Just signed up on the forums to share my experience.

I recently picked up a CSX, as it fits all the criteria I want in a CCW when I am not carrying a full size. I like the way it shoots, but I seem to have gotten a model with a defective safety lever.

The safety lever on the right side of the frame is able to be engaged normally and without issue. However, when trying to do it with the left side of the safety lever, as you would do with your thumb if you were right handed, it does not want to move, and seems to press in and collide with the slide. It also scratches/gouges the frame from normal operation. It seems like it is out of spec, and I was curious if anyone other CSX owner has run into this, and what Smith and Wesson Customer Service has said about it. I am still waiting on a response from them about this.


Thanks!

Sig had the same problem with some of their early P365's. i happened to end up with one. the "axle" of the safety was not 90 degrees to the axis of the slide. when i called Sig support they knew exactly what my problem was and took care of misaligned safety. hope your luck with S&W customer service is as good as mine was with Sig.

No problem with mine at all, other than the stippling is pretty agressive. A few seconds with an emery board seems to have taken care of that.

The safety, both sides, goes on and off with a positive "snick." Magazines, both of them load with no problem, and go into the gun easily, slide forward or back. The slide release releases the slide. Trigger breaks right at 4.5 pounds.

I'm starting to like this silly little thing. I've only got 100 rounds through it but it seems to work just fine.

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John 3:16 .

Was this issue ever fixed? Mine does the same thing!

The "right side" safety lever is fixed to the through pin that goes through the frame..The "left side" lever has a boss that slides over the pin and is held on with a spring clip to the cross pin. Something must be badly wrong with the removable left side lever's fit on the pin. You can inspect this by removing the slide, and looking down on from the top on the left side lever you will see a small "tab" between the lever and the frame of the gun. Using a tiny screw driver you can pull up this tab and grab it with some pliers and pull up straight up. The clip will pop out and the left side lever should then come off..But..best thing to do is just send it back to S&W...Hope that helps some...

As an update, Smith and Wesson are refusing to fix this problem, because they claim its my fault (which is baffling, considering it came out of the box like this). They say the scratch caused by their broken safety lever constitutes frame damage, and they don't fix frame damage for free under warranty (so what happens if I get a brand new pistol with a cracked frame?).

They did "offer" to let me buy a whole new gun from them for a 10% discount. I consider this a slap in the face and a complete failure of a company to honor their warranty. It boggles the mind that they would try to weasel out of fixing a gun that came from their factory broken. I will be selling all of my Smith and Wesson guns I have bought through the years and sticking with manufacturers I can trust and depend on.

As a further update, it gets even more ridiculous. I just got another call from Smith and Wesson, saying that a supervisor had reviewed the firearm on the floor, and now they are trying to get out of the claim by saying I attempted my own touch up rebluing of the frame where the broken safety is. This lie is preposterous. I sent the gun immediately to them after seeing there was an issue. And its an aluminum frame!

They also said that the deep gouging of the frame is to be expected (that seems insane to me?) and that they would only fix the defective safety, or sell me a new one.

I am utterly speechless and floored by how bad this customer service has been. No other manufacturer, including "cheap" ones like Rock Island or Taurus, have done so much to avoid warranty work. I tried to do the right thing and give them the benefit of the doubt, but they have insulted me and tried to cheat me every step of the way. I am definitely selling all of my other Smith and Wessons, and they lost a customer for life, thought I doubt they care.

And a further update. I just got yet another call, this time from a rep who was incredibly rude to me. I have the transcript. She would not let me speak, talked over everything I said, to call me a liar. Apparently its my fault that I dared to use the safety on a single action gun. Its my fault that the gun is broken out of the box. She let me know that there is no way Smith and Wesson puts out broken guns.

Paradoxically, she did let me know that Smith and Wesson would fix the gun, but she refused to answer any questions on what that meant. She simply said "the gun would be put back to spec". I specifically asked what that meant, if they would fix both the safety and the frame damage the safety caused. She refused to answer, and kept insinuating it was my fault. When asking to talk to the supervisor, she refused to transfer me. Is this the kind of service Smith and Wesson has done in the past, or did they use to be better?

This is a sad reversal of S&W's formerly excellent customer service. They used to have a lifetime service policy wherein they would repair any defects free of charge regardless of the age or number of rounds, or condition. Although it shouldn't have mattered, it might have been best had you not fired your CSX before contacting customer service. That way they couldn't attribute any damage to owner mishandling, which it appears they're trying to do.

Since the frame holds the serial number, they could not just replace the frame. They would have to replace the entire gun and send you a new one through an FFL, which they are obviously reluctant to do. Allow them to repair the the safety. Also ask to speak directly with a customer service supervisor. You should then receive your CSX with a properly functioning safety at least. They may surprise you with a cosmetically repaired frame as well. If not, you'll at least have a properly functioning gun you can sell with a clear conscience.

If you have photos, please post them.

Good Luck!

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What, me worry?

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate another viewpoint on this craziness.

You can actually get a replacement frame or whole gun from the manufacturer without doing an FFL transfer. I have done it with Rock Island and Ruger without issue.

"A person not otherwise prohibited by Federal, State or local law may ship a firearm to a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer for any lawful purpose, and, notwithstanding any other provision of this part, the licensed manufacturer, licensed importer, or licensed dealer may return in interstate or foreign commerce to that person the firearm or a replacement firearm of the same kind and type. See §478.124(a) for requirements of a Form 4473 prior to return. A person not otherwise prohibited by Federal, State or local law may ship a firearm curio or relic to a licensed collector for any lawful purpose, and, notwithstanding any other provision of this part, the licensed collector may return in interstate or foreign commerce to that person the firearm curio or relic.

[T.D. ATF-270, 53 FR 10507, Mar. 31, 1988]"



So the unwillingness to just replace it also confuses me. I think you are spot on though, this is a sad reversal of where they used to be in handling problems. Re-listening to the call logs just gets me so depressed. Hopefully others can avoid this type of mess with them.

I wanted to hold off on posting the photos to give them the benefit of the doubt, but with Smith and Wesson behaving as they are, I think I will share them, along with the audio recordings from their customer service, once I sanitize them for personal information.

Does anyone else wonder whether current S&W CS employees in MA are trying to sabotage the company pending its relocation to TN?

One experience I had was excellent. In 2017, as my M&P 40c approached 10,000 rounds, it started to have occasional failures to fire. When the new striker they sent me (free) failed to cure the problem, they took my 40c back and completely rebuilt it, replacing every moving part except the extractor. I've put nearly 6,000 rounds through it since, with zero failures. Turnaround time was six weeks, which wasn't too bad, all things considered.

A second excellent experience was with the newly introduced Shield 45 I bought. Most of them, including mine, experienced chronic failures to feed. S&W quickly acknowledged the problem, redesigned the 45's magazine follower, and sent new ones free of charge to all owners. The redesign cured the failures to feed.

Another experience was marginal. I'd had some failures to eject with my 1.0 Shield 9. The ejector had a slight wobble, and I wondered if that was contributing to way more failures to eject than I thought was normal. S&W inspected my 9, pronounced the wobble within spec, and returned it unrepaired. After some experimenting, I found a couple of brands of self defense ammo that worked perfectly in my 9. So now it's a reliable gun, with the proper ammo.

If you're looking for great customer service, buy a Ruger. Ruger not only has the best customer service of any firearm manufacturer, it may have the best customer service of any manufacturer of anything.

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What, me worry?

Ah, I appreciate the historical insight, thanks. I was also impressed by Ruger's professionalism the time I had to return a Wrangler. Surprisingly, Rock Island was also phenomenal when I had one of the very broken M206s they were selling at first. They tested and sent me a new one within a 4 week turnaround. Also, Sig has been very good on custom work I have ordered, and HK is great about sending replacement parts. It seems only Smith And Wesson has really burned me.

That certainly would explain the bad attitude I have been getting from one of the reps. The supervisor who is investigating the issue wont even take my calls, he only answers through his subordinates.

Also, for anyone who is curious, here is what the damage to the frame looked like right out of the box after trying to use the safety just once or twice from the left side with my thumb.

Image Link


You can see its clearly gouging down to the bare aluminum. This is also what they claimed I tried to "reblue". Just pure insanity.

The only thing I'm disappointed with my new CSX is the trigger.

Not that I am doubting what the OP has said, but -- brand-new, signs up just to complain -- and we have only one side of the situation. I'll avoid leaping to conclusions about what is what here...

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Pisgah

I certainly do understand the sensibility of getting all sides of a story, but I do dispute the statement I "signed up just to complain". When I made this thread almost two months ago, it had nothing to do with complaints.

In my original post, I simply asked if it had happened to anyone else, what Smith and Wesson had done to fix theirs if they had. No complaints about Smith and Wesson were voiced, whatsoever.

I actually didn't mind the trigger as much as some people do, but the inoperability of the factory defective safety via thumb was definitely a problem that I had to address. I was hoping their customer service was as good as some people have seen in the past, and that I have seen with other manufacturers, but Smith and Wesson seems to be racing to rock bottom on this one for me. It saddens me to see it happen.

I’ve owned a lot of S&Ws over the years - had a rather ridiculous collection that I sold off when I decided not to keep anything I wasn’t shooting regularly. Even with all those guns I never had cause to talk to S&W’s customer service until this year when looking for additional magazines for my 22 Victory and I’ll say the woman I spoke to on the phone was rude and unprofessional. I guess asking about product availability was just a bridge too far for her. I still like S&W’s firearms but it certainly seems they need some changes in the customer support area.

Sounds like I might have had the same woman.

To the OP;

Just out of curiosity did you find the safety not functioning properly out of the box?

Did you fire any rounds through the CSX or try to fix the problem yourself prior to sending it back into S&W?

Can you attach those pics in the forum. I am not big on following links.

Thanks.

It was not functioning right out of the box. On the drive home from the gun store I bought it from, I noticed the safety could not be engaged with the thumb, and I noticed the damage it had already caused, and snapped a photo. I had handled a display model at the gun store, and that one was fine, so it was a surprise to me.

I test fired it at the range a few days later to verify it was at least functional. I already knew I was going to have to send it in for repair after the drive home from the gun store. Since it was already getting sent in, I wanted to also check if the magazine issues I had heard about with others was present on mine, so I could kill two birds with one stone if I needed to.

Luckily the mag issues were not something happening with mine, insofar as my limited shooting could expose. The total round count is 22 rounds, enough to test each magazine fully loaded. Then I called S&W to get it sent off.

Being that the CSX is a new a gun design with no parts availability yet, I didn't attempt any repair myself, or attempt to disassemble or alter the gun. I just sent it off.

I think I figured out the picture attachment for this forum, should be on this post now.

Attached Images

PXL_20220209_203537838.jpg (56.7 KB, 51 views)

Looks like some kind of rub from fit.

If it looks like that not sure why they would think blue touch up

I would have taken that back to the store when I noticed it on the way home.

Hopefully they will get it straight.

Yeah, the bluing touch up comment was very random and out of left field for me. It felt like a very strange attempt at getting out of fixing the gun.

I did debate on taking it back to the store, but ultimate decided to let Smith and Wesson take a look. I had heard good things about their customer service before, so I was ok with giving that a try.

Knowing what I know now, you are absolutely right, the gun store would have been the better choice. They would have taken much better care of this. No doubt I would have been another happy CSX owner if I had gone that route.

When you sell off your Smith and Wessons think of posting them here first 😀

I saw a brand new one in the case at LGS and it had the exact same scratch mark as in your picture. Looks like the left side safety lever rubs the frame when swiping on or off. I would say that is "normal" for the CSX. FWIW, the thumb safety on my Shield Plus PC is very difficult to engage with my thumb when gripping the gun normally but swipes off with ease. I view this as a positive feature coming from a Sig P365 where the easy on/off safety was unintentionally engaged a few times when shooting rapid fire.

A little bit of wear is always to be expected with parts rubbing against each other, but the problem is that the safety could not be operated from the left side with the thumb. It was physically pushing in and colliding with the frame and slide, and causing a very abnormal amount of wear. The picture you saw was from being used only once or twice right out of the box, which is excessive. And even ignoring the cosmetic damage, not being able to reengage the safety on a single action with your dominant thumb is a big problem.

Next update: Smith and Wesson finally found their ethics (or it could be that I linked them this thread ) and did the right thing. They are now offering a replacement, but it took a ludicrous amount of back and forth communication and defending myself against their constant accusations to get them to admit they caused the problem.

In the end, they did finally admit that the safety was totally broken and their fault, and that it caused the frame damage. They also still stuck to their fabricated story that the gun had had an attempted rebluing by me, even piling in some more lies about it now being rusted. But I stuck to my guns and kept insisting that they could review my video proof from right before I boxed it up and that would cut through the BS. Finally, the decided to make a "special exception" and overnight me a replacement.


I think it was the video evidence that did it in the end. If I didn't have that to always fall back on, I would still be trying to get them to do the right thing, and next week they would have some lie about how I had summoned ancient Mesopotamian demons to curse the gun and it was definitely my fault.


So I will update once again when I get the replacement.

Perhaps S&W need to look closer to home for the cold bluing. Wouldn't be the first time a hamfisted worker kept stuff around to cover their mistakes.

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Release the Kraken

At this point, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's what happened.

Bought two of these CSX 9mm - one for me and the wife - and from day one they both have the same issue with the safety - hers not as bad but the one I carry is horrible. The slide literally can be moved back and forth to manually get the safety to engage - something you should never have to do with a gun. Absolutely ridiculous. I’ve taken this thing to numerous gun shops and all they can tell me is to ship it back to Smith and Wesson or to sell it. Yeah I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who will be happy to inherit this problem. Plenty of occasions I’ve pulled it out of my concealed holster only to find the safety had arbitrarily disarmed itself also, and then when I go to re-engage it it’s difficult and sometimes impossible from the left side and as the previous member commented, has to be engaged from the right side or as I’ve found, manually push the slide over to “realign the safety” so it doesn’t hit up against it when it slides up. This thing is so out of whack it isn’t even funny. For a brand new gun… it’s the 6th or 7th gun I’ve owned now and never had this kind of problem with a safety so this is new territory for me. If anyone has any idea how to solve this I’m all ears. Thanks!

Uh... Ship it (them?) back to S&W: that's WHY you have a warranty and them a service department...

Cheers!

I've gotta ask, was this issue from the time you purchased the pistol new? Was it not apparent when you handled and inspected the gun at the time of purchase?

I've missed a few things on gun trades and such, but very few, and none had an impact on function.

I've been doing this for many years, but just shy of disassembly, there isn't much, if anything, I will miss as being an issue or potential issue with a gun I am purchasing.

I'm just stunned that OleRoy has had three different guns that required frame replacement (post 10) in his time shooting. Wow, what remarkably bad luck!

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How God has blessed us!

Owner/gusmith of my LGS is unhappy with Smith CS. He always performs a counter inspection with the buyer of a new firearm, and says not only has the factory flaw ratio increased the last few years, so has the pushback from Smith over his 'failed inspection' returns.
He states the handguns with the lowest return rates in his shop are Sig, Glock and Taurus.

Wow, what percentage does he feel need to go back? Does he give any numbers to go along with that (e.g., "Out of seven that I've received, two have issues"?)

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How God has blessed us!

50 year Smith & Wesson user here. S&W was the gold standard for customer service by which others were measured. And not that many years ago. They certainly aren’t anymore.

I had a couple of guns over the years with problems they took care of. Improperly fitted safety on a new 1911 (2006), and a bad extractor on a Shield (2013).

In 2016 I bought a PERFORMANCE CENTER M&P 9L PRO SERIES C.O.R.E. Worst trigger I had ever had on an M&P and I had several, all plain, not PC. It went back to S&W twice and they did nothing. I even wrote to the President and VP of Smith & Wesson. Got a response from a customer service person that said he was a supervisor and had just come from the Director of firearms office and was going to fix my problem. He didn’t, he sent it back and said nothing was wrong with it and it was “In Spec”. So after I paid a premium for a Performance Center gun, I had to buy an Apex trigger to replace the terrible trigger that was in it.

I won’t say I will never buy another Smith and Wesson gun as I’m happy with their product as long as it doesn’t need customer support. But I can say I’ll never pay extra for a Performance Center gun. Performance Center meant something on revolvers in the past, I don’t know if it still does or not. But it appears to me they are playing fast and loose with the Performance Center name on the M&P line.

I know how you feel, I was so mad I couldn’t see straight. I felt betrayed. But you just have to move on.

Like many businesses of the past the owners of S&W will wring ever penny they can for their shareholders out of the name, destroy it, and then sell it so a new owner can make grandiose claims about how great they will treat their customers. In the meantime, new businesses start-up for the next generation to be loyal to.

I've always understood Ruger customer service to be superlative though I've never needed to interact with them...but I've been hearing stories of unhappy experiences with Ruger as of late. It seems to be endemic across the board with customer service...and not just gun companies.

Ive had two S&W revolvers defective right out of the box a Model 19 (Bangor Punta era) and a Model 66 (Lear Seigler era)...took them each back to the retailer (a local gun store) and each were fixed promptly. That was back in the days of authorized repair centers around the country...I think now everything has to go back to the factory.