John! As promised. Better late than never, hey!
A few weeks ago, I had a couple guys from the Raleigh/Durham area ask me
about some very noticeable peening of the rear left corner and side of the lower barrel lug on both their pistols. The guns were within 15 numbers of each other, and the damage was in the same place on both guns. One was more heavily damaged than the other. I had them bring the guns to me.
The damage was caused by a small piece of metal that hadn't been cut away in a machining step in the frame's barrel stop surface, located at the upper left corner, just below the curved frame bridge.
The burr had gotten so bad on one of the guns, that it wass interfering with the barrel's linkdown...and preventing the barrel from completely unlocking from the slide, which caused light flanging and rolling of the barrel's locking lugs. He caught it in time to prevent damaging the lugs beyond reasonable repair. I dressed the burr on the lug and removed the unmachined material
in the frame with a small file, and corrected the problem on both guns.
They notified Smith & Wesson, and were told that it was normal to have slight wear in contact areas...but this wasn't normal wear. This was a flaw in the machining step that was either due to a cutter that had been resharpened too many times, and had become undersized...or a fixture had slipped.
I've become aware of two other pistols that had the same problem. In one picture that I saw, the unmachined piece wasn't as large as in the two that I repaired, nor did it damage the lower lug as badly...though it did kick up a burr in the same area.
So...Check your pistols for this defect. It's easy to see and easy to fix. Evidently Smith is either taking the stance that repairing any that come in under warranty is cheaper than a recall...or the guys didn't clearly explain the problem. At any rate, if your pistol has the defect...and is damaging the
lower lug...it can cause further damage and can tie up your gun at a critical moment if left untended.
Okay Commandante'...Stick it!
Bookmarks