I have bought well over a dozen new and used S&W revolvers over the last 6 months. Mostly new. I have not had any canted barrel issues. I have no doubt this problem exists, because forum members post here having this problem.
But think about it this way. People who have problems are the loudest. When someone here buys a new S&W revolver and the barrel is NOT canted, they don't write a post reporting their barrel is installed correctly. So we don't hear about that. We do here from the folks that have a problem. These posts are rare as well. I suspect the percentage of guns that leave the factory with a canted barrel is quite small. A fraction of 1%...something like 0.0001% is my guess.
This is not to say S&W does not have some serious QC problems. I have bought a total of five new 7-shot 357 L Frames over the last six months. Three of the five had bad timing and had to go back for repair. Not good. S&W fixed them quickly and shipping both ways, so no biggie. Just annyoing to have to send a brand new gun back for repair, and even more annoying to have to do it 3 times in a row in a two month period.
I asked my buddy who owns a high volume LGS if they noticed a problem with timing of new 7 shot S&W revolvers. They said they rarely see a timing problem on the 6 shot and 8 shot S&Ws, but frequently see 7 shot Smiths with bad timing that they send back to the distributor for replacement. They said they see it surprisingly often lately.
And, the great thing about S&W is, they will make it right. And, the best part is that you got yourself a GREAT revolver that will give you many years of faithful service.
