Redhawk 1,
Yes, it's only my opinion. But if you let me know your postal address I can send you the bills for all the crap I've had to have fixed on S&W's.
Seriously, I have owned a LOT of S&W's, and the quality control just isn't all that good. I've had a number of cases of excess end shake, excess cylinder gap, rattlely cranes, one case of grossly excessive crane endshake, one case of misaligned chambers, all right out of the box. And almost all S&W revolvers have the hammer dragging on the frame. And don't get me started about the bolt drag line on the cylinder. The percentage of revolvers with defects right out of the box has been too high. Thge quality control is getting better these days, but that's a day too late since they've dropped all the nice looking ones, which is why you buy a S&W to begin with. The one S&W center fire pistol I owned had too low a front sight so you could not get it on target.
I can show you a lack of quality control with Rugers as well. I've had problems with Brownings, Colts, etc. I'm not convinced any of the mass manufactures are doing all that well with quality control.