A friend asked me to post this. He said he heard that S&W PPK/s slides are made by Pine Tree Castings, owned by Ruger. He was told the slides are subject to catastrophic failure in the front end after as little as 3,000 rounds fired.

Has anyone heard of this?

Below is a quote from Cylinder & Slide web site. And the info says frame and not slide. Still, I cant imagine what type of failure could occur in only 3,000 rounds.

"The basic frame on the S&W produced pistol is cast for Walther/S&W by Ruger's Pine Tree casting facility in New Hampshire, with final machining done by Smith & Wesson."

Ruger has been using casting for many years and their products have not expereinced any notable failures. Personally I believe the slide and frame will outlast the owner.

Sound like internet B.S. Ruger has used castings for frames from the start. I don't know if the slides on their autos are castings or not but it wouldn't surprise me.

If that was true (the 3000 round part) then it would be over the internet with the same pic(s) posted over and over and over...

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I don’t know about the PPK’s from S&W but here’s my older PPK frame from Interarms. The casting and machining is very poor quality...unfinished metal and the feed ramp appears to be gouged out. I don’t think S&W, Ruger or anyone else could do worse than this.

You couldn't pay me to fire 3000 rounds through my ppk/s.

Personally, get a rail file and smooth out your slide-rail interface, and use a dremmel and polish that feed ramp. Having that multi decade mess laying in my safe would bother me.

Mine only went 50 rounds before I started having problems. Light primer strikes and failures to fire in both single and double action. Two phone calls and five weeks later and I still don't have the parts they promised. Maybe S&W's customer service is great, but Walther's sucks!

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The only verdict is vengeance