New 686 Quality ??

[Shoebox1.1]

My new 686 2.5+ runs perfect. Yoke to frame fitment isn’t as good as I’d like but it’s a EDC and like I said runs perfect in every way. I ain’t touching it

 

[b737lvr]

Purchased two 686+'s in March. Neither with fire a full cylinder without the cylinder locking in place or the hammer not being able to be fully pulled to the rear. In looking at the guns the extractor "star" does not have the "fingers" that rotate the cylinder are cut the with the same profile, and some of the surfaces have cuttings hanging of the rear of the extractor and probably rubbing the frame. Anybody have any machining issues with the new revolvers? Looks like the cutting bit was dull and did more scraping than cutting. I will be calling Smith this morning about the needed warranty work.

You didn’t happen to order these from PSA did you?

 

[Kanewpadle]

Smith and Wesson’s quality hasn’t been very good the last few years at least.

A friend of mine ordered a Performance Center 500 S&W for a customer. No matter how hard you pushed on the thumb latch, it would not move.

Back it went.

And to think this was their top of the line gun at $1600 is an embarrassment.

 

[b737lvr]

Smith and Wesson’s quality hasn’t been very good the last few years at least.

A friend of mine ordered a Performance Center 500 S&W for a customer. No matter how hard you pushed on the thumb latch, it would not move.

Back it went.

And to think this was their top of the line gun at $1600 is an embarrassment.

That’s become our entire nation. We can’t build airplanes, we can’t build appliances, we can’t build good cars, we can’t build anything anymore. Most industry workers at this point show up to work to do the bare minimum so they can go home to get drunk or high. It’s no wonder that the only consistently good firearms produced in the USA are basically Glocks or clones of them, a machine is making the entire thing for them.

Modern S&W revolvers are the best engineered revolvers ever made. They just seem to have a lot of trouble making them a complete reality.

 

[Mike LaNier]

That machining looks like it was done by a poorly trained monkey! Hopefully S&W will fix it pronto. I have a 686-6, 3", from 2015; ten years old and it has been my 'woods gun'... I suspect those two were an anomaly?

 

[Motown_Ron]

This is a caveat on the State of Affairs at S&W Customer Service -
Several years back, I bought my 686 used after I spotted it in a gun store. After close inspection, I bought it. And after a trip to the mountains and an inspection by one of the best gunsmiths on the planet** (he also provided explanations of current S&W production problems not seen in the 70's & 80's), I realized I had lucked out. Although I didn't know it at the time, I'd purchased a vintage 1970's production gun that probably had less that 100 rds through it and had been in the hands of a loving owner. This made me very happy

Fast-forward: I carry an S&W bodyguard for EDC. After several years (2019), I noticed the cylinder getting loose so I got an RMA number and sent it back. After the required wait time, I got it back just as bad as when I sent it, but they'd put a new laser on it (Red Flag - more on this later). So I emailed them at the "Not For Public Consumption" email address that came in the box with my not-fixed gun. Low and behold, I got an actual phone call from a human named Richard Brohman. After a long conversation, the gun went back to S&W, and this time - when they sent it back to me - it was perfect.

CAVEAT: Smith & Wesson has a few good people still working for them. But the new culture has been (inevitably) influenced by pop culture. They figured they could appease me by not doing the repair and sticking a new laser on the gun. What The Fudge? Either that or the one guy that originally handled my gun the first time simply wasn't paying attention to customer service. I won't be buying any of their revolvers until we have good data of multi-year production runs that rival that seen in the pre-2001 era (they were purchased by Saf-T-Hammer Corporation that year). So, after 21 years of revolver mediocrity, Not likely.
** The gunsmith is in Northern CA. This is a guy with a degree in mechanical engineering who worked his way through college by being a gunsmith. He has oak and maple blanks that have been seasoning in his shop for a decade or more for his custom shotgun work and handgun stocks. You can bring him a block of carbon steel and come back 18 mos. later for a finished, custom gun, complete with hand-tempered springs. His backlog is months long for simple stuff, and years for custom stuff. If you want his contact info, email me: [email protected]

 

[b737lvr]

This is a caveat on the State of Affairs at S&W Customer Service -
Several years back, I bought my 686 used after I spotted it in a gun store. After close inspection, I bought it. And after a trip to the mountains and an inspection by one of the best gunsmiths on the planet** (he also provided explanations of current S&W production problems not seen in the 70's & 80's), I realized I had lucked out. Although I didn't know it at the time, I'd purchased a vintage 1970's production gun that probably had less that 100 rds through it and had been in the hands of a loving owner. This made me very happy

Fast-forward: I carry an S&W bodyguard for EDC. After several years (2019), I noticed the cylinder getting loose so I got an RMA number and sent it back. After the required wait time, I got it back just as bad as when I sent it, but they'd put a new laser on it (Red Flag - more on this later). So I emailed them at the "Not For Public Consumption" email address that came in the box with my not-fixed gun. Low and behold, I got an actual phone call from a human named Richard Brohman. After a long conversation, the gun went back to S&W, and this time - when they sent it back to me - it was perfect.

CAVEAT: Smith & Wesson has a few good people still working for them. But the new culture has been (inevitably) influenced by pop culture. They figured they could appease me by not doing the repair and sticking a new laser on the gun. What The Fudge? Either that or the one guy that originally handled my gun the first time simply wasn't paying attention to customer service. I won't be buying any of their revolvers until we have good data of multi-year production runs that rival that seen in the pre-2001 era (they were purchased by Saf-T-Hammer Corporation that year). So, after 21 years of revolver mediocrity, Not likely.
** The gunsmith is in Northern CA. This is a guy with a degree in mechanical engineering who worked his way through college by being a gunsmith. He has oak and maple blanks that have been seasoning in his shop for a decade or more for his custom shotgun work and handgun stocks. You can bring him a block of carbon steel and come back 18 mos. later for a finished, custom gun, complete with hand-tempered springs. His backlog is months long for simple stuff, and years for custom stuff. If you want his contact info, email me: [email protected]

Keep in mind that Smith & Wesson has actually changed dramatically since 2020 ever since they became an independent company again. They’ve since moved almost every aspect of the company to Tennessee apart from the revolver sector of the company. I’ve not heard of anybody, including my self, having any issues with S&W customer service lately. I recently sent my 442 in for service for the same issue you had. After exactly 4 weeks I had it back in perfect condition and it rides in my pocket every day.

 

[Jcon72]

I’ve owned a number of stainless Smiths over the years and never had one that looked all scratched up like this one.

It looks normal to me, too, in regard to their standard brushed stainless finish. It's been that way for quite a few years, now.

 

[Jcon72]

This is a caveat on the State of Affairs at S&W Customer Service -
Several years back, I bought my 686 used after I spotted it in a gun store. After close inspection, I bought it. And after a trip to the mountains and an inspection by one of the best gunsmiths on the planet** (he also provided explanations of current S&W production problems not seen in the 70's & 80's), I realized I had lucked out. Although I didn't know it at the time, I'd purchased a vintage 1970's production gun that probably had less that 100 rds through it and had been in the hands of a loving owner. This made me very happy

Just a FYI, but the 686 didn't exist until production began in 1980.