Canted or Over-clocked S&W revolver barrels

I had a 638 , SP101 & a Charter Bulldog all with canted barrels … sold the 638 to a dealer , sent the SP101 back to Ruger .. they said it was in spec .. traded it .. the Charter was fixed by Charter …

I have a late 80's 8 3/8" 686 that is so canted the rear rear sight almost ran out of adjustment to zero the gun.

I have a Colt King Cobra that came with a canted barrel. After 30k+ rounds the barrel began unscrewing. The gunsmith that fixed that problem put the barrel back on straight.

I've acquired a handful of new S&W revolvers in the past two years and have had zero issues. The finish is a bit wanting compared to those produced decades ago, but otherwise I am well pleased. That's not to say that all their firearms are without issue, but in the main, their QC has improved as of late.


I agree:

Jalopiejoe said:

Too expensive to buy and then send it back to the factory hoping they will get it right!

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While not S&W directly the TCR22 I bought brand new came with a canted barrel. This was a year or two ago so definitely under the ownership of S&W at that time.

My 2017 model 617 has a properly clocked barrel

I bought an S&W model 60 Pro in 2017 that was darn near dead on perfect when i bought it. I put a lot of .357 magnum through it and it was very accurate with 158 grain magnum loads until one day in 2018 it locked up on me. I could not release the cylinder. I ended up sending it back to S&W with 5 empty cases in the cylinder.
I will not bore you with the details of my back and forth with the S&W “performance center” but their fix for the binding extractor rod was to twist (cant) the shroud of the barrel. They told me the ejector rod needed rethreading. That was a lie. Anyway, the barrel was perfect when i bought it. The PC canted the barrel shroud to cover up their inadequate QC work.
I dumped the gun.
I will not buy another Performance Center gun until they put some QC on those boneheads.

S&W has been canting barrels since I don't know when. Years ago I posted on the Firearms Research forum about that and other defects in Victory models. I'd post the URL to that thread if I knew how. But if you're interested, search that forum for the title: "A look at S&W during WWII"

Canted barrels?

Meant to be fired gangsta!

My 2021 M617 was darned near perfect. What an excellent firearm! We await your range report, Jalopiejoe.

Jalopiejoe said:

I hope you're right, I just bought a 617 on GunBroker! Fingers crossed!

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Jonesy814 said:

My 2017 model 617 has a properly clocked barrel

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If the gun shoots to the sights, in a fixed sight model, canting to some small degree is what got it there. That's how they're zeroed. If you want a straight up and down front sight, be prepared to use a file on the rear sight notch as needed, to center your groups for your sight picture and gripping technique.

In an adj. sighted model, I'm satisfied when the rear sight windage adjustment is not cranked all the way over to one side or the other to center my favored load. That's what it's there for. And I'll say that after 55+ years of owning more than two dozen Smith's, I've never found one that was "canted"... YMMv, Rod

Howdy

I bought this Model 686-6 brand-spanky new in 2015. I bought it simply because up until that time I did not have any L frame Smiths and the price was reasonable.






On my first trip to the range with it I found I had to crank the rear sight all the way to the right to get the point of impact near the point of aim. I have been shooting revolvers for over 40 years, and I have never encountered one that needed that much windage adjustment.






On closer inspection, I realized the barrel was canted and not allowing the yoke to close all the way. There should be no gap where the yoke meets the frame, it should be completely closed.






Like this:






I have no problem with the internal lock, and I don't even have a problem with MIM parts. But the lack of inspection that allowed that out the door is one reason I will never buy another new S&W revolver.

Yes, my bad for not noticing the gap at the yoke before I paid for the revolver. Now I know better.

9mmepiphany said:

It isn't so much the QC has improved but that manufacturing techniques have been modernized. Along with the closer tolerances being held with MIM parts, two-part barrels have eliminated canted barrels.

Since two-part barrels are screwed in separately from the barrel shroud, you don't run into the issue of a barrel which isn't clocked correctly. The barrel gap can be fitted without affecting the alignment of the sights

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That was what I was going to say. The two piece barrels have pretty much eliminated canted barrels. I have only had one gun with a canted barrel. An older 66-1 with 6" barrel. You could only tell it because the grooves cut in to the top of the barrel didn't quite line up with the front of the frame. But it was very minor. It didn't need any off center rear sight adjustment to shoot POA.

Just to add some perspective - S&W has made millions of revolvers (around a million in the 4 year stretch between 2015 and 2018 alone). How many complaints have you seen or heard on the internet? 100? 50? 20? I doubt it's even that many. Do some math. Are you really worried about a number that small?

Yes, but by the time I bought my 686, quality had slipped considerably. S&W does not do the same amount of in process inspections that they used to in the 'old days'. Inspections take time and cost money. Paying in process inspectors costs money too. With less in process inspections, more stuff is shipped that never would have been shipped years ago.

The buyer is the final inspector these days. I suspect the bean counters have calculated that the cost to address customer returns is less than the cost to do all the inspections they used to do.

Again, shame on me for not doing a more thorough inspection before I bought my 686.

kidneyboy said:

Just to add some perspective - S&W has made millions of revolvers (around a million in the 4 year stretch between 2015 and 2018 alone). How many complaints have you seen or heard on the internet? 100? 50? 20? I doubt it's even that many. Do some math. Are you really worried about a number that small?

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How many S&W revolvers have you personally owned or inspected closely? I have handled quite a few and found the S&W revolvers from the 1980s and 1990 having extremely poor quality control.
One reason for the shoddy quality was that S&W paid the assembly workers by guns assembled and when you do the math, you will realize that someone assembling 25 revolvers, even with small problems, will make more than the guy that did 21 guns right.

Jalopiejoe said:

A few years back it seemed that we heard of quite a few S&W revolvers leaving the factory with canted barrels!
A few videos on YouTube at the time!
I bought a 686+ in 2014 that I returned for repair but it was just never right so I sold it!
I just haven't heard much discussion of the problem recently and hope that the QC has improved!
Too expensive to buy and then send it back to the factory hoping they will get it right!
Any experience, thoughts or opinions?

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I had one of those 686s with the wonky barrel. They told me it was fine when I sent it in. I was displeased . I don't have the type of measuring equipment required to determine the cause but my understanding was that the frames were actually the problem, they needed the barrel crooked so the blade wouldn't be off to one side , or something. That was the 2nd to last straw with S&W for me and I've been avoiding the brand in general for many years due to completely different issues with another one of their revolvers. I'm not a hater , just prefer to spend my money with a company that will listen and address my concerns to make it right.

Some folks on here have heard me gripe on this a few times before and I've gotten backlash for slandering the Holy source of all revolver goodness. I try my absolute best to be polite, not offensive, non biased , fair and reasonable. I try not to drag up old issues that are long since past but I had to comment on this one. Flat out, they did nothing to resolve my concern. Oh well, I've moved on to better things and I'm a happy guy with plenty of fine revolvers these days. Life is good.

PzGren said:

How many S&W revolvers have you personally owned or inspected closely?

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17 or 18 manufactured from 1955 through 2015 or 2016. Not my first rodeo.

ETA - How many I have owned is irrelevant to my original post. I'm pointing out the fact that out of millions of revolvers manufactured very few have had issues. It is statistically unlikely to get a gun with issues from any manufacturer.

PzGren said:

How many S&W revolvers have you personally owned or inspected closely?

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I am not going to say exactly how many S&W revolvers I own, let's just say in the low three digits and leave it at that. The oldest one left the factory in 1859 (yes 1859) the newest one is that 686-6 that I bought new in 2015.

I think that is a pretty fair sample.

None of my many Smith's shows the poor workmanship that the new 686-6 does.

kidneyboy said:

17 or 18 manufactured from 1955 through 2015 or 2016. Not my first rodeo.

ETA - How many I have owned is irrelevant to my original post. I'm pointing out the fact that out of millions of revolvers manufactured very few have had issues. It is statistically unlikely to get a gun with issues from any manufacturer.

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I have had more than a dozen S&W revolvers with serious issues out of over a couple hundred and even had a defective Ratzeburg Korth. I had several Colts from the 1970s that had issues, one had the barrel become unscrewed when firing the gun. I could fix that easily but that is not the point.

The early MR73 had the rebound spring slip until the design was changed. I had seen one rendered useless at the range.

"Statistically" is just a numbers game.

9mmepiphany said:

It isn't so much the QC has improved but that manufacturing techniques have been modernized. Along with the closer tolerances being held with MIM parts, two-part barrels have eliminated canted barrels.

Since two-part barrels are screwed in separately from the barrel shroud, you don't run into the issue of a barrel which isn't clocked correctly. The barrel gap can be fitted without affecting the alignment of the sights

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Not everything S&W makes has a 2 piece barrel. My 617 doesn't. Pretty sure the 686 doesn't either