Smith and Wesson 929 Problems/Quality

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08CV

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Hi All,

I was recently looking at possibly setting up a revolver rig just for fun. I reload a lot of 9mm so I have been looking at the S&W Model 929 from the performance center. However after reading a number of forums online I have seen that there a lot of people complaining about quality control issues (timing, cylinder/frame rubbing, hammer dragging etc). Stories of revolvers sitting for months at a time in warranty repair only to be charged for the service. These comments make me a bit nervous about shelling out that kind of cash for such a revolver. Can anyone who owns or has owned a 929 comment on the veracity or prevalence of these types of issues?

EDIT: Comments on the 986 also welcome
 
my first 929 was decent quality, just had a horrible 12lb DA trigger pull. I like to tinker with revolvers, so had that down to a nice 5.5 lbs over a couple of nights. My 2nd 929 (I always like to have a backup lol), had the same horrible trigger, and a few issues (barrel indexing was slightly off, ejector star was full of burrs and not aligned). Murray Charleton fixed that up for me under warranty, but sadly he retired his business last December. No idea how the current S&W service center would be.

Note, if you do a trigger job, then be prepared to reload using Federal primers. Also I found with Dillon dies, I got a little bit of bullet creep after shooting 5-6 rounds out of that moon clip. I switched to a Lee FC Die set and that fixed that issue.

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A member of our club bought a brand new 929. Right out of the box he had problems with light hammer strikes so he returned it to the warranty centre (cost him about $50 for shipping & insurance). He waited three months to get it back and when he did it had exactly the same problem. Luckily a buddy of mine who is a machinist had fabricated several S&W extended firing pins for these guns (wasn't the first time he had heard about this problem). He replaced the pin and the gun instantly became 100% reliable. Moral of the story is that Performance Centre stuff can be just a crappy as standard product so don't set your expectations too high.
 
Was he using factory ammo or reloads? And if reloads, what brand of primer? What weight was the trigger pull when he was getting light strikes? I experimented with extended firing pins looking to see if it would make a difference (ie enable me to further lighten trigger pull), but found the stock S&W Performance Center firing pin performed better than the Cylinder & Slide extended firing pin. It was more about the profile of the point than having the firing pin being longer. I reload using a firmly seated (ie slightly crushed) Federal primer.

I enjoy the challenge of revolvers and tinkering with them, but they definitely take some setting up to get optimum performance from them. They are not something you would run competitively straight out of the box.

ted_dent said:
A member of our club bought a brand new 929. Right out of the box he had problems with light hammer strikes so he returned it to the warranty centre (cost him about $50 for shipping & insurance). He waited three months to get it back and when he did it had exactly the same problem. Luckily a buddy of mine who is a machinist had fabricated several S&W extended firing pins for these guns (wasn't the first time he had heard about this problem). He replaced the pin and the gun instantly became 100% reliable. Moral of the story is that Performance Centre stuff can be just a crappy as standard product so don't set your expectations too high.
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VanMan said:
Was he using factory ammo or reloads? And if reloads, what brand of primer? What weight was the trigger pull when he was getting light strikes? I experimented with extended firing pins looking to see if it would make a difference (ie enable me to further lighten trigger pull), but found the stock S&W Performance Center firing pin performed better than the Cylinder & Slide extended firing pin. It was more about the profile of the point than having the firing pin being longer. I reload using a firmly seated (ie slightly crushed) Federal primer.

I enjoy the challenge of revolvers and tinkering with them, but they definitely take some setting up to get optimum performance from them. They are not something you would run competitively straight out of the box.
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All factory ammo. Gun was absolutely stock when he bought it and he did no modifications. He didn't care about it running competitively out of the box. He just expected a $1600 gun to fire when he pulled the trigger which it did not do reliably either before or after he sent it to the warranty depot.
 
I owned two used them for IPSC revolver. One shot well no issues the other had light primer strikes and I sent in for warranty work. When it came back it worked fine with no issues.
 
So it seems there is some veracity as to the manufacturing issues. From what I am reading it has the potential to be a great gun if one is willing to put some work in
 
08CV said:
So it seems there is some veracity as to the manufacturing issues. From what I am reading it has the potential to be a great gun if one is willing to put some work in
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This is true but should you really have to put a lot of work into a $1600-$1700 gun just to make it fire reliably? I would say absolutely not. I can understand having to lighten up a factory trigger since they make them deliberately heavy die to liability concerns but no gun (especially a "Custom Shop" one should leave the factory if it won't fire consistently and reliably. Hell, even $300 Norincos and $250 Hi-Points typically don't have that type of problem.
 
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ted_dent said:
This is true but should you really have to put a lot of work into a $1600-$1700 gun just to make it fire reliably? I would say absolutely not. I can understand having to lighten up a factory trigger since they make them deliberately heavy die to liability concerns but no gun (especially a "Custom Shop one" should leave the factory if it won't fire consistently and reliably. Hell, even $300 Norincos and $250 Hi-Points typically don't have that type of problem.
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I agree; if the Norks and the Hi-Points had those issues, there would be whining.

If someone wants a 9mm revolver; I would go Alpha Project. 1/3 the price, and less trouble.
 
Meroh said:
I agree; if the Norks and the Hi-Points had those issues, there would be whining.

If someone wants a 9mm revolver; I would go Alpha Project. 1/3 the price, and less trouble.
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It sounds like most of the problems are that the strain screw backed out, leading to light-strikes. It's a very easy fix (add a bit of locktite and tighten), and something that all S&W shooters know about across almost all their models. The tuning and tweaking I do is for IPSC competition, to lighten the DA trigger pull down to 6 lbs. If it's just a range toy, then the stock 12lb DA and ~4lb SA trigger pulls will be fine.

I have a Alpha Project revolver in 9mm too. The quality of it is about mid way between a Ruger and S&W (I did a review on it you can look up). The nice thing with the Alpha Project revolver is that it actually headspaces off of the front lip of the 9mm round, so you can fire it without moonclips. You would have to use something to poke out the brass afterwords though. When I bought it 4 years ago, the moonclips were ~$12 each from the factory. Last year they started being available through aftermarket manufacturers, so the price dropped to ~$6/each. Moon clips for my 929 run ~$3/each in bulk, and I normally have ~100 pcs.

If you are buying a revolver in 9mm just to have fun, then go with the Alpha project. If you think you may ever compete with it in IPSC, it will be more expensive to setup, and would require the same level of tuning and tweaking as a S&W - with a lot less aftermarket parts available.
 
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