I was tempted to pick up a 1911 recently, but ended up purchasing a Glock 31C (357 SIG) and two extra 15 round magazines. Plastic is fantastic!
I have 2 S&W revolvers. One is a model 29. It had factory warranty repair repair for a problem with the cylinder rubbing against the forcing cone when swinging it closed. It came back fixed but with a real hard trigger pull, which I ended up fixing by backing off the strain screw a little. You don't want to over do this. I wouldn't go lower without a reliable trigger pull gauge.
The other is a model 686+. I had a problem with some hard primers from Corbon that wouldn't go off. Corbon replaced the ammo 2 for 1. Also when the revolver was new it would occasionally not advance to the next chamber on 2 of the chambers on double action fire. I fixed this by dry firing it about a thousand times in double action. The problem went away and hasn't reoccurred in the years since.
My Glock has been flawless out of the box except that in sure is hard to get 10 rounds into the 10 round mags. The 15 round mags are fine.
I also have a SIG P239 I purchased ever so slightly used. When I first tried it it wouldn't lock the slide back after the last round and occasionally jammed. A thorough cleaning including the mags and it's been flawless ever since.
The first place I'd look in NY for a problem is the armorer.
Thanks claud, I would like to get a Glock and probably will in a month or so.
Strain screws have a nasty habit of wanting to back out unless they're all the way down, in my experience. If you insist on dropping the pull that way, file a bit off the screw and run it down all the way. I find that getting the sideplate off and stoning the rebound slide and replacing the rebound slide screw (while looking for fit problems with the hammer, etc...) with one made by Wolff in the 14 lb range a good solution.