Guidance on warranty issue

[donvieira]

Dear Gentlemen,

I very recently purchased a Performance center Model 325 Thunder ranch for my wife/home defense.

-My selection came at the high recommendation of renowned gunsmith Ken Genecco who felt the Performace center revolvers were far superior to factory revolvers because of the color case hardened forged triggers and hammers which no longer come with factory models anymore.

-So about a month after purchase I noted some surface rusting on the trigger/hammer/thumb release despite not having fired the weapon.

-So I called the customer service rep and spoke about re-coating the parts at issue and all seemed good so I received my shipping label and sent it in.

-I received the revolver 2 days ago to note that the parts at issue were simply replaced not re-coated, but the hammer and trigger were replaced with the MIM (metal injection molding) factory parts rather than the fitted performance center forged parts.

-After confirming this with Mr. Genecco I called customer service and was told that the MIM quality was the same as the forged which is not true.

-I couldn't get a return call all day today from the manager so I sent everything back with a note on the issue.

- I prefer not have it returned until the issue is corrected with Performance center parts as originally issued (and one of the reason's one pays more for a performance center item.

-I still do not know why they just didn't re-coat the original parts.

-Am I being unreasonable here?

-I think the huge disappointment was the main reason I chose a Performance center revolver was for the forged hammer/trigger.

 

[nofishbob]

I am sorry for your issues...few things are as frustrating as paying a premium for a "special" item and then discovering that you have been mislead.

Do I understand correctly that you have already sent the gun back to S&W on your own dime and without a RGA?

I had to send my new PC revolver back to S&W a few weeks ago. It came back all fixed up, with a new forged trigger (the original had grinder marks on it and a destroyed trigger stop).

From everything that I have read, S&W will make it right, maybe not the first time, but eventually.

Good luck!

Bob

 

[donvieira]

thanks for the reply.
-No I had S & W send me another RGA.

-I am glad they followed through for you.

-I really think it was an oversight by the gunsmith.

- I am sure they see so many guns that he overlooked it as a PC revolver.

Thanks, Don

 

[Robinett_11B]

I would be very upset if I sent a gun in w/ forged parts and they sent it back "fixed" w/ MIM parts. You're not being unreasonable at all. They're QC sucks. I bought a new no-lock 442 and found it had an incorrectly 'set' barrel. They fixed it fast, but it went from being a blackened SS barrel to a blued carbon steel one...which really isn't that big of a deal. The forged vs. MIM parts in a PC gun though, yeah, big deal.

 

[Robinett_11B]

And you should ask the CS rep you talked to, since they seem so knowledgeable, if MIM parts are just as good as forged parts...then why are they an 'added bonus feature' of PC guns? Ridiculous.

 

[Sevenshooter]

-I received the revolver 2 days ago to note that the parts at issue were simply replaced not re-coated, but the hammer and trigger were replaced with the MIM (metal injection molding) factory parts rather than the fitted performance center forged parts.
-After confirming this with Mr. Genecco I called customer service and was told that the MIM quality was the same as the forged which is not true.


Oh man!

I just sent a 627 back with a barrel crown issue, but also mentioned a slight problem with the trigger not returning every time when I first brought it home.

My wife has found me rocking back and forth in the corner worrying about how I'll get the gun back from the crown issue.... now this.

I'll be in the corner till the gun gets back.

Ss

 

[Mack]

Dear Gentlemen,



-So about a month after purchase I noted some surface rusting on the trigger/hammer/thumb release despite not having fired the weapon.

-So I called the customer service rep and spoke about re-coating the parts at issue and all seemed good so I received my shipping label and sent it in.

-I still do not know why they just didn't re-coat the original parts.

-Am I being unreasonable here?

-I think the huge disappointment was the main reason I chose a Performance center revolver was for the forged hammer/trigger.

You cannot "re-coat" case hardened parts, the colors come out as part of the hardening process and are not a coating. I do believe an expert can brighten the colors but this must be done carefully or you will over harden and make the parts brittle. How bad was the rust? If the parts required replacement then the right thing for S&W to do was replace with new forged parts and likely they will do so now.

 

[scooter123]

First off, Color Case Hardening is NOT a Coating, it's a layer of Oxidized Steel that is produced by heating the steel part in the presence of Oxygen with an open flame that is Oxygen Supplemented. Basically, it's a result of flame hardening certain types of steel and VERY poor as a rust preventative. To be blunt, you should have kept these parts protected with a light layer of oil if you were storing the gun.

Second, the MIM parts used by S&W are functionally equivalent to Forged and actually may be stronger than forged parts. One problem with flame hardening is that doing it properly and in a repeatable fashion is that it's all in the hands of the person doing it, meaning it takes a high degree of skill to do it. In addition, atmospheric conditions (humidity) can effect the harness produced by flame hardening as can something as simple as the presence of a fan in the work area. In certain respects flame hardening is a bit of a Black Art that is very dependent on the skill of the person doing it. With MIM you put the part in a computer controlled heat treating oven and get a result that's not dependent on vagaries of drafts, weather, or the person doing the flame hardening.

Third, from the appearance, I also suspect that the MIM hammers and triggers produced by S&W uses a corrosion resistant chromium bearing base alloy for these parts. This means that when you complained about rusting issues with your forged parts, they naturally replaced them with rust resistant parts. As for them not being hand fitted parts, the MIM parts do not need to be hand fitted, the process used produces parts that are so stable in size that no fitting is required.

Finally, I would personally find it surprizing if the Performance Center was actually using flame hardened forged components today. The simple truth is the flame hardening is NOT a well controlled process and it would not be at all difficult for S&W to produce MIM parts that look like forged parts without anyone being aware of it. All it takes is choosing a different alloy and flame coloring that alloy at a temperature low enough that the heat treating from the MIM process isn't effected. I suspect that is what was done to produce the hammer and trigger in my 610-3 which do look like the older forged parts. By using MIM parts of this nature, S&W could realize the cost and reliability benefits of MIM while satisfying the "fashion" demand for flame hardened components and none of us would be aware of it.

At this point you have a choice to make.

You can leave the gun as it is without any concern for those MIM parts failing. There has been no trend of failure for these parts on this forum and I can assure if they were "weaker" we would have seen postings about failures. Quite simply, MIM parts in S&W revolvers have proven to be excellent. Personally, I've found the MIM guns much easier to Action Tune than the older forged guns because the parts are so perfect for size. I've also never seen any wear related issues such as Push Off on MIM guns. Granted, they are newer guns but I haven't any complaints at all about MIM.

Or, you can return the gun and request that flame colored hammer and trigger be installed in your gun as it was produced by the Performance Center. In that case you will have to take steps to provided protection for these parts from rusting again. This means you have to apply a thin layer of oil to protect against rust. I've found motor oil to be superb for preventing rust in the bores of a freshly machined engine block and it will probably do the same on a hammer and trigger.

 

[donvieira]

Thanks for the input from everybody I really appreciate it.

-Scooter you bring up some great points. I have no problem with MIM parts.................But not at the performance center price.

-If S&W cannot provode a "repeatable" environment for these color case hardened forged parts then that is their QC problem for them to fix.

-The customer service rep should have told me they cannot re-coat the forged parts, S&W obvious has problems the general public is not aware of.

-Again my Gunsmith, who is tremendously talented, highly recommends the forged parts (if offered) and Only recommends a S & W if your life is going to depend on it. This was why I bought a S&W 456 for myself.

-All I want is what I paid for.

-Again I appreciate all the input.

Thanks, Don

 

[donvieira]

-S&W received the revolver on Monday, I called and left a msg with the manager and no call. Called again today and left another msg.

-The waiting game now.

 

[nofishbob]

Hi donvieira-

When I had my revolver at S&W, I got a letter from them about a week after the gun was received by them advising me that they had it and and that lead time would be 10 to 14 business days.

A week later the gun was delivered to my house.

It was a happy surprise, but I wished that S&W had given me some notice.

It was lucky that I was home when it came!

The delivery man thought that the box contained bottles of wine! (10.5" S&W 500).

S&W's gunsmiths seem to be more on top of things than their CS people.

Good Luck!

Bob

 

[donvieira]

Just received a call from S&W (not the manager as requested) and msg was :

-"They found some forged parts for my revolver but in the future they will only use MIM parts....."

-Thus I guess I will never have any "warranty " work ever done by S&W .

-S&W also lost a loyal customer/fan.

 

[scooter123]

Glad to hear that they are putting in the parts that you want. However, from the sound of it the PC guns in the future will be featuring MIM parts because the stock of the older forged parts is running out.

I expect that there will be a LOT of objections abot that. Frankly, if they work well and last, I don't have any problem with the process used to make the parts. I'll also point out that my older 67-1 features flash chromed hammer and trigger and visually these forged parts look nearly identical to the new MIM parts.

Finally, you returned your gun because the forged parts had developed some surface rust. Please pay attention, color case hardening IS NOT rust preventative. These parts WILL rust again if you don't apply a thin layer of oil to them and maintain that protection. Personally I suspect that the reason that the MIM parts were swapped in was because these MIM parts are much more corrosion resistant than the forged parts. Quite simply, the service center was attempting to provide you with parts that would not rust nearly as easily. Perhaps if you had provided some specific instruction that you wanted your hammer and trigger replaced with forged color case hardened parts, they may have made sure that happened.

BTW, I suspect that the MIM hammers and triggers are actually a stainless steel alloy. We have some copper sulfate at work and the next time I have to go in on a weekend I'll run a copper sulfate test on the hammer of my 620, it's a quick easy way to test for the presence of chromium in any steel alloy. Fact is these parts look like stainless and I'm a bit curious to confirm it.

 

[donvieira]

scooter as I was unaware that the color case hardned forged hammer/trigger's were no coatable the S&W rep should not have spoken to me about "recoating" these parts. If the rep (who had my serial number) knew what they were talking about could have said thee parts are not coatable and would have to be replaced with MIM parts.

-though their is not major issues with the MIM hammer/trigger it is not nearly as robust s the forged, that came straight out of K. Genecco's mouth and he is one of the most knowledgeable gunsmith's in the nation.

-I paid for a PC gun with alleged quality/assurances and S&W is not fullfilling their end of the agreement. All sounds great until you have a problem then high quality parts are changed out with "run of the mill parts". That is not what I paid almost 500$ more for.

-enough said, this is my last post pinned/recessed S&W I will purchase.

 

[AveragEd]

While I believe S&W's gunsmiths are skilled craftsmen and women, I agree that the company's customer service skills are lacking.

In early December, I sent them an email regarding a no-dash 686 I have that has never had the recall performed. I wanted to know if the gun was involved in the recall and exactly what the recall work consisted of, as I didn't want the gun's originality compromised with MIM parts, either.

Perhaps two weeks later, I received an email advising me that my gun's serial number was invalid. I photographed the number and attached the photo to an email reply the same day. Six weeks later, I had heard nothing from them, so I left a telephone voice message. A week later, I sent them a letter with an 8x10 of the serial number.

Just last Friday, out of the blue, I received a return authorization and UPS call tag from S&W but still no explanation of the repairs that would be performed, so I sent yet another email which was answered a few days ago. They will be replacing the hammer nose and reusing the original hammer.

I was also going to have them install a new forged target hammer and trigger set I have while they had the gun apart but now I'm considering leaving the gun as is because I don't plan to shoot many .357 loads in it anyway. Sketchy customer service communication practices don't give me the warm fuzzies about the repairs.

Their parts shipping practices are strange, too. They are in Massachusetts and I'm in south-central Pennsylvania. They ship parts and accessories to me via FedEx, which trucks them right past my home AND both FedEX Ground and FedEx Freight hubs to West Virginia, where the package(s) are then sent to back up to Pennsylvania via the U.S. Mail!

Ed

 

[donvieira]

My reason for being harsh is:

-S&W was synonomous with "you can bet your life on it.."

-I need this revolver to perform (for my wife) should the worst case scenario play out (home invasion which is common in Sacramento area) so my family can stay intact so to say.

-I should have it today and I am taking it directly to Genecco Gun works to make sure I will have a "guatanteed six pulls of the trigger".

-Good thing I have the Kimber on board.

 

[donvieira]

-Received the revolver today and took it over to the gunsmith.

-Confirmed Forged hammer and trigger...Thank you S&W

-Left it at the gunsmith's to give it a "head to toe check" as the timing was slightly off and to change the Wolf main spring, which is more of a "target shooter's" spring to a forged spring. Altough not as "smooth" as the Wolf, the forged spring is better suited for my specifications of 6 pulls of the trigger guaranteed.

-

 

[scooter123]

Don, just a couple to items that your "gunsmith" may not know enough to check for. BTW, I do my own action tuning and have learned a bit in the process from personal EXPERIENCE with my 610-3.

One is that it's common to install an Extended Travel Firing Pin when using a lightened Mainspring. I found with my 610-3 that the use of this type of firing pin CAN cause a borderline pierced primer condition with a mainspring that is at full power. If your gun had one of these extended travel firing pins installed at the factory YOU WILL NEED TO TEST FOR SIGNS OF OVERSTRUCK PRIMERS. It's easy to test for, just shoot 50 or 100 rounds and save the fired casings. Then line those fired casings primer side up on a table in good lighting and look for darkened primers. With my 610-3 use of the extended travel firing pin resulted in about 30% of the primers showing dark and checking the dimples under 10X magnification showed that they had cracks in the dimples. With a frame mounted firing pin a fully pierced primer will lock the cylinder up completely. BTW, I've now reduced the mainspring power on my 610-3 and re-installing the extended travel firing pin not only provided absolute reliability in ignition it also improved the accuracy with the lighter mainspring setting. Hint, a lightened trigger can be perfectly reliable, however in order to achieve this result a System Approach much be employed and mixing parts can lead to problems. If you see evidence of primer failure, either go back to that Wilson spring or replace the firing pin with one that is suited to a stronger mainspring.

The second issue relates to the moon clip revolvers in 45 ACP. I'm not sure why but this particulat caliber has produced more complaints about ignition problems than any other caliber on this forum. My hunch is that it's an issue with moon clips that are too thin for the particular ammunition used, with the result being the cartridge sits just a bit too deep in the chambers. One common solution to resolve this is to install an extended travel firing pin. However, when doing this you need to test for overstruck primers anytime you change the brand or type of moonclip or change to ammunition from a different manufacturer.

Bottomline, you have to do some Due Diligence BEFORE you can consider your 325 truly reliable. I'll also tell you that you can't blame S&W for that because you've now "tinkered" with it AWAY from what the factory provided. As for your gunsmith, with his attitude towards MIM I don't think that he is actually "up to speed" in regards to modern S&W revolvers. The plain truth is that the frame mounted firing pins have created some issues with ignition while at the same time providing additional tuning features than can result in a perfectly reliable revolver with exceptional accuracy. However, you have to know what you are doing in order to tune these guns properly, do it incorrectly and reliability can plummet.

Bottomline, you need to treat that 325 they way you'd treat a new Kimber. It aint reliable until it's been shot a bit. Good news is that 1 or 2 hundred rounds will be all you need to shoot, unlike a Kimber which today might require 1500 rounds or more. Another plus is that S&W won't tell you that you need to break it in, they'll just issue a call tag and have you ship it in to repair what's wrong. However, if you pierce a primer and stick the firing pin you'll be stuck with a possibly loaded gun I have no idea how to safely fix. Fortunately, with my experience with my 610-3 a pierced primer is only a potential, not at all likely. However, for your first shooting tests I would suggest that you use some Speer Lawman or another Speer primered ammunition, the darkened primers that I saw occured when shooting Federal which does have a reputation for somewhat thin primers.

PS; the 610-3 is now tuned to 9 lbs. DA and it is 100% reliable and will shoot under 2 inches at 100 feet when I'm good enough to do it. I also have a 620 thats tuned to 8 lbs DA and last time out managed a 1.75 inch group at 100 feet, someday I may scope the 620 just to see what I can do with some magnification. The 620 is also 100% reliable for ignition and both guns have been tested for reliability using Speer Lawman, so they aren't Federal Only Range Specials. BTW, all reliability testing has been done in double action and I have not had one single failure to fire in either gun. Point is, a heavy trigger isn't essential for reliability, what is essential is choosing and using the correct parts for what you want to achieve.

 

[donvieira]

Dear Scooter,

-Thanks for the valuable input, I will be passing it on to my Gunsmith.

-The moon clip issue is concerning and I will definately make sure that is addressed.

-I look forward to breaking in the revolver.

-Is Break-free ok to keep the trigger and hammer from rusting?
I will be "on top" of that issue.

Thanks again

 

[scooter123]

Break free should be fine as a corrosion inhibitor, however being a cheap *** I can tell you that plain old motor oil is just as good and it's likely you have a quart in your garage. If you take a freshly machined chevy small block the bores will start rusting within a couple of hours on a humid day and I've found that wiping the bare block with Mobil 1 or Castrol will preserve that block for weeks without any need for further attention. Just remember that one of the most common causes for rusting are the salts in our sweat, so any areas that are handled by our finger tips should get touched up after every use. It doesn't take much, just a nearly invisible film, so put a couple of drops of oil on a patch and wipe down any part you've had your fingertips on.

BTW, I'm no stranger to rust. I carry a Sig P239 and one day noticed a patch of rust in the barrel. Good news is I caught it early enough that the pitting produced is nearly invisible and hasn't effected either leading or accuracy. However I now have a spare barrel well greased in a ziplock baggie just in case. For some silly reason I had assumed that since Sig Sauer uses stainless steel for their slides they were also using stainless steel barrels. Now I know better and the barrels on my Sigs get buttered with oil after every cleaning. BTW, on a semi you only want to butter back to the chamber because oil in the chamber can cause extraction issues. Fortunately chambers on semi's are pretty well protected from stray drops of sweat, however when in storage it's a good idea to butter the full length and swab it dry before a range visit.

So, another tip in regards to you Kimber, check to see if your barrel is actually stainless steel, if it's not treat it the same way I treat my Sig's. If it is stainless, you don't have to do anything, the grades of stainless used for gun barrels won't rust unless exposed to salt water spray on a nearly continual basis.