Long time coming on this update.
I sent the gun off to S&W, they repaired it and sent it back. The whole deal took about a month.
Once I got it back, the thing still felt "off" so led me to this (something I posted a few weeks back elsewhere):
I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, but the DA trigger pull is "off". It's smooth, but unusually difficult to pull. I thought about attempting to mess with it myself, but then thought better of it. I had an old timer, well seasoned revolver fan friend of mine play with it and he noted how tough the DA pull was as well. I decided that I wasn't crazy and made the decision to get it fixed.
(A little info on my gunsmith, hes an older guy who has been doing revolvers for decades and is very good at what he does. The guy has forgotten more than I know about the inner working of the things, especially S&W.)
When I took the pistol to him a few weeks back, without even touching the thing, the first thing out of his mouth was "I've had to rework quite a few new S&W revolvers lately, every time it's the hand, it's out of timing and fighting the ratchet at the end of the DA pull."
He pulled my pistol out of the box, played with it a few times, and confirmed that to be the case. He handed it back, had me DA pull the trigger telling me to pay close attention to the last 50% of the travel, had me open the cylinder, fake the cylinder close, and pull the trigger again sans cylinder. Huge difference. The pull was consistent throughout the cycle with no ramp up at the end.
I handed it back, he made a few errant comments concerning modern S&W and then assured me that he'd get it fixed and get it back to me.
On to current.
I picked it up on Friday, trigger is now smooth as glass and the pull is MUCH improved. The DA is superb and the SA is just silly. He left some pepper on it so I could run factory loads through it without having light primer strikes.
I took it out on Sat and ran 200 rounds through it, a 70-30 mix is .38 and .357. DA is great and the firearm shoots perfectly. Even on a goof-off rapid fire I was able to keep all 8 rounds in a 6" group (at about 10yds). The weight of the barrel really keeps the nose down and allows for some great followup shots. I'll admit that.357 is more stout than I remember shooting in the past. I ran various rounds through it but by a large margin, the Hornady 125gr American Gunner ammo was the most stout. With the weight of the front end, recoil is darn near straight back into you palm. It not "punishing" by any means...but it does kick with full magnum rounds.
Either way, the thing is a blast to shoot. I love the 8 rounds as it makes for more time between reloads than you think 2 rounds would add. Moonclips were also great (I loaded them the night before). Its been a long time coming with this pistol, but the 2+ month wait was worth it. Here it is in its current form: