A slight amount of tilt is acceptable as long as it's not out of the range of adjustment for the rear sight assembly. Now, I will note that there have been some revolvers released recently that have a lot of "tilt" to the barrel, enough so that the sight adjustement wouldn't permit the sights to be properly zeroed. The good news it's pretty rare, the bad news is you won't know if you have too much "'tilt" unless you have enough experience to make a visual judgement or actually test fire the question gun.
The problem is that with a threaded joint such as this the manufacturer is faced with 3 choices.
One is to tighten the barrel to a fixed specification and accept some variance as long as the gun can be adjusted to shoot to point of aim.
The second is to tighten the barrel until the alignment is perfect and hope the barrel doesn't shoot loose or tighten up due to the forces put on the barrel during firing. You also have to hope that in some cases the barrel will not be overtightened to the point where the frame cracks or the barrel fails down the road.
The third is to hand fit each joint, which could require as much as 2 or 3 hours for each gun if you're trying to achieve perfect alignment AND a perfect torque specification. If you've ever tried removing 0.00005 to 0.0003 inch of steel and getting perfection you'll understand the time involved, it can only be done by hand.
Because they no longer pin the barrels to the frame, I suspect that S&W now uses a specific torque range when tightening the barrels. As a result, you'll see some variation in the alignment. Personally, if I were managing this assembly area, I would install the barrels with a high strength Locktite and line them up. Then I would alert that Gunsmithing community that the barrels on a Smith & Wesson revolvers are now no longer replaceable.
The fact is that a lot of gun purchasers expect total visual perfection on a relatively cheap revolver when it has ZERO effect on how the guns shoot. If they want visual perfection, the least expensive option is to use locktight and remove the possibility of replacing the barrel in the future.
BTW, if you don't think you 617 is cheap, take a look at the price for a Korth revolver, that will change your attitude. The plain truth is that you won't find any other consumer product made today with this level of complexity and longevity.
BTW, I have a 610 that has a barrel with this condition. Visually the barrel is about 0.020 inch past center. Doesn't bother me one little bit because I had no problem adjusting the sight to get it to hit perfectly. I also have a 620 that has a dead perfect alignment of the barrel shroud to the frame, because it features a 2 piece barrel assembly and the shroud is keyed to the frame. It too bad that people weren't more accepting of the 2 piece barrels, I suspect a 617 fitted with a 2 piece barrel would probably group under 1/2 inch at 50 yards. Now it'll never happen.
Finally, if you want a perfect 617 they are out there. Bad news is that you'll have to stumble on one, because if I am correct about these barrels being torqued to a set specifiction there will be a bell shaped distribution curve for the alignment. If S&W has their process well "centered" per Deming, this means that 1 to 2% will need a return to the factory as "outlyers" and 1 to 2% will have perfectly centered barrels. As for the other 96%, they won't be perfect but they will allow the sights to be properly zeroed.
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