvers were assembled from parts bins. The bench hands had to find and install the best fitting yoke, extractor, hand etc etc. then pass it on to the next stage. This must have driven Melvin nuts to see so much inconsistency and people on the payroll. His vision was CNC equipment turning out identical parts with no fitting, no line of fitters and rows of time card clocks. In his perfect world there wasn’t much need for dozens of QC hands not if CNC cranked out perfect parts by the bin full. The theory was better, faster quality, and reduced workforce including the high paid custom shop prima donnas.

Well in many respects the plant and production process has been upgraded and successful but in different ways than end users would prefer. Profit margins are up so the bean counters are happy and the parent company is able to siphon off a little extra cash into other ventures. A much reduced labor force and those sticky labor related problems like unions, benefit packages and management in a state that isn’t easy to live with. So the money side of the equation is good but the product ain’t so good. Think about the CNC process and it’s not hard to fathom a machine developing a problem as simple as broken tooling, interrupted cooling, whatever and as a result filling a parts cart with hundreds of defective parts before somebody catches it and takes the machine off line. A bad operator or milling machine in a line of same is minor issue compared to a big high performance CNC machine. Do you throw these parts out or try to tweak things a bit to fulfill orders ? You know what the bean counters think. And why didn’t somebody catch the problem on the first place ? Remember with CNC you don’t need QC people walking around on the clock all day.

To the bean counter QC people are a waste of resources ( no value added ) since when things are going good they don’t do anything. Fact is they don’t do much at all until they catch a problem then they are worth the whole floor. Those little problem parts can be absorbed in the 6000 guns a day and the ever growing sales and promotional staffs. So you ask how can you ship sloppy or defective guns ? And I ask how would they know without a QC department in other words does the worker in the production line or shipping department know the difference, I doubt it. If they had a competent QC department would they have the horsepower to stop the machines to correct a problem. Does management actually want qualified QC people that could just as easily turn into ‘ whistle blowers ‘. 6000 guns a days you have to wonder how many buyers actually complain and if enough did would it trip a recall ? So the older revolvers just had more hands on them since parts uniformity was kind of hit or miss. But they were assembled as needed from bins until all the lock-work parts fit up and worked properly. In the final analysis it boils down to production cost vs profit.

Even in the old days of statistical process control, machined parts etc are checked per a sampling plan.
As the part variation should get to the established criteria, the tooling setup etc would be adjusted.

The vision that no qc exists is fanciful.

Thanks guys,

Interesting ideas being tossed around and I think a lot of correct things being hit one here.


So maybe the QC pass standard is lower due to demand, not acceptable to me I guess but they still gonna sell the units apparently...

Thing is I don't want to be the QC department on an $800 item, I kind of expect it to be damn near perfect out of the box (maybe S&W should have set a lower standard historically, oh wait that's why I'm even a customer...)

If I wanted a "lower quality" product I'd be shopping Taurus et al and putting up with the BS that comes with the lower tier item.

A good friend bought some lottery tickets and told me if he hit it big he was going to "Buy Smith and Wesson". He meant the company itself. He would then demand that they make their guns right again with forged parts and no locks, using modern machining and assembly where practical. High QC and revolvers one would be proud to own and shoot would be his goal.

I think if this ever happens we will all be just shocked to see it is also profitable.

While we just keep going back and back to the good old days I hope you’ll allow Smith management to continue using stainless steel cause it’s much easier to clean the black powder residue off of .

I like the fact that real craftsmen hand assembled my older revolvers. They earned those paychecks and I hope their families lived well. The guns are still superb.

The much touted older guns with higher quality are only ones that long ago had someone else fix it's factory flaws.

That doesn't make them empirical, it just means someone else already did the leg work.

.

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Waiting for the break of day

None of my new Smith & Wesson have any problems at all. Sure, some go out with problems. That is because they are mass produced to meet a certain price point. If you want to buy a new gun that you can be sure will be flawless you can certainly get one. All you have to do is save up about $3000 to $5000 and wait a year for it to be built. Do you want guns that are perfect or cheap? You are not likely to get both.

Remember that the Smiths that had quality control issues coming off the line in the past are now either scrapped, fixed, or so beat up you wouldn’t notice. So people think that a vintage pristine Smith is how they all were. Not true. They made lemons back then too.
Smith currently makes better quality, more accurate and more tightly fitted guns now than they ever have in the past. And their current QC is just fine. Not perfect, but no worse than the past either.


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I have had the same problem with Ruger Revolvers. Bought three of them, two went back. Much worse than all the Smiths I have. Also horrible is the quality of Leupold. Bought three FX handgun scopes, all have a canted reticle. Replacement takes weeks.

I built million dollar CNC machines I have no clue how some ran in the field. I think they waved a magic wand over them as they went out the door. I guess our installation guys were good.

I’ve had poor quality guns in the past. Hunting scopes? I took two rifles when going hunting. I go from a woodstove heated trailer to the frigid cold and that will test any quality scope. I had one cheap scope fog inside. But all my Bushnell scopes never failed that test. I’ve had them since ‘94.

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Plant garlic in the fall

Everyone who hates talking about the good old days ask yourself why the guns of yesteryear bring a large premium of the guns today. Is it just nostalgia or were the guns really made better? If you had a choice a model 27 from years back or 686 made three months ago which one would you pick? Me I take the 27 but that’s just me.

Plenty of good points on both sides of the floor. Yes, there are variations and QC issues...which is true of all kinds of products and brand names...and there are also a lot of people out there looking really hard to find things to complain about.

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Smith. And Wesson. And Me!

I prefer older, used guns. Maybe it's nostalgia, Maybe they were made better (or perceived to be made better), or maybe I just like "lightly used" looking guns, and enjoy saving some money.

Most people these days seem to want stainless, I prefer blued. I do have a nice Ruger SP101 that shoots flawlessly, bought used, saved $100+ on it, and put the savings into better grips, and more ammo. I wanted a nice 6 shooter with adjustable sights, went with a nice used 15-2 over a 686. I just like them more.

what does that have to do with the original post? Not much... If it isn't perfect, and you are paying full price, don't accept it. If it's messed up a little, and I wanted it, i would ask for money off, or if it bothered me, I would ask them to get another. Chances are, they will throw it in the case, and the next guy won't notice it's messed up.

I just picked up a new Classic Model 27, with 6.5" barrel, from Sportsmans. I noticed 3 things when I got home.

There is an obvious gap at the bottom of the barrel to frame. There is a gap at the top but barely noticeable.

The front screw holding down the rear sight bar is too short and will probably result in little round burn marks on the cylinder.

The wood grips are not perfectly matched with the frame, the lower rear corner of the frame protrudes a bit.

I will call S&W customer service later today after I measure the barrel to frame gaps, I will ask them what their limits are.

I will ask them to send me a longer screw. I heard about this issue from a You-tube video but thought they would have corrected the problem by now since they evidently have the longer screws.

Those are cosmetic issues viewable on inspection. So why did you buy it?


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This^^^
There were lemons put out in the “good old days” too. But they got beat up or fixed by your gunsmith or by S&W. Or parted out. But they’re gone now. Whereas the new production doesn’t have that advantage, and never will. It’s a complete and total myth that the older revolvers are better than the new.

Controversial opinion: I own many many revolvers from all eras. I lived in and shoot the guns from the “good old days.” The stuff S&W is putting out right now is the best quality they’ve ever done. The bluing may be less deep, but it’s more durable. The stainless gets a bead blast finish unheard of in days past. The new barrels are more accurate (fight me on this, I shoot revolvers competitively and have done hours of comparisons with all kinds of factory and handloads). The ball bearing detent lockup on the front of the crane makes them really solid and they don’t shoot loose like they used to. Cylinder gaps are tighter. Cylinder faces are more square. Chambers are reamed with more precision. The ejection rods don’t loosen up and lock the cylinder like they do on the old versions. The newer ones have target crowns and great triggers. Especially the L frames and N frames. Sorry, but S&Ws “good old days” are an internet myth.


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For what a new Smith costs, I expect the barrel to be screwed on straight.
Not so easy to fix, but very easy to at least catch the mistake and set those specimens aside for rework before they leave the factory.

I have old Smiths and new Smiths. For the most part, the "new" Smiths (last 15 years to present) have been really nice. Was a bit put off by the Model 66-8 with 2.75" barrel that shaved lead into my face but fixed the problem by reshaping the forcing cone. Overall, it has been a good experience. I want the company to do well. Hope that folks enjoy the new pistols. I do and look forward to new developments. I would still like to see a 6 shot Airweight, or maybe a DAO CSX, or maybe an Airweight K frame with a 3" barrel.

I am not surprised that S&W announced that they are moving their factory out of Massachusetts. The state is so anti -gun now that they dont even care if it costs jobs and money.
The QC at the new factory.. will be better, worse or the same? Time will tell

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S&W BG380, S&W 915 9mm

One should never buy any firearm without having held in their hand and expect it to be perfect. That's on you. That being said, I have more confidence in a pre '70's S&W purchased online being more 'perfect' than anything from the present day being 'perfect'.

I broke a promise this year I made to Smith & Wesson 20 years ago and finally brought my first one with a lock at retail new.

Initial impressions are they are very well-made Firearm but this did come out of the performance center. I have owned many different Smiths from semi auto to revolver.

Bang for the buck I still think they are the best pistol on the market and highly undervalued due to being domestic. They don’t have some of the allure to the younger crowd as some of the foreign brands.

Speaking in great generalities, I do think the triggers today and the gun to gun consistency is much greater. I still prefer the qualities of the older firearms but the peak and zenith of their capability was in the 80s with the stainless series guns. Many of the old school practices but many of the newer engineering changes to lock work and materials.

They are only moving their rifle production and HQ. Revolvers will continue to be made in Springfield. They are also going to retain their forging and metallurgy in Springfield. I think you would see them get out of the forging business before they moved it. I'm not sure whet they are going to do about M&P production. The polymer frames were never made in Springfield. I would guess that they will keep the status quo until it comes time to upgrade the CNC equipment that makes the barrels and slides. Then they will move it to wherever makes the most financial sense. I think that this whole move thing has more to do with the high corporate tax rate in Mass. than it does with any possible legislation.

I haven't had any Leupold problems, but Ruger quality control has always been bad in my opinion. I currently own 10 or 12 Rugers that have no issues, but I've seen more lemons come from Ruger than about any other "decent" gun company other than Remington. I'm excluding the budget gun companies like Hi-Point, and others. I will say that Ruger customer service has always been top notch. They've fixed every issue I've ever had quickly and with no arguments.

My biggest complaint with S&W is what I'd call their budget automatic rimfires. I haven't owned a Victory, but I've been less than impressed with all their other rimfires other than the 41's. I once heard a gunsmith say that S&W just can't build a good cheap gun.

Quite true. The big dirty secret you mention is the "...sales and promotional staffs..." As with Dr. Gaston's plastic wonder and the majority of the latest designs out on the market today we are witnessing no actual improvements in performance, accuracy, reliability or durability, but the triumph of marketing, convincing John Q. Public to part with his hard earned dollars to deposit into the pockets of the salesmen of whatever widget they field declaring it the best thing since sliced bread. God Bless Jerry Miculek but his public use of and promotion of S&W's latest products cannot overcome the defects that are being built into the guns, despite the purported superiority of the computer miling machines. Has anyone noticed that the absolute highest end 1911s in terms of accuracy, reliability and durability, to cite one example, are still hand fit by skilled workers? If CNC milling was all that, then hand fitting ought to be eliminated altogether. But guess what? It cannot and I doubt it ever will. Just the nature of the beast. America sent men to the moon and back multiple times using computers with less than a tenth the capability of the cheapest wireless phone available on today's market. The engineers who built the whole program were still using pencils, paper and slide rules to accomplish the great majority of all the math and mechanics. Yet today, with the massive, unimaginable electronic computing power at our fingertips, we probably couldn't make it back there if we tried. What does that tell you?

Do you know that for a fact or is that due to your impression of S&W QC or rumor? Don

Same old same old.

Only Smith I have bought recently is a 340PD for my wife. All of the others are "vintage." I was looking at a new M 48 Classic and thinking about a new 19, or a 586, but now I'm second-guessing based on these comments. Not sure if I would notice a short screw or some of the other issues mentioned. I bought a new 4.25 Python a year or so ago. Guess I need to get it out and look for flaws.