[Hammerslagger]

S&W has been having some "off and on" quality problems that go back to the 1970's, but especially in the last 10 years. Now, from the description of "Bass Tacks" it looks like they have engineering, design, and technician problems as well.

I am not familiar with the specific S&W product described in this thread; but I am familiar with a RF firing pin design that seems to be described here. Working from memory, SAMMI spec for .22 LR is a rim thickness of 0.039" to 0.042". Headspace for a fixed breech arm (like a bolt action, falling block, break open, etc.) is 0.043" to 0.051", tighter being better for accuracy. I would imagine that straight blowback actions start at, at least 0.045" for safety reasons in allowing for compression wear. The firing pin obviously needs to be able to deliver about 0.020" of crush for reliable percussion ignition. {This still leaves about 0.020" clearance from the chamber edge.} Base on "BT's" description he was likely getting a lot less than 0.010" crush until he modified his gun's FP to deliver an additional 0.010" of potential crush, which seems to have fixed his problem. S&W would appear to have a problem in not recognizing an obvious problem that a customer had to solve for them.

It seems that many of their highly skilled long term (old timer) employees have retired including Ron B. in charge of quality control, and Don D. in customer service, who was actually a builder before transferring to CS. IMO their retirement was a big loss to S&W and its customers.

Hopefully, someone at S&W has an opportunity to read this thread, and do something about their problems, before S&W quality becomes no more highly regarded than that of Taurus, which has improved somewhat over recent years.