As regular readers of this website know, as you can see in the video above, the internal lock on my Performance Center Smith & Wesson 686 revolver failed. I had gunsmith Dave Santurri examine the piece. Dave confirmed that the lock had failed.

I sent the 686 to Smith & Wesson, requesting a full report on the cause of the failure and the repairs performed. Below is a shot of the paper that accompanied the weapon upon its return this afternoon. No apology. No nada. Just the paper.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Maybe they’re so busy trying to clutter their current inventory with new gun designs that they moved the customer service people into the product development department.

    • Yeah, like a scandium, night-sighted, snub nose in .44 special because that is so much better than 45 acp and cheaper and easier to find ammo for. And plastic revolvers for no good reason at all.
      Oh yeah, and 6 shot judges because that is the major shortcoming of the taurus model.

  2. Al Capone’s advice to Smith & Wesson: you can get much farther with a kind word and a repaired gun than you will with a repaired gun alone.

  3. It’s probably because they saw your video and therefore knew it only jammed at the range. If it had locked up while you were trying to defend yourself and you’d been killed because all you had in your hand was an expensive paper weight, I’m sure they not only would have sent an apology, but also flowers to the funeral home.

  4. I would never own a S&W revolver with the internal lock.

    It is pathetic that S&W have always insisted that the locking mechanism “does not affect reliability of the weapon at all.” That is a complete LIE and shows a certain level of contempt for their customers. Any time you add complexity, and in this case, add a mechanism that has the ability to directly impede the weapon’s ability to fire, you increase the likelihood that it will fail. A whole new mode of failure has been introduced that did not exist before!

  5. Come on Robert. Shit happens. What’s one lock failure here and there. Just shoot the gun, trust it.

    P.S.
    I would remove that lock.

  6. What? You dare disturbed the ‘Great and Powerful Oz’ with a puny repair? What are you thinking man?

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