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...
I am troubled by this post. No disrespect intended, but......really?
There appear to me to have been many probable break-downs in QA/QC here, and it should not be up to the final customers to find them. It seems to me that S&W has been very lucky that there haven't been any injuries involved in this defect. Also, it appears from some of the previous posts that this is not an isolated example.
Machining errors don't just happen; they can result from inattention to detail, over-confidence, lack of supervision, deviation from procedures, lack of maintenance, etc, etc; mostly human performance failures. Given the high demand for this model, increased production rates, and modern, automated manufacturing methods, this should not be assumed to be just a "one-off" event. It is likely that there are others out there, and an "extent of condition" investigation should be made by the manufacturer.
The unusual wear patterns on the supposedly new gun raise even more questions that may or may not be related to the apparent machining/QA-QC errors, which also should be investigated. S&W should take this event very seriously; more seriously than the above post would suggest.
I'm grateful to the OP for bringing this to our attention, also the recommendation to field strip new guns prior to purchasing; which is not something that I've typically done in the past, but will do from now on.
Rant off. -S2
