The S&W M&P problem thread

[G34Shooter]

Anyone have experience with RWS ammo made in Switzerland and sold in Walmart? I had 2 Failures to Fire in a box of 50 while qualifying, the primers were dented.

[DrMark]

My M&P9 has had no failures. Solid extractor pin, and records show the Winchester White Box total to be 910 rounds.

Both of my brothers have M&P9s as well. No issues with theirs that I know of (and I probably would know of any problems).

My oldest brother also picked up an M&P45. It had a couple of issues that I got sorted out. I posted about the issue and their resolution on MP-pistol.com a couple of years ago. I reckon it's germaine to this thread, so I'll post it here too (in a bit).

[DrMark]

Anyone have experience with RWS ammo made in Switzerland and sold in Walmart? I had 2 Failures to Fire in a box of 50 while qualifying, the primers were dented.

There's an arfcom thread on it, and a couple of foks noted your issue.

I noticed that a magnet will pick up a round by its nose.

[G34Shooter]

There's an arfcom thread on it, and a couple of foks noted your issue.

I noticed that a magnet will pick up a round by its nose.

Thanks, I will look for it

[DrMark]

When my brother got his new M&P45, he had some FTFs.

Looking over it, there were some issues...


The firing pin block plunger seemed like it was not working properly. The firing pin could be pushed forward without depressing the plunger.



The firing pin would hang forward until the plunger was pushed, at which time it would pop back rearward. When the plunger was not depressed, it didn't protrude as much as does the plunger on my M&P9.



Also, I noticed that when returning the takedown lever to horizontal, it often bumped the large solid pin, which seemed to sit too far to the left in the frame.






Concerning the FTF, they looked like this:





It was doing it for me when dropping the slide using the slide release, but my brother verified that this is what they looked like while shooting. Note that the rim is against the edge of the extractor, but has not slipped under it. My brother got these FTFs with Independence 230 gr FMJ and Federal Hydra-Shok 185 gr +P, but not (that he recalls) with Blazer 230 gr FMJ.


First, a moderate tap with a punch seated the protruding pin to an appropriate depth.






On to the firing pin safety plunger...

I removed the back plate and the striker. In the area of the plunger visible through the striker channel, I saw something that looked like a piece of broken coil spring. Upon extracting it, it turned out to be debris from machining, or some kind of flashing (see picture below). This had been impeding the motion of the plunger. Very sloppy on S&W's part.



I reassembled, and found that the plunger would now protrude out from the bottom of the slide to its full extent... sometimes. Sometimes the plunger would not fully extend, but wiggling the tail of the striker back and forth would cause the plunger to pop up the rest of the way.

I determined the plunger was catching on part of the striker, and identified where. A few strokes with a needle file (smoothing and a slight chamfering) followed by a little cold blue (because we Engineers tend to be anal-retentive), and the plunger was working as intended. In the picture below, note that the area I worked is in the faint red box. The piece already had that shape; very little metal was removed (again, smoothing and a slight chamfering). Incidentally, after working that piece, it more resembled the corresponding piece (visible in the background) from my M&P9, which has worked without issue.



The black plastic sleeve looks ratty in the above picture. It's not. I guess that's just some grime and dirty Q-tip fibers in the picture.


subzero here is an M&P armorer. He said a light polish to the feed ramp and top of the chamber may help. Yeah, the ramp didn't look that smooth, actually. I should have taken a "before" picture, but it was not nearly as smooth as the ramp on my M&P9.

Anyway, I gave the feed ramp and top of the chamber a very light polish. It's not completely mirror-like, but it's much smoother, and I kept the polishing light. It can always be polished more later; going the other direction is not an option.

Feed ramp with light polishing:




Range trips after this work has conformed proper function.

[HES]

Since we are talking about issues with the M&P, there is another one. It is called auto forwarding and S&W is aware of it (and has lost contracts because of it).

Some (this would include me) have no issues with auto forwarding. All M&P's do it, but how hard you have to insert the mag to get it to happen will vary from gun to gun.

We worked up a new slide catch for the M&P and gave it to S&W at Shot Show. It made it much harder for the gun to auto forward, but was still easy to release (hard thing to do). They are currently T&Eing it.

For those that don't know, most all handguns can be made to auto forward. Some are just harder to do than others.


C4

I've run into auto forwarding a lot with my M&P (bought within the last 6 months or so) and to be honest...

I love this "Feature"

I think it is the force of the insertion causing the slide to jump or it is catching on the slide catch.

For me its definitely force. If I gently insert my magazine then there is no auto forward.

[Pk14]

Anyone have experience with RWS ammo made in Switzerland and sold in Walmart? I had 2 Failures to Fire in a box of 50 while qualifying, the primers were dented.

I shot 100 of the 124gr FMJ RWS rounds picked up from Wal-Mart last week with no malfunctions in my PTC M&P9 (720 rounds with no failures to function to date). Displayed better accuracy than WWB 100 rd Value Packs. I'll buy them again.

Cheers,
Pk

[JHC]

Anyone have experience with RWS ammo made in Switzerland and sold in Walmart? I had 2 Failures to Fire in a box of 50 while qualifying, the primers were dented.

I have fired approximately 800 rds of it through several pistols over the last two months and have not had any problems with it.

[G34Shooter]

I have fired approximately 800 rds of it through several pistols over the last two months and have not had any problems with it.

Maybe I just got a bad box, I didn't have a chance to do anything other than a quick look but there was a full dent in the primer.

[SpookyPistolero]

I'm confused about the M&P and why folks here find it so impressive. I like the low bore axis/etc, I can get on board with that. But why would a group of folks who really use their weapons hard tolerate a pistol that requires a bunch of fixes and upgrades out-of-the-box? Any other platform would be laughed away if it required that.

I'm not trying to be inflammatory, I'm just genuinely confused why such a no-BS group of people would tolerate this situation.