SW Shield Slide Cracked

[hoc9sw]

No certainty, but I would expect that as the firing to get the casing would be at the end of the manufacturing process, unless they had a backlog, there should only be a few days start to finish for assembly. When the component parts are made is potentially another story. But the test firing is the start of the weapons life as a complete entity.

They did look up mine, and it was over a week's span from mfg to test-fire.That was how they researched a barrel issue.

 

[tonesurfer]

I wonder where all the guys/LGS employees are who are adamantly opposed/refuse to allowing a customer to field strip a gun before they purchase it. I understand that this was ordered online, but you still can inspect it at your transferring dealer before completing any paperwork.

 

[droshi]

I wonder where all the guys/LGS employees are who are adamantly opposed/refuse to allowing a customer to field strip a gun before they purchase it. I understand that this was ordered online, but you still can inspect it at your transferring dealer before completing any paperwork.

Yes, I think my FFL would have been just fine with me doing pretty much any kind of disassembly before receiving the gun. I just didn't and until now didn't feel it was necessary. If it was a used gun off gunbroker or something I probably would have looked over it much more in detail.

At a LGS, I can understand they don't want people field stripping the guns, but if you're a serious buyer and ready to buy, they should do the field stripping for you for your inspection. I'll insist on this in the future.

 

[kannonvaggon]

Maybe the slide wear is from even just the "test" firing and racking... rubbing from the obvious horrendous condition of the slide machining??

There is NO excuse for this to ever leave the factory, and management should be made aware of this situation. At least the OP cleaned this nasty excuse for a new pistol.... and was not injured by firing it....

I know it will get worked out, but THAT is not something that even an automated QC line should ever spit out the door. SHAME on SW for this one.
YMMV

 

[turbo38gn]

Wow, there are some amazing posts here.... it's a new gun with the required test fires. It doesn't show anything abnormal in the wear department. Obviously, there was a machining incident. It may have occurred in several slides, but no doubt was caught at some point.. the area obviously did not affect the initial firing, just send it back, they'll replace the slide and you'll be a happy camper.

Once again, it was just an error in machining that will probably never happen again. It happens in all manufacturing facilities at some point.. quality control didn't go down the tube...

 

[Decipher]

This further reiterates my utter disbelief that anyone would just take their gun from the box and run rounds through it without first inspecting, cleaning, and lubing it. I just cleaned my 15-22 for the first time before operating it and it was amazing how much machining material was in the barrel and action.

Anyways, this gun is a nightmare and thankfully you took the time to inspect it before firing it. That likely saved your life. There's no excuse for this leaving the factory, but one should also consider the failure rate of S&W before writing them or any other manufacturer off. For every one issue we see, there are thousands to tens of thousands or more that have no issues at all. Just saying.

 

[N4KVE]

I wonder where all the guys/LGS employees are who are adamantly opposed/refuse to allowing a customer to field strip a gun before they purchase it. I understand that this was ordered online, but you still can inspect it at your transferring dealer before completing any paperwork.

Another reason to avoid online gun purchases. What would the LGS do? He doesn't give a ****, as he doesn't have a dime into the gun, & won't let you do anything until you pay him his transfer fee. Now after the fee is paid, the gun is released to you, & you can have him send it back to the on line dealer, but you will have to now pay shipping, & his transfer fee back to the online dealer. When the replacement gun with a different ser # comes back to the LGS, you will have to pay another transfer fee to receive the second gun. And yes, I have seen this happen several times at work when an online purchase has a problem. This is why I would never buy a new gun online unless I was saving a bundle. GARY

 

[oldsalt72]

I've got 2 shields in 9mm and 2 M&P 9mm's. I have never seen a crack, defect such as that, S&W should definitely make that right. Also I have at least 1000 rounds through each weapon. They all work good.

 

[M&Pmeister]

I had thought that Melonite was more of a hardening process to the steel, and that afterwards they coat it with black nitride or something? My glock finish seems to wear off from holster use pretty easily, but underneath is the hardened steel that doesn't rust or degrade very easily.

Either way, even the place I bought it from did agree it seems like there's excessive wear on the pistol for it being new.

I'm also starting to wonder if the No-Safety model is maybe quite a bit different from the standard model and required all new tooling? It may explain some of these issues..

Melonite is the QPQ process that produces the final finish. The last part of the Quench Polish Quench gives the work piece that black finish.

I just find it hard to believe something this obvious could've slipped past QA/QC. As for this being a one-off slip-up in mfg... I don't buy that either. With everything being auomated CNC'ed these day, you'd typically get a whole batch just like this if the CNC machines were miscalibrated.

Still doesn't add up... Somebody somewhere in the delivery chain had a hand in this.

 

[bmb96mus]

I would have to say that this is 100% a quality control mistake. I love s&w but this should not leave their facility. I know mistakes happen but just glancing at the slide from all sides could have caught this. That crack is VERY noticeable. the OP is lucky he did not fire that, could have had another kaboom gun blamed on ammo

 

[bmb96mus]

^ if it turns out that the gun is actually new and never fired outside of s&w

 

[skip4309]

I'm not sure why I should have known that info was there, I thought maybe the serial number was the only way to find out and wasn't sure how...

I don't really look much at the spent casing and didn't realize that info was there, but here's a picture.

Looks like the date is 7/14/2014, is that the manufacture date? Or just the test date? Or are they usually pretty close?

Serial number you can see in the photo, I guess I don't see much of a reason not to post it.

That's the date they test fired the gun...it could have been built weeks or months earlier. I recently purchased a Glock 19 Gen4 and the fired case had a test date of just (6) days before I bought it...and the gun was made in Austria!!

Its unheard of a gun leaving the factory with that kind of defect. That's a quality control issue. You would think that they would actually have someone field strip and visually inspect ALL of their products before they are put in the box for shipment/sale. Someone has to put the mags, lock and paperwork in the box too!! They should send you a new gun...

 

[Jiman]

So I showed my coworker the pics of your gun and just for giggles we took his apart and took some pics to pass on.



Here's what his looks like:

 

[Don 73]

Make sure you let us know what S&W CS says when you contact them.

 

[droshi]

Make sure you let us know what S&W CS says when you contact them.

CS said they are going to send me a label to ship the whole gun back to them. They haven't sent yet, but I feel better sending everything back to them for full inspection rather than just the slide. Hopefully they can figure out what happened.

Also, a similar shot as the one above here:

You can see how the metal is bubbled in that thin channel on the right side. Left side is obviously very thick and fine...but from the other guy's gun I can't tell if it's milled to a similar thickness? Maybe the thickness in that area isn't so critical.

 

[kannonvaggon]

They need to get " David T" into the office and give him forty lashes and maybe have his eyes examined ....

That is just WRONG.

I LOVE my Shield 9mm, it's my favorite and my carry pistol. I trust it with my life, literally. I'm sure that this is a very rare anomaly, but I just do not understand how something like THAT gets out of the factory AND through a dealer without being properly culled. Caveat Emptor I guess ...

 

[uechikid]

Seeing this thread made me want to check the two new shields we purchased about a month ago. They were both test fired on 07/11/14 and one was inspected by David T. They look solid. I'm sure I would have seen a defect like this when I cleaned them.
Keep us posted.

 

[mrrick]

Droshi:My only main problem right now is that I'll be continuing to carry my larger Glock 19"

No problem there at all!

 

[icemn]

I find this pretty disturbing and it's not even my gun!
If it was mine I'm pretty confident I'd be pretty disgusted!

 

[johnnyk71]

very interesting dilemma. i'll be watching to see how this gets resolved. it does look strange for a "new" gun to look like that, even with the defects.