A friend of mine was teaching a handgun safety course today in Norman. One of the ladies attending that course brought her recently purchased Smith and Wesson 642. She said she bought it brand new at Academy recently, and this was her first time shooting it. During the shooting portion of the class, she loaded ammo in it for the first time, pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. The cylinder was locked up, they could not open it. My buddy called me into the range, I checked to make sure that there was no squib, then we proceeded to take the gun apart to get it safely unloaded. When we popped the side plate off, it was missing that hammer safety bar, there was absolutely no lubrication inside the gun, and as you can see in the photos the hammer is completely rusted.
She had the receipt from Academy where she bought it a couple months prior.
We told her for safety sake that we would not reassemble the gun because it was not safe to fire. She is taking it back to Academy, and if they will not replace it for her, we gave her instructions on how to send it back to Smith & Wesson directly.
The pictures are incredible, just thought I’d share with you all. I’ve heard horror stories about big box store guns being not as high-quality because manufacturers sometimes skimp on things to be able to sell it to them at a certain price point. I don’t know what was going on with this one, but I cannot believe this made it out of the factory.
She had the receipt from Academy where she bought it a couple months prior.
We told her for safety sake that we would not reassemble the gun because it was not safe to fire. She is taking it back to Academy, and if they will not replace it for her, we gave her instructions on how to send it back to Smith & Wesson directly.
The pictures are incredible, just thought I’d share with you all. I’ve heard horror stories about big box store guns being not as high-quality because manufacturers sometimes skimp on things to be able to sell it to them at a certain price point. I don’t know what was going on with this one, but I cannot believe this made it out of the factory.