How bad can one persons luck be!?

markush · Apr 17, 2011

I try to keep from relating too many negative experiences on this forum but my god! They just keep coming!

When I picked up my 637 last week I gave it a pretty good looking over, peeked down the barrel (without a light), checked timing, looked for anything not right. Timing was great, a couple of cosmetic dings, and bore looked fine.

Packed it away (unfired) until today, when I swabbed out the barrel and chambers. I look down the barrel and I see a line running the entire length..huh? I get the light and OMG! I prayed it was somehow just a nasty streak of lead. I run the Lewis lead remover through the bore...nope not lead. Snapped some picks and blew them up and it's definitely not a streak of lead. I'll be calling S&W tomorrow for a call tag.

If this was an isolated incident for me I wouldn't even be posting now, but I received my M&P with something similar in the barrel. Since it was only about a 1/16" long I never sent it back or made a big deal of it. It has smoothed out some with about 600 rounds through it.

The next S&W purchase was a 617 off of GB...it was sent straight off to Smith for a timing problem. That was a nightmare that I won't get into. Then of course this problem with the 637. 3 Smiths, 3 problems, with the two I purchased brand new having very similar problems from the factory....

Will they be replacing the entire gun or just the barrel in this case? Now I want to send my M&P barrel in also...

stantheman86 · Apr 17, 2011

I would be understandably angry too, if I pay several hundreds of dollars of my hard earned cash for a brand new gun, I don't expect flaws straight out of the box from a company like S&W.

How does it shoot? It may be "chatter" from a boring tool, or something like that. If it shoots OK, that thing in there may smooth out. It looks raised, not like it's a scratch.

I have 2 Dan Wessons and the bores are rough as cobs, but thy shoot great. Sometimes they still perform with less than perfect bores.

markush · Apr 17, 2011

I haven't shot it yet. The material from the grooves are built up into raised areas. The highest raised areas are back toward the breach end.

My M&P has a small groove which the material from that groove then made a raised area, the same as what's shown here, but just for a fraction of an inch and not the entire length of the bore. The raised portion has smoothed somewhat after about 600 rounds but not completely. Based on that...this disaster in the 637 will never smooth out.

lebomm · Apr 17, 2011

It's a little hard to tell, but it seems clear these pics are from the muzzle. As a toolmaker, it's quite clear to me that that gouge was made by something inappropriate being shoved down the bore somewhere along the line. Maybe somebody wanted to clear preservative out of the bore, and didn't have a cleaning rod, so used a twist of rag and a screwdriver?
The mark is absolutely not chatter from either a reamer or a rifling cutter, as it's about parallel w/the bore, and neither of those tools move that way.
Send it home !

Larry

markush · Apr 17, 2011

Sorry about all the photos but I wanted to make certain no one would post that it looked like a streak of lead. I drew on this photo showing what looks like two separate groves, one from the muzzle and one from the breach. They both end in a clump of material at the end of the gouge.

It came from the Internet retailer to my FFL to me. It had clearly only been fired from three chambers, factory test fired I'm sure. My M&P40 came from a local store. So for them both to have something similar in the barrels, just much, much less in the M&P, tells me this had to happen at the factory.

Raider · Apr 17, 2011

Wow! Something is definitely wrong here and I hope S&W makes it right. No customer should have to endure this stuff.

Charlie

m1gunner · Apr 17, 2011

It does look like someone jammed a screwdriver down the barrel. You would think the factory would have proper range rods or cleaning rods.

What the · Apr 19, 2011

It's really too bad that you have to go through this. You can take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. The quality of these once fine handguns from Smith and Wesson has been going downhill for some time now.

None of the Smiths I own is newer than the 1970's. This company should be ashamed of putting their name on most of the **** they make. It's a sad day when you have to bring a bore light with you to buy a new handgun.

Anyone that has to send a new overpriced sub-par Smith back to the factory for repair has my sympathy. I simply will not buy a new gun from them and will tell my shooting friends to buy Ruger handguns.

How bad can one persons luck be!?

markush

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stantheman86

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markush

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lebomm

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markush

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Raider

SWCA Member, Absent Comrade

m1gunner

US Veteran

What the

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