M&P 9mm reported problems

[Exiledviking]

Wow. I was just going to pick one up but now I'm going to wait & see. However if anyone of you wants to dump yours for cheap cheap, PM me. $300 or so. I can dream, right? lol!

Fat chance. I love mine and I have well over 3000 rounds thru it with no trouble.

[Ron-Solo]

The teletype is accurate with some info redacted. The M&P was removed from the list of authorized handguns on April 29th.

[CaliTheKid]

I shot the M&P and was impressed with it's grip angle and the way it pointed but the one I demo'd did jam a few times. It was a range gun so that is always a suspect sample. I've put thousands of rounds thru my P2000 and never had a jam. It's a great pistol.

[trendar5]

We ran the M&P .40 and .45 full-size through a trial at our PD along with Sigs, Glocks, FN, XD, sadly no HK, for 6 months, without cleaning any guns. All of them ran great. ONE guy reported what he thought was ONE light primer strike with a 21SF. I wondered if it was a hard primer.... Our officers commented on the M&P trigger being not as smooth as others....which didn't bother me. I still hope to buy an M&P 9mm...maybe in 4-6 months. I carry my M&P .45 4.5" on-duty several times a month without reservation.

[CaliTheKid]

I would have carried the M&P .45 is it had ever been approved. It's much better in the hand than the USP .45

[11Z50]

I own and carry both full-size 45 and compact 9mm M&P's. The .45 has never missed a stroke and the 9 has had 1 failure to extract in around 2k rds for both.

These were both from last year, before the big contracts tooled up so maybe it a QC issue when mass production started.

As a side note, I clean my carry guns ASAP after firing and inspect them often. One of my people has a full-size 9 and I don't think has ever cleaned it. (I did a quick-clean on it once for her) No malfunctions I know of.

In my experience, although it was awhile ago, LASD is firearms-smart compared to many other agencies. I went to some training with them when I was a cop and had a close friend that worked at Biscaluz and Wayside. I know they thoroughly test weapons and ammo, and many departments use their data in selecting new equipment.

While the M&P performance with LASD is unexpected and certainly alarming, I hope SW will get the bugs worked out before their rep is damaged beyond repair. I remember back in the late 70's SW was trying to get the M59 adopted by many agencies, but due to early reliability issues it never really caught on. I was issued a later production model that was really a good gun, but by then the M59 was tarnished in the eyes of many LEOs.

Too bad that SW didn't do the proper QC on the LASD issue. They will pay for it in sales for a long time!

[trendar5]

Oh my goodness, what do you do with somebody who won't clean a duty gun? There is just no way that person is squared away on the street. I guess If I was a rangemaster I'd be able to write a book after seeing that stuff.....

I attended a large-agency academy in L.A. County in the early 90's, and they would not issue or authorize Glock at that time, and I respected their explanation. They cared about the safety of the officers, and they didn't want to take any chances. But what it really came down to was the way Glock refused to acknowledge/handle the problems. If S&W takes a different tact, they will surely be O.K. As an aside, I'm not bashing Glock, and I usually carry/trust Glocks full-time.

For me, the M&P .45 has filled that wish-list gun that I have always said would sell well: A .45 in the frame of a Glock 17, with approx. 9-10 rounds.

[CaliTheKid]

I'd also like the HK P30/30L and the HK45/45c to make the approved list. I think all 3 are perfect duty weapons.

[Ron-Solo]

I would have carried the M&P .45 is it had ever been approved. It's much better in the hand than the USP .45

During testing the M&P 45 broke a couple of parts connecting the left side portion of the slide release. The gun still functioned, but you couldn't drop the slide from the left handed position. S&W has supposedly fixed the problem, but the gun hasn't yet been resubmitted for testing.

I'm sure with the problems the 9mm has had, it will get looked at hard before approving.

Talked to one of the range guys yesterday. S&W has supposedly come out and picked up all the pistols used by the class that had the jamming issues to see what the problem is. Hopefully it is something simple and they get the green light again. The M&P 9 is not totally dead.

[CaliTheKid]

Thats good news-- thanks for the update. I'm sort of surprised that S&W wouldn't send a well inspected batch of guns. It's one of those "If I were running that company" moments. I'm thinking about going up to shoot the P250. Any feed back on that?

[Ron-Solo]

Thats good news-- thanks for the update. I'm sort of surprised that S&W wouldn't send a well inspected batch of guns. It's one of those "If I were running that company" moments. I'm thinking about going up to shoot the P250. Any feed back on that?

I shot both the P250 and the M&P 9 on April 23rd as part of the test evaluation just before they pulled the M&P.

I liked the M&P 9 the best. The P250 is a nice gun. Reminds me a lot of the H&K P2000 which I carry. They have you shoot 6 different P250's. One each of the 3 different grip sized and with both trigger variants. They also had me shoot all three grip sizes of the M&P. It takes about 45 minutes and they supply the ammo, so it's definitely worth going.

I hope they work out the bugs with the M&P, it's a nice gun.

[SoCalDep]

Rumor mill has it that upon being issued the replacement Berettas the malfunctions continued. Range staff is now looking at an ammunition switch. I can say that if it's making Berettas balk, there's something up. I also heard that range staff took all the recruit malfunctioning M&P's and put 500 duty rounds through them with no problems.

I can say that I found a round with the bullet pushed almost flush with the case when I opened a box of practice ammo so I'd definitely be inclined to believe an ammunition problem is the root cause.

[Jonathan Doe]

Rumor mill has it that upon being issued the replacement Berettas the malfunctions continued. Range staff is now looking at an ammunition switch. I can say that if it's making Berettas balk, there's something up. I also heard that range staff took all the recruit malfunctioning M&P's and put 500 duty rounds through them with no problems.

I can say that I found a round with the bullet pushed almost flush with the case when I opened a box of practice ammo so I'd definitely be inclined to believe an ammunition problem is the root cause.

I was at the range when the new recruits were being transitioned to Beretta's. I saw several double feed malfunctions. When we used Federal American Eagle ammo, we didn't have problems, but Remington and Winchester Winclean started presenting the problems.

[Ron-Solo]

The accuracy on the Winclean is less than desirable too.

I recently put about 1000+ rounds thru an MP5K F/A without any problems.

[Ron-Solo]

PRELIMINARY info is there was a problem with the extractors not being the correct size. The problem guns were from the same production run and apparently the extractors come from an outside vendor.

I REPEAT, this is preliminary info.

If that is the case, it should be an easy fix. I really liked shooting the gun and hopefully LASD will clear it again for on/off duty use.