Rifle of the year

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Dragon88 said:
Did it also win the "Out of Battery Award" and the "Should Have Been Recalled But Wasn't Award"?
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Dude, there was basicly a recall.. well not officially but all gun shops were made aware of this and a "silent " recall was issued and rifles could be returned. Customers were made aware of the issues and were instructed IF they have problems how to get it fixed. As there are MANY original 15 22 owners here with ZERO issues to date. Look at Beltfed. He has OVER 20 k rounds in his DTH rifle, and so far its flawless. Now im NOT saying this is the perfect weapon by any means. Not by a long shot, Especially when it first came out.

Also the OOB wasnt a HUGE event, ya it happened from time to time.. no arguing that.. its a hard fact. But it didnt happen on a regular daily basis to every rifle. But I agree this SHOULD have been fixed before they were even launched. But as with all new product, there are flaws to be fixed. . And it was made for any and all failures to be fixed as well. Per the lifetime warranty. The point is the issues were fixed, and once that happened it won rifle of the year for 2010. The new specs went into affect around late 09 to start of 2010.
 
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Also it won the award THIS year, I think they had the revisions worked out 6-8months ago for the award.
 
Yep, and sounds like the T/C barrel rumor was just that, a rumor. I have a DTU that has functioned flawlessly. The worst look/comment I ever got is, why get something like that to shoot .22's? Because when your 10-22 your grandfather swears by jams up on you I'll still have 24 rds left. Bang!
 
DownRange&Upwind said:
Dude, there was basicly a recall.. well not officially but all gun shops were made aware of this and a "silent " recall was issued and rifles could be returned. Customers were made aware of the issues and were instructed IF they have problems how to get it fixed. As there are MANY original 15 22 owners here with ZERO issues to date. Look at Beltfed. He has OVER 20 k rounds in his DTH rifle, and so far its flawless. Now im NOT saying this is the perfect weapon by any means. Not by a long shot, Especially when it first came out.

Also the OOB wasnt a HUGE event, ya it happened from time to time.. no arguing that.. its a hard fact. But it didnt happen on a regular daily basis to every rifle. But I agree this SHOULD have been fixed before they were even launched. But as with all new product, there are flaws to be fixed. . And it was made for any and all failures to be fixed as well. Per the lifetime warranty. The point is the issues were fixed, and once that happened it won rifle of the year for 2010. The new specs went into affect around late 09 to start of 2010.
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when/where were our shops told that there was a problem? we had shops locally that quit selling because S&W wouldnt give any answers, they just told them to send them in and they would be fixed. (which is good enough of course, but it would have been nice to know why they were firing OOB)
 
BeginingOfTheEnd said:
Yep, and sounds like the T/C barrel rumor was just that, a rumor.
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It sounds like a correct rumor to me. Mr. Stone from Thompson/Center takes credit for the barrels.

It's going to be nice to tell people I own one of the "Award Winning S&W M&P15-22s".
 
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Jswiney9 said:
when/where were our shops told that there was a problem? we had shops locally that quit selling because S&W wouldnt give any answers, they just told them to send them in and they would be fixed. (which is good enough of course, but it would have been nice to know why they were firing OOB)
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Have to go along with Jswiney on this.

S&W CS denied knowing of any issues with the 15-22 when I specifically asked them about cycling problems and OOB.

I sent a letter to all S&W Corporate Officers asking what steps they were taking to remedy the 15-22 cycling and OOB issues. No reply.

Local Harrison TN gun shop operator told me he refused to sell 15-22s when he began to hear of problems. S&W sales rep came in to his shop and couldn't get the rifle to cycle well on their range. The S&W rep denied there was any issue with the rifle except probably being dirty.

From my limited experience, S&W has a great warranty and repair operation. However, from my limited view they appear quite willing to put a problematic firearm in your hands and let you find out about it. That type of business practice isn't unusual if a company weighs the costs of repairs, sales and revenue loss for correcting a problematic product before shipping and determines it is less than after sale repair costs, potential liability and damage to reputation. From my limited perspective, I think it's clear what path S&W chose.

There were several reports here of retailers actually refunding the purchase and exchanging rifles. That's unheard of! And it's an indicator of how much of a stink was raised about this rifle.

The good news is.... since there was never a problem with the 15-22 then that means .22LR ammo manufacturers must be making better ammo than they did last year cuz there are few new 15-22 problem reports. It was all the fault of the ammo manufacturers, right? :rolleyes:

BTW... what was the criteria for the 2010 award?
 
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Just sounds like typical corporate CYA. Plausible deniability and all that. Car manufacturers do it all the time (not that they are shining example of corporate responsibility).

I've got the same issue with T-Mobile/Samsung b/c of the poor GPS performance on the various Galaxy S phones... for several weeks they denied knowing of any such issues until finally Samsung officially announced they were working on a fix, which I'm still waiting for...
 
Jswiney9 said:
when/where were our shops told that there was a problem? we had shops locally that quit selling because S&W wouldnt give any answers, they just told them to send them in and they would be fixed. (which is good enough of course, but it would have been nice to know why they were firing OOB)
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While I cant speak on any "national" basis. I can tell you the info I was given by a local gun shop here in Louisville, Ky. They told me that they sent a shipment back to S&W. As a S&W employeee told them that the rifles may have "issues" and wouldnt say anything else as to what the"issues" were.. and that S&W would accept them. Im pretty sure that fits the silent "recall" as the employee himself said they could send them back in. Like I said it was NEVER in any form of "offifical" terms by any means. But it could be due to the fact( and im betting this IS the reason) the the S&W employee is related( I think married into his family) to the owner of the chain stores as well. I dont have the details. Just going 100% off of what they told me when I bought my 15 22 mid July. As we got into a discussion of the "new" versions of the 15 22 while I was wating on the background check to come back on me to purchase my rifle.
 
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Brett248Vista said:
Thompson Center is S&W.
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Sometimes, when you think you know everything, or at the very least your confident in the answers you give your own questions, you read a post that leaves you talking soprano.....I had no idea. I've been researching t/c for a couple weeks now, to gain info with the intent to get rid of quite a few contender barrels, and haven't once ran accross that tid bit of info. Thanks Brett for the lesson learned. I just got served:D
 
S&W acquired Thompson Center recently, it was, ..., now I have to look, .... oh , Feb 2007! :confused:
Smith & Wesson acquires Thompson/Center Arms | Shooting Industry | Find Articles at BNET

I guess that's not "too recently". Once again proving to myself that I don't know that much, but "learning all the time".:)

I understand the feeling that S&W released the gun, ... well at least with a few rough edges:-) We experienced the OOC and it scared my 12 yo quite bad. But you know, we both really like the replacement (actually when we gave it back to dealer, he said he was going to send it to S&W, but within 1 week we had brand new rifle, turns out his Davidson's distributor replaced it with a brand new upgraded rife, I didn't realize this until I talked to my dealer a few weeks ago) I don't like S&W not saying exactly whats wrong and not being willing to send just replacement parts. But I have to say that all 3 of my S&W customer service experiences have been exceptionally good.

Best rifle? I don't know, no ones let me try all the rest of them:) But even after the OOC and everything, I still want another one for myself. My son took our's back about 2 weeks after we got the new one, so I felt bad for myself and when CDNN had the sale, I picked up a M&P15OR (LOVE it, but the expense of bullets is killing me, so when he's not coming, I have to ask my son "mind if I use your 15-22?"). For the M&P15OR, I've thought about getting a .22 upper; but they are so expensive, and seem to still be working on getting basic functionality working (bolt hold open, ...). I'd rather have my own 15-22, than spend $300-700 on one of those things.

Other .22 rifles:
Sig 522, nice gun but again the "bolt hold open" issue on a 400-500 gun? - I will never buy another 522.

10/22 - my boy has one, bolt hold open is stupid, I guess you can excuse that on a $200 gun, but I have no use for one.

Colt .22 - I'm not even going to comment. But some seem to like it.

This could go on and own, but I have to say, if I had to do it again, or was going to buy one for myself, I'd get the S&W M&P 15-22 again. As a matter of fact, this winters project may be to try to attach a 15-22 upper to my M&P15 lower (yes, I know there are issues to solve, anyone else put thought or action into this?).

15-22:
Is it perfect. NO.. What is? (yes they could have done better) I know of nothing I like better (but as proved about, I don't know that much:) )
Is it FUN? Oh YES!!!!!! :D
Does it function fully as I expect a gun to, YES.
Does it have some issues? well, yes, but I still like it and know of nothing .22 I would rather have for a fun day at the range. And to me, that's what this gun is about=fun day at the range, smiling children, ... good stuff.

Oh, and so no one else has to post it, I admit I am irrationally obsessed with the "bolt/slide" hold open thing. Sorry if my narrow mindedness offends anyone.
 
The 15-22 has to be the greatest thing ever to hit the gun industry. For every $500 rifle sold, people buy another $200-1000 worth of accessories (lights, lasers, scopes, red dots, magnifiers, grips, ammo). If it had not been shipped with a quad rail on it, it would have never gotten this award. The bottom line is, it sells accessories.

There is a topic asking if they had worked the bugs out yet. I wonder if MS has worked the bugs out of the XBox360 yet.
 
CBR,

I don't think you are irrational about the bolt hold open issue. I'm right there with you. I think it is a major con on the 10/22. I think it is a matter of safety as well as good operational function. Did the round not fire or is the magazine empty? One of the aspects of safe operation is the gun is open when laying on the bench.

As for S&W's actions, I wonder how much is in reaction to the over the top liability/litigation environment we live in?
 
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