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I jacked up the trigger on my M&P45 and had to ship it back to S&W for repairs. Since it was my fault, they said I had to pay for shipping. OK... no way around that, so I went ahead and shipped it per their instructions. From memory, it was in the $65-$70 range to ship it according to those instructions.

The upside is that S&W sent the pistol to the Custom Shop to accomplish what I had set out to do in the first place, and then they warrantied the work and shipped it back to me at their expense. The total turnaround time was on the order of 10 working days. So, for the $65 or so I spent on shipping, I got a Custom Shop trigger job that was a significant improvement over the OEM trigger.

On another occasion, my brand new M1A Loaded snapped off part of the hammer somewhere in the first 100 rounds, shooting standard factory match loads only. Springfield sent me a return authorization and paid for me to ship them the fire control group. They turned it around right away, replacing the broken MIM hammer with a forged part at no extra charge, and shipped the fire control group back to me at their expense. I had it back in the rifle 8 days after I sent it to them.

These are the standards against which I judge any manufacturer. Both are relatively large companies, but they haven't let their size get in the way of their customer service. If Taurus doesn't warranty their guns, then making you pay for the shipping makes perfect sense. But if they do warranty their guns, then making you pay for the freight is a deal breaker. If I were on the market for a pistol right now (and I have been considering a single stack 9mm for a while), I would not buy a used pistol whose warranty is not transferable, and I would not buy a new pistol from a manufacturer that didn't warranty their pistols.

I am interested to know how Taurus handled your particular shipping complaint after they actually received the gun. It will be informative to me personally because it will help me decide whether or not to include Taurus's 709 in my particular search pattern.