LGS has a S&W Pro Series 1911. Safety doesn't work. Cocked, locked, pull trigger, bang. Straight from the factory. How lame is that? "All mechanical things can fail" is a valid excuse for mechanical things; not for S&W QC. I think it's ridiculous, and it drives me nuts to know that things like that, especially on "Pro" Series items, are making it past QC.

Hopefully the dealer is sending it back to S&W.

They are.

I understand your frustration. I had a nib S&W 1911 years ago and mine went semi-full auto at the range. While I was shooting it, 3 rounds went off with a single trigger pull but fortunately I was able to keep all rounds on target. The range master heard something funny as well and we were both bewildered by it. I put a couple more rounds in the magazine and fired it again,to see if it would do it again-per the range masters suggestion. Sure enough, both rounds fired with a single trigger pull. We laughed and he said congrats on your full auto pistol. I obviously sent it back to S&W and they said it was a bad trigger bow, that caused the sear to get stuck on occasion. I was always leery after that when shooting a 1911 pistol.

It's not a beef with 1911s or S&W specifically, for me; it's the fact that anyone in this industry where we're all patriots, "have each other's back", and care about things like integrity and craftsmanship, that something like that makes it into a gun store counter at all. I know it's not isolated to any one or two brand(s); I almost wish it was.

A buddy of mine had a rock island 1911 slam fire a round right into the steering wheel of his newish truck. The steel ring in the steering wheel stopped it cold and it woulda went right into the all digital dash display if it kept going. He was reloading it for ccw after shooting it at a friends house. Rock island took care of him but that’s the thing that ultimately made me decide to get a g20 over the rock island 10mm.
Best part about it was that his wife never found out

Welcome to manufacturing during COVID. People off work due to quarantine, people not willing to work due to excessive unemployment benefits. Trainees put on jobs they don't know how to do because there's no one else available. It's a mess and we are seeing the results.

A non-functional manual safety on a 1911 is absolutely unacceptable. A basic function check would have caught it. This is not just a "quality" issue. This could get someone killed who bought their first gun and didn't know it was defective.

We’ve had to send back 2 performance center smith revolvers (a 642 and a 460) in the past year because they did nothing. The trigger didn’t work, the cylinder wouldn’t open, the hammer on the 460 wouldn’t cock back. They were completely locked up… Luckily smith puts their serial numbers on the inside of the frame so you have to open the cylinder to see them otherwise I would have never noticed until I was trying to sell to someone.

Smith took care of them, but still below are some quotes from smiths website about their performance center models. You can’t tell me anybody put any attention to detail or fine tuned them because they wouldn’t do ANYTHING. These are the first bad experiences we’ve had with smith products but I think they are just like every other business and they have covid to fall back on for producing a sub-par product.


“From hand cutting to fine tuning for precision, Performance Center firearms are top performers.”

“Whether you’re shooting a pistol, revolver, or rifle, you can be sure your Performance Center gun is made with a close attention to detail for your best shot yet.”