Getting ready to send in my SW 5906

[TangoDown]

Hello all,

I was hoping to get opinions from people who know. I'm about to send in my 5906 to S&W's Performance Center. I was looking at the Action job and possibly bead blasting steel. The first question I have is, what do they mean by tuning? Also, what's their turn around? I found out I need to send the gun I for a quote first so I'm guessing I'll be out a gun for a few weeks to a few months?

Lastly, is it worth it or should I find a local gunsmith to so the work?

 

[Jack Dupp]

What exactly are you hoping to improve on the gun?

 

[Harrier]

IMO, I don't know that I would send that gun in for a tune job, it is out of production for several years and from what I read over on the S&W forum, certain spare parts are becoming unobtainable, so I would tend to keep it as it is.
If you are looking for an action job and finish work,, I'd lean toward finding a local smith with a good rep for S&W... get his est. then decide if you want to part with it while S&W looks at it.

I have a regular model I bought new in 1989, it has always been a good reliable shooter, a bit heavy but a keeper in my book.

 

[TangoDown]

What exactly are you hoping to improve on the gun?

For the most part I was interested in the "tune". Hoping to just get it to like new condition. Whether that's replacing the springs or polishing different pieces. I've always heard guns from Performance Center shoot like dreams so I wanted to move the gun up from a "duty" gun to a "near competition" gun.

IMO, I don't know that I would send that gun in for a tune job, it is out of production for several years and from what I read over on the S&W forum, certain spare parts are becoming unobtainable, so I would tend to keep it as it is.
If you are looking for an action job and finish work,, I'd lean toward finding a local smith with a good rep for S&W... get his est. then decide if you want to part with it while S&W looks at it.

I have a regular model I bought new in 1989, it has always been a good reliable shooter, a bit heavy but a keeper in my book.

That's fair. Do you know of any local S&W smith near Phoenix?

 

[Crippledtrigger]

I had a 645 that had trigger work done. In double action it was like a nice revolver trigger.

Those all steel guns are nice and having it gone thru is not a bad idea if your going to keep it but you can replace most springs n such yourself.

It might be cheaper to have a local S&W auto smith do it and it's a good resource you can develop too for the future. While there ask what parts are getting rare and what if any parts he sees that break. Get a spare if you can of those.

One thing to watch are OE mags tend to get hairline cracks on the rear at the feed lips. I would get spares of those but not NOS S&W if I could avoid it, I dont know if it was the design or metal. I always preferred Mec-Gar mags anyways. I did have a couple tight welded by a board member and they never cracked again but I sold the gun off long ago so who knows. This was when new mags were like 50 plus bucks. I'm a cheap bastard sorry.

Those are going up in value. 350 bucks a few years ago and I see 550 all over resale now.

Another reason to kick myself.

ETA, the cracking mags may be limited to stainless mags only. The non stainless steel may be less brittle. Another reason for mec-gar mags in this case. This said now days that issue should be non existent in newer stuff but why take a chance. They are not going to catastrophically fail if they arent cracked so dont toss them but once the crack develops then loaded mags will make it worse over time till it does.

 

[Harrier]

I always thought Mec-Gar made the OEM S&W mags... maybe not. Back about 25 years ago i would buy all the MG or S&W Model 59 and 659 mags i found at gunshows for about $10-15 each. Ended up with 20 or 30 of them.... don't see so many these days. Stay away from the Ram-line with the roll up spring and anything with the Pro-Mag name on it.

I always used mine as the test gun for hot reloads and the one all others are compared against. It has never failed me in any way. The main thing to have "tuned" and smoothed out is the trigger pull. You can replace the recoil spring yourself... nothing else (other than the trigger) needs messed with.

 

[TangoDown]

Awesome, thanks for the info! I'm also trying to build a spare parts kit. I remember seeing a list a few months ago but can't find it and seems it's personal preference. Is there a list I can use? I've found two or three sites that seems to have all parts on the gun so I'd like to buy while the parts are available.