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Hi Everyone!
A couple months ago I bought a new FNH SLP MK1. At the time, I searched all over for some decent reviews of the shotguns reliability. What i read pretty much boiled down to the idea that some simple maintenance goes a long way. There were a few people who had problems with them, but it seemed that most didn't clean their guns before going shooting with them for the first time.
I also read about a test performed to compare the SLP's reliability to that of the Mossberg 930. The problem with that test is that they are using some light 7/8 oz. walmart winchester birdshot. The SLP comes with a heavy 1 1/2oz.+ piston and a light 1 1/8oz.+ piston. In order to shoot the light 7/8oz. loads, you would have to buy a extra light sporting clays piston. Obviously the test wasn't very accurate considering they were using the wrong piston for the shells they were using.
So here is my experience with the SLP so far. The first thing I did was bring it home and strip it down for a good cleaning to get rid of the sticky stock packing grease. It sounds to me like this is a step that a lot of people skip and unfortunately it leads to malfunctions out of the box. I found disassembling the shotgun to be very quick and easy. The only tools required for complete disassembly are a punch to remove the two trigger pins, a phillips screwdriver for the recoil pad, and a 3/4" socket and ratchet to remove the stock from the recoil tube. I cleaned everything including the recoil tube and magazine tube and applied a light coat of Breakfree CLP to it all. The only other product I used is a little bit of grease applied to the bolt/carrier and in the slots it rides in inside the receiver. A little bit goes a long ways here.
While I had the SLP apart, I also took some time to mill a bevel on the loading port for easier loading as well as installing a Mesa Tactical 4 round side saddle and a Nordic +1 mag tube extension. (the +1 extension would end up causing my only problems with the SLP but were my fault.) I also added a Nordic Components charging handle and bolt release.
With the SLP clean and reassembled, I decided to take it to the local public range and run some rounds through it to break it in. I went to Walmart and bought 400 rounds of the Federal 1 1/8oz. 7.5 shotshells. I'm not a big fan of the Winchester shells because IMHO they are dirty. Besides that, the 7/8 oz. shells are not supposed to cycle through the SLP without using the skeet piston. To make a short story shorter, I ran the 400 rounds through the SLP with Zero failures. I tried to use as much variety in how I shot and loaded the gun as possible in order to create a failure but didn't end up having any. To say the least, I was very impressed so far.
When I got home I did a basic field strip and light cleaning and relubed the SLP.
My next trip out a couple weeks later was to take the 4 day shotgun course at Front Sight. The requirements for the course were 300 rounds of birdshot, 250 rounds of 00 buck, and 75 slugs. I also brought an extra 100 round box of the Walmart Federal bird shot just in case we ran low. Thats 725 rounds total.
The first couple days went very well until the SLP decided it didn't want to load the slugs. They were hanging up on the barrel at the 6 o'clock position like they weren't being lifted high enough before the bolt closed. After thinking about it for a while, I finally realized what I had done. When I installed the Nordic =1 mag extension, I reused the stock spring instead of installing the replacement that Nordic includes in their kit. At the time I figured that the stock spring was probably long enough to accomodate the little extra length required for the +1 tube but it turns out I was wrong. After installing the longer Nordic spring, the SLP cycled the rest of the slugs 100%.
The last couple of days had us shooting a lot of rounds including a lot of the 00 buck. Out of the 725 rounds I bought for the course, I came home with probably 150 or so. That puts my total round count at about 975 so far. I can't blame the few slug malfunctions on the gun considering that I didn't put the correct mag spring in at first and that it ran 100% with the new spring in. Overall, that puts the guns reliablility at 100% in my eyes. I brought it home and cleaned it thoroughly for its next trip out. I know some people like to torture test their guns to see what they will put up with but I'm not one of those guys. For the SLP to reliably run several hundred rounds between cleaning is all I ask.
A couple months ago I bought a new FNH SLP MK1. At the time, I searched all over for some decent reviews of the shotguns reliability. What i read pretty much boiled down to the idea that some simple maintenance goes a long way. There were a few people who had problems with them, but it seemed that most didn't clean their guns before going shooting with them for the first time.
I also read about a test performed to compare the SLP's reliability to that of the Mossberg 930. The problem with that test is that they are using some light 7/8 oz. walmart winchester birdshot. The SLP comes with a heavy 1 1/2oz.+ piston and a light 1 1/8oz.+ piston. In order to shoot the light 7/8oz. loads, you would have to buy a extra light sporting clays piston. Obviously the test wasn't very accurate considering they were using the wrong piston for the shells they were using.
So here is my experience with the SLP so far. The first thing I did was bring it home and strip it down for a good cleaning to get rid of the sticky stock packing grease. It sounds to me like this is a step that a lot of people skip and unfortunately it leads to malfunctions out of the box. I found disassembling the shotgun to be very quick and easy. The only tools required for complete disassembly are a punch to remove the two trigger pins, a phillips screwdriver for the recoil pad, and a 3/4" socket and ratchet to remove the stock from the recoil tube. I cleaned everything including the recoil tube and magazine tube and applied a light coat of Breakfree CLP to it all. The only other product I used is a little bit of grease applied to the bolt/carrier and in the slots it rides in inside the receiver. A little bit goes a long ways here.
While I had the SLP apart, I also took some time to mill a bevel on the loading port for easier loading as well as installing a Mesa Tactical 4 round side saddle and a Nordic +1 mag tube extension. (the +1 extension would end up causing my only problems with the SLP but were my fault.) I also added a Nordic Components charging handle and bolt release.
With the SLP clean and reassembled, I decided to take it to the local public range and run some rounds through it to break it in. I went to Walmart and bought 400 rounds of the Federal 1 1/8oz. 7.5 shotshells. I'm not a big fan of the Winchester shells because IMHO they are dirty. Besides that, the 7/8 oz. shells are not supposed to cycle through the SLP without using the skeet piston. To make a short story shorter, I ran the 400 rounds through the SLP with Zero failures. I tried to use as much variety in how I shot and loaded the gun as possible in order to create a failure but didn't end up having any. To say the least, I was very impressed so far.
When I got home I did a basic field strip and light cleaning and relubed the SLP.
My next trip out a couple weeks later was to take the 4 day shotgun course at Front Sight. The requirements for the course were 300 rounds of birdshot, 250 rounds of 00 buck, and 75 slugs. I also brought an extra 100 round box of the Walmart Federal bird shot just in case we ran low. Thats 725 rounds total.
The first couple days went very well until the SLP decided it didn't want to load the slugs. They were hanging up on the barrel at the 6 o'clock position like they weren't being lifted high enough before the bolt closed. After thinking about it for a while, I finally realized what I had done. When I installed the Nordic =1 mag extension, I reused the stock spring instead of installing the replacement that Nordic includes in their kit. At the time I figured that the stock spring was probably long enough to accomodate the little extra length required for the +1 tube but it turns out I was wrong. After installing the longer Nordic spring, the SLP cycled the rest of the slugs 100%.
The last couple of days had us shooting a lot of rounds including a lot of the 00 buck. Out of the 725 rounds I bought for the course, I came home with probably 150 or so. That puts my total round count at about 975 so far. I can't blame the few slug malfunctions on the gun considering that I didn't put the correct mag spring in at first and that it ran 100% with the new spring in. Overall, that puts the guns reliablility at 100% in my eyes. I brought it home and cleaned it thoroughly for its next trip out. I know some people like to torture test their guns to see what they will put up with but I'm not one of those guys. For the SLP to reliably run several hundred rounds between cleaning is all I ask.
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