I recently purchased an M&P 9mm. I have been teaching my girlfriend to shoot, and she was learning on my Walther P22, my 1911, a friends Glock, and my XDm. After showing a reasonable amount of proficiency, I decided to buy her very own gun for her. She is 4'10" and has pretty small mitts, and after trying out a variety of guns, she felt that the M&P fit her hands the best. I had done some research on the internet, and found pretty mixed reviews about the gun, which made me a bit hesitant, but Smith and Wesson seems to have pretty reliable customer service. Although I found it depressing, ( I wanted her to get an XD ) I caved and purchased the Smith and Wesson.
I took it home and taught my girlfriend how the gun functioned, and how to properly field strip it, and clean/lube it.
I took the gun to the range the next day. We were shooting 9mm military ball ammo. I've fired this ammo thru all kinds of pistols (Berettas, XD's, Glocks...you name it) without a problem. The first round thru the M&P resulted in a failure to extract. As did the second, third, and every other successive round. The expended brass stayed in the chamber, and the slide would push the next round into the ass end of the first round.
Needless to say, I was less than thrilled. This occured with both magazines. Also, 90% of the time, loading a magazine forcefully into the pistol with the slide locked back resulted in the slide coming forward and loading a round, without touching the slide release. This has never happened with my XDm, but I've experienced it with Beretta's, and once with a Glock. On one occasion, I also had the slide fail to lock back on an expended magazine.
After 8 magazines of being extremely frustrated and shooting a semi automatic one shot at a time, the failure to extract problem started clearing up. The last 2 magazines resulted in ONLY 2 malfunctions per 17 round magazine. Out of 170 rounds fired...I never got thru a magazine without a malfunction.
The next day I purchased 50 rounds of CCI Blazer Brass in an effort to determine if it was simply the ammunition that the pistol disliked. The pistol fired properly thru all 50 rounds, though I still experienced the problem with the slide coming forward when loading a magazine.
On the upside...I have to agree with my girlfriend when it comes to the ergonomics of the M&P. I have rather small hands as well, (I use the smallest backstrap on my XDm) and the feel of the pistol is spot on. The reach to the trigger and the handle is very comfortable, and pointing/aiming the weapon is very natural feeling. Much more so than the Glocks, and arguably, even more so than my XDm...which I hate to admit.
The trigger pull is somewhat quirky, and I've read that the pistol requires a "break in" for it to even out and become consistent. That sounded kinda retarded to me, but it turns out to be true.
The pistol is easy to shoot, and pretty accurate. I could keyhole rounds at 10 meters, and at fifteen meters I was shooting a 2 inch hole in a 3 inch dot without trying too hard.
So...basically the pistol was a blast to shoot...When it actually fired. :?
So, the bottom line is...I would never rely on this gun for self defense. But that's not what I bought this gun for. It's fun to shoot but certainly picky about ammo. I thought about sending the gun back to Smith and Wesson, but I think I'll experiment with different ammunition some more. If Smith and Wesson built this weapon to compete with Glock and XDs, then they have achieved failure of epic proportions because it doesn't compare in my opinion. Even without the failure to extract issue, the slide going into battery when loading a magazine is enough to piss me off. I didn't buy it with the expectation that it would outshoot my XD or a Glock, but I certainly didn't think it would be a POS right out of the box.
I dunno...I have pretty mixed emotions about the gun. I'll fire it some more, and then do a follow up.
If anyone else has had issues like this, then drop me a line.
I took it home and taught my girlfriend how the gun functioned, and how to properly field strip it, and clean/lube it.
I took the gun to the range the next day. We were shooting 9mm military ball ammo. I've fired this ammo thru all kinds of pistols (Berettas, XD's, Glocks...you name it) without a problem. The first round thru the M&P resulted in a failure to extract. As did the second, third, and every other successive round. The expended brass stayed in the chamber, and the slide would push the next round into the ass end of the first round.
Needless to say, I was less than thrilled. This occured with both magazines. Also, 90% of the time, loading a magazine forcefully into the pistol with the slide locked back resulted in the slide coming forward and loading a round, without touching the slide release. This has never happened with my XDm, but I've experienced it with Beretta's, and once with a Glock. On one occasion, I also had the slide fail to lock back on an expended magazine.
After 8 magazines of being extremely frustrated and shooting a semi automatic one shot at a time, the failure to extract problem started clearing up. The last 2 magazines resulted in ONLY 2 malfunctions per 17 round magazine. Out of 170 rounds fired...I never got thru a magazine without a malfunction.
The next day I purchased 50 rounds of CCI Blazer Brass in an effort to determine if it was simply the ammunition that the pistol disliked. The pistol fired properly thru all 50 rounds, though I still experienced the problem with the slide coming forward when loading a magazine.
On the upside...I have to agree with my girlfriend when it comes to the ergonomics of the M&P. I have rather small hands as well, (I use the smallest backstrap on my XDm) and the feel of the pistol is spot on. The reach to the trigger and the handle is very comfortable, and pointing/aiming the weapon is very natural feeling. Much more so than the Glocks, and arguably, even more so than my XDm...which I hate to admit.
The trigger pull is somewhat quirky, and I've read that the pistol requires a "break in" for it to even out and become consistent. That sounded kinda retarded to me, but it turns out to be true.
The pistol is easy to shoot, and pretty accurate. I could keyhole rounds at 10 meters, and at fifteen meters I was shooting a 2 inch hole in a 3 inch dot without trying too hard.
So...basically the pistol was a blast to shoot...When it actually fired. :?
So, the bottom line is...I would never rely on this gun for self defense. But that's not what I bought this gun for. It's fun to shoot but certainly picky about ammo. I thought about sending the gun back to Smith and Wesson, but I think I'll experiment with different ammunition some more. If Smith and Wesson built this weapon to compete with Glock and XDs, then they have achieved failure of epic proportions because it doesn't compare in my opinion. Even without the failure to extract issue, the slide going into battery when loading a magazine is enough to piss me off. I didn't buy it with the expectation that it would outshoot my XD or a Glock, but I certainly didn't think it would be a POS right out of the box.
I dunno...I have pretty mixed emotions about the gun. I'll fire it some more, and then do a follow up.
If anyone else has had issues like this, then drop me a line.