Here's my experience with S&W Customer Service. Several
years ago I bought a nice used S&W 681 .357 mag. L frame
revolver off Gunbroker. It hadn't been modified, so I called
and they sent me a shipping label. I sent the revolver to
them for the modification. A few days later I get a call from
some guy at S&W saying we had a problem with the gun.
Turns out whoever was doing serial numbers on the day
that gun was made wasn't paying attention and transposed
the last two numbers in the serial number located on the
frame butt and the crane area. The gun had those Pachmeyer
rubber grips on it, and everyone who had it used the crane
area serial number because they were too lazy to remove
the rubber grips to look. So, the guy tells me the gun is
illegal, and they had to confiscate it. They send me a some-
what new model 686 with a 6 inch barrel as compensation.
I sold the 686 and picked up a nice used Colt Python.