...and after getting home and looking it over, it's brand new, with everything well oiled and grease around the base of the front hand guard, and then I noticed lots of horizontal scratches on the top of the barrel, showing silver through the black. . While I know it's not a "high end" rifle, it seems odd to get a new gun with scratches on it already. Anyone gotten a new one with something like that on it already?

I thought about calling S&W just to ask them about it, to see what they say.