TGO David

Alright... I am letting the Auto-Lock feature run silently to catch up on the huge backlog of old posts. I've also deleted every post made by the @TGO Staff account today. That gets rid of a lot of the noise. Once the Auto-Lock gets the backlog processed, I'll turn back on the feature that makes it reply to the thread saying when and why it was locked. Progress is hard.

Yeah this is turning into a bit of a nightmare for anyone wanting to just catch up on new threads. I'm trying to fix it.

Thanks! I appreciate it.

Trying something new this morning with some automation to automatically lock threads. I am changing the configuration slightly, so what you see posted by the automation in a few threads isn't entirely accurate. It looks like the rules for this script are cumulative, meaning all conditions have to be true. The more conditions I add to the filter, the less likely it is to work properly. Right now, I have it set to auto-lock threads in the Trading Post forums if the author of the thread edits the first post in the thread and adds the tag "Ad Closed".

Welcome! I don't use the mobile mode that often but I'll do so today and see what I can sort out on this. Most folks use the Prefixes feature to indicate whether their items are for sale, for trade, if they are wanting to buy something, etc. Prefixes are also automatically turned into "tags" by the software. So long as they do that, you can search by the prefix or tag and see what's available. We do ask people to edit their threads and mark the prefix as SOLD whenever they sell their items. Some folks do this. Others don't. It's kind of annoying when they don't. So long as people use the prefixes like they are supposed to, you can filter out the items that are sold. I've hesitated to implement a feature where threads get auto-deleted after a certain number of days, but maybe I need to take another look at it. Does 30-Days without a reply seem like a good number? Of course, that means that people will need to come back and re-post their items for sale after the 30-day period, if they want to keep the listing alive. But it would help keep the forum clean. I'm open to suggestions from all of the members on this subject.

Update for January 12, 2022 FedEx delivered my M&P to Smith & Wesson this afternoon. For the sake of generosity, we should consider tomorrow, January 13th, as the first actual day of them having it in their possession. I am sure that the most that will happen within the next 24-hours is that it will be logged into their FFL books and entered into whatever computer systems they use for trouble-tickets. And then the wait will have officially begun.

What is your criteria? How do you know that these reports aren't accurate?

I heard some things about the 10mm having problems but didn't think to check on how the customers were being handled by Smith & Wesson as a result of it. I guess I should have thought further ahead than I did. In my meager defense, however, the last time I was a hardcore S&W fanboy was circa 2006-2010 or so and the few times that I had any need for help from their customer service department, they were insanely fast and good at it. I had those experiences in mind when I pulled the proverbial trigger again. I feel a bit silly for just assuming that things were the same now as they were then.

My Walther PDP still holds the position of my regular EDC. I honestly don't know why I bother picking up other handguns at this point. Variety is the spice of life, I guess.

Update... The M&P is on the way back to Smith & Wesson. They should receive it Wednesday. It will be interesting to see how long this process really takes and what the ultimate outcome with be. Until I have some other news to share, let the be a warning to anyone who is considering a new S&W of any sort. Maybe buy a Glock instead.

I wonder if I ran the correct size tap (6-32) up through the hole from the bottom, would it turn the broken piece out of the channel, or would I butcher the threads? Twisting the tap clockwise from the bottom of the slide would rotate the piece counterclockwise if viewed from the top. In essence, unscrewing it. But that assumes that once the tap made contact with the piece lodged in the channel, it would bite into it and begin twisting it rather than just butting up against it like a jam-nut. Hmm.

Nope. FFL transfer from the Internet. This is a through-hole but the portion of the screw that got lodged in there is significantly closer to the top of the slide than the bottom of the slide. There is no easy access to the screw from beneath, I guess is what I am trying to say. I wondered if freezing the slide might actually make it easier for that screw to come out. Heating it would seem to make the screw and the slide both expand slightly. Heat would be good if the screw was coated in threadlocker. I'm specifically asking Smith & Wesson NOT to drlll it out and tap it for a larger screw. That would make it incompatible with the commonly available optics mounting hardware. And yeah, lots of suckage.

I'm certainly open to ideas that would save me from a two-month wait.

C&H Precision Weapons provided that hardware. They'll hear from me tomorrow. They might actually offer to remove the screw from the slide. Who knows.

The screw is jammed in there tightly enough that attempting to remove it via a Torx driver snapped it off. I'm not aware of any cyanoacrylate adhesive or similar that would provide a potent enough bond. Is there such a thing?

Oh, you know how it goes. Hourly wage employee doesn't feel like they are being paid to think critically whenever something out of the normal occurs, so when the screw doesn't go into the slide easily, they apply more force to make it go in. Common sense would tell a person to stop, back it out and maybe even send that slide into the Defect Pile. This particular person either didn't have any common sense, or chose not to use it, or decided that Smith & Wesson wasn't paying them enough for it. Eh, at this point I just want a new slide with clean, not butchered threads in all of the appropriate holes, and I want it to happen sometime before Spring 2022.

These are pretty small, thin screws. None of them appear to be made of "quality" metal. Cheap Chinese junk, most likely.

I think any time I spend trying to find a machinist to take a swing at this locally would just add time to the delay of getting it back from Smith & Wesson. The 6-8 weeks part is what I find totally unsatisfactory.

How would you propose that I get that screw out? There is nothing left to grab ahold of. The two-month wait is now the cost of not ruining the gun. It's infuriating, yes, but trying something more drastic could damage the gun, which Smith & Wesson certainly would be under no obligation to repair. At this point I don't feel that I have any good alternatives than play their game.

This is my new Smith & Wesson M&P M2.0 Optics Ready handgun. I ordered it right after Christmas and picked it up on Thursday, January 7th, 2022. Any day that you get a new firearm is a good day! Or so we've always thought. The trigger on the new model is honestly pretty great. It resolves many of the gripes that people have had about the M&P trigger in the past. They have done away with the hinged design and moved to a flat-faced polymer trigger with an integral safety "blade" much like a Glock has. I supposed that Glock's patent on this has expired since everyone else is producing clones of the Glock based on the Gen 3 and Gen 4 designs. So, it was nice to see that Smith & Wesson has done away with the goofy hinged trigger. Trigger reset is pretty good, also. It still is not quite as crisp and snappy as that of a Glock but, honestly, I don't get wrapped around the axle about trigger reset. As long as it's there and does its job, that is what matters. If you are shooting the gun in a class setting or, God forbid, in an active situation where someone's life is on the line, you really aren't going to notice the tactile reset anyway. Just my opinion, perhaps, but I obsess over minutia and cannot find a single recorded case of a police officer or other stating that they remember how the trigger reset felt in that kind of situation. Most folks don't even accurately remember how many rounds they fired, so expecting them to wax poetically about how the trigger felt under stress is just stupid. But I digress. The point of this post is not to write a love poem about triggers. No, the point is darker and less happy than that. This is my brand-new M&P a few seconds after I attempted to remove the Allen screws that hold the factory polymer blanking plate from the optics cradle on the slide. As you can see, the screw on the ejection-port side of the slide has stripped completely out. This was with moderate torque and using a quality Wiha-brand Allen key to remove it. The screw felt as if it were either coated with thread-locking compound or, worse, cross threaded and then driven home by some ape at the Smith & Wesson assembly line. I was furious. Immensely so. But not as furious as I was after calling Smith & Wesson and asking them how I could return it to them for some help. This is my reaction after calling Smith & Wesson and learning that they would require SIX TO EIGHT WEEKS to service it. You read that right. It will ship this back to them via FedEx 2-Day Air after which time it will take approximately two months for it to sit in their service queue, after which time they will look at it, do something about the problem, and then return it to me. And hopefully in the condition it should have been from the beginning. I understand that manufacturing problems happen, but service after the sale is where the rubber really meets the road and Smith & Wesson need to step up their game. I would recommend that they start by reducing the wait time for service. A target of 1-2 weeks round-trip seems like a reasonable target to me. This isn't a $600 television or some other consumer good that could be returned to the store where it was purchased for an exchange or a refund. The only option is to send it back to the manufacturer and, ideally, receive it back quickly with all problems resolved. I am lucky. I have other guns to carry. But can you imagine being someone who doesn't have those options and who can't afford to roll the dice on a $600 gamble that their new gun is going to function properly? That person would be screwed. Anyway, being mechanically inclined I asked Smith & Wesson if I could have a local gunsmith remove the screw, or do it myself, without voiding the warranty. They said YES! So, off I went in search of an appropriately small screw extractor. A few harrowing moments later, the screw was successfully removed! Success!!! Rejoicing!!! But... not so fast. This is my brand-new M&P with the new screw sheared off into the slide. Yep. As I began to thread it into the slide, using barely any torque or force at all, it met resistance. I stopped immediately and began to slowly reverse direction. And it snapped. Right where the head of the screw met the slide. I am not sure how I resisted the urge to just throw the whole damned thing through the nearest wall but, somehow, I did. I suppose it was the rapidly shrinking rational portion of my brain that somehow managed to squeak out the thought, "Hey... don't throw it through the wall. If you do that, you can't return it to the factory." Actually, my response was one of complete numbness. Disbelief. It short-circuited my brain. I could only stare at it in silent rage. So, all of this being said, I am very confident that the original screw was cross threaded during initial assembly at Smith & Wesson This is now their problem to fix. I am returning the whole gun to them and suppose that I might see it sometime in March or April. And that thought infuriates me like no other. Would I recommend an M&P to anyone at this point? Not on your life. Check back with me in two months and I'll let you know if my opinion has changed any. History of Updates 1. January 12, 2022 -- Smith & Wesson received the gun for repair. 2. January 18, 2022 -- Smith & Wesson emailed to provide an RMA case number. 3. January 24, 2022 -- Officially one week since the gun was logged into the RMA system. Twelve Days since it arrived at S&W. No news. No updates. 4. February 15, 2022 -- Officially four weeks have elapsed. I called today and checked on things. They hope to be working on it within the next two weeks. 5. February 17, 2022 -- Completely by surprise, S&W sent me a FedEx tracking number today showing that my M&P is coming home. No idea what they've done to it. Stay tuned! 6. February 21, 2022 -- It's back home! They replaced the slide and all seems to be well. They undercut their return-time estimate by a full three weeks.

I have to believe that my friends and I tried that as kids too, but if we didn't... whoa. Missed opportunity!

This is all the ammo I needed to tell my kids how wrong they are!

I couldn't possibly count how many of those little Tootsie Roll sized boxes of caps that I took, pulled a segment off of, and then smashed with a hammer in order to make the loudest bang possible. I swear I can smell the burn of Sulphur just thinking about it. Life in the 80's got slightly more advanced when my friends and I discovered Edison Giocattolli cap guns from Italy. They were more advanced and used plastic strips (for semi-autos) and rings (for revolvers) of caps and came in a variety of more modern styles. I am pretty sure that my first magazine-fed gun was an Edison.

I honestly cannot remember anything earlier than this and have photographic evidence of me carrying not one but two of these, circa 1974. Some photos you can just... smell. And if you know what I mean, you know what I mean. Sweet, sweet Sulphur.

Most days I'm lucky if even one of my kids think I'm still cool.