I’ve been lurking here for quite some time, but rarely post.
I wanted to post a big kudos to Smith and Wesson. I have had a SW1911PD since 2007. I have taken great care of it, and replaced all components as need or recommended. 12,300 rounds of trouble free ownership and less than half a dozen failures to feed, fire or eject, last month it started to act up. I was getting very strange ejection issues. The brass was getting caught at a 45 degree angle in the ejection port, between the forward edge of the ejection port and the feed lips of the magazine. No amount of immediate action would clear the weapon short of stopping and prying it out. I called Smith and Wesson, explained the issue, and sent a picture of a jam. They had a return box out to me in two days. About a week later, I had a box delivered to me at work. The note from the gunsmith that worked on my pistol stated they had replaced the external extractor assembly and ejector. What was NOT mentioned was that they had tightened up my frame/slide rails, fitted a new barrel link, bushing and a whole new barrel. I called S&W back and asked why they had replaced the barrel, and I was told they wanted to look at the wear on a known round count barrel. Sounded odd to me, but who am I to argue?
I have had my 1911 back for 3 weeks now, and have put about 300 rounds through it. I am happy to report that I have had no failures of any sort (other than accuracy issues when I drank too much coffee before going shooting). I know that some people do not care for the S&W 1911 line. However, as a casual shooter, it is nice to know that Smith and Wesson stands behind their warranty, and I hopefully have another 12,000 rounds before I’ll need it again.
Adam