John_Wayne777
04-28-07, 17:08
As some of you already know earlier this year I obtained an M&P in 9mm to eval. All the chatter here about how good they were proved to be too much for me, so I had to go out and get one myself to see if they were as good as everyone said.
Right off the bat I really liked the feel of the M&P. People often accuse me of having a poor opinion of Glocks, but in my experience they aren't ideal for me. To give you some idea of why this is, here's my right hand after 100 rounds of 9mm ball through a Glock:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0152.jpg?t=1177794251
This is while only using a business-like grip for about 50 of the 100 rounds I fired today through the Glock. The Glock's grip is such that the slide chops into my hands and causes me to bleed profusely. Most of the blood has been cleaned off here, but you can get the idea. It gets worse with every subsequent round after this point.
The M&P, however, doesn't have this problem. The grip of the M&P is designed to prevent this sort of damage to a large handed shooter like myself, so I instantly liked it better than any Glock I have ever owned. I also found the stock Novak sights to be MUCH better than the standard sights found on the Glock. The stock Glock U/Dot sights are just awful, in my opinion. I would always end up either replacing them altogether with good sights like Hienie's good Glock sights, or blacking out the rear U and then taking a file to widen the rear notch and narrow the width of the front sight.
With the M&P all I needed to do was black out the two rear dots and the sight picture was to my liking. I would still like a bit wider rear notch, but I really don't need it.
The only area I thought the M&P needed some help in was the trigger. The trigger of my M&P out of the box was a bit heavier than that of my Glocks....but it still had a bit of a tendency to disrupt the sights right as the trigger broke. I have noticed that most of the striker fired pistols I have ever tried (save the Walther P99 in "single action" mode) have this tendency to some extent or another. The problem wasn't as bad in the M&P as it was in some of my Glock pistols, but it was still pretty annoying and hindered accuracy for me.
In hopes of curing this little annoying proclivity, I got in contact with Dan Burwell and sent my M&P off to him.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0154.jpg?t=1177795184
Yesterday my pistol arrived back from Dan's shop after having one of his standard trigger jobs performed on it. Dan had my pistol back to me exactly one week from when I shipped it.
That's darn good turnaround time.
Right off the bat I could feel the difference in the trigger. It was appreciably lighter and it seems to engage farther back in the pull now than it did out of the box. This gives the trigger more takeup than it had before (if that's the right term...) but frankly I don't mind it.
Most importantly, I found that the sights no longer moved when the trigger broke. Not even when I held the weapon as weakly as possible and pulled the trigger.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0155.jpg?t=1177795549
I went to the range today to see what sort of impact the trigger job would have on my accuracy.
I was very pleased with the results:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0160.jpg?t=1177795652
This is the head of a silhouette target that I use. The target was set out at 15 yards. I proceeded to fire 5 magazines worth of ammo through my Burwell customized M&P as fast as I could with a reasonable sight picture (The pictured round is a 7.62x39mm to give you an idea of the size of the target) with speed reloads.
Aside from a few called flyers which were the result of my own failure to get an appropriate sight picture, the majority of the rounds chewed the very tiny X ring (including the red dot in the middle of the X ring) almost completely out of the target.
While I may not be much of a threat to Todd Jarrett, that's pretty freakin' good, and a dramatic improvement over how the weapon performed prior to the trigger job.
Not bad for 50 bucks.
Not bad at all.
All told I fired about 350 rounds through the pistol today and I couldn't be happier with how easy it is to make good shots with this pistol after Dan's work. Dan's trigger job won't make it feel like a top notch 1911 trigger, but his work will lower the pull weight, make the trigger break MUCH cleaner than stock, and will dramatically shorten the reset on the trigger.
You super fast USPSA/IPSC guys like Robb will appreciate the shorter reset, and everybody will appreciate the cleaner breaking trigger.
If you have an M&P and you are wondering if sending it to someone like Dan for trigger work is worth it, YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES.
I also obtained a Surefire X200B from Grant,which you can see in the pictures. The M&P ran perfectly with the X200B mounted to it for all 350 rounds today. My only advice is that if you are going to fire 350 rounds through an M&P with a n X200 mounted to it, you should stop every magazine or so and wipe off the lens....
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0161.jpg?t=1177797300
It gets kinda dirty....
The lens sticks out past the barrel of the M&P a fair amount, so it is subject to getting a lot of crud deposited on it from firing...and that crud doesn't come off easily if you let it build up on there. I have been trying to clean the lens for an hour and I STILL have a bunch to get off.
The lens housing is also subject to some pretty nasty abuse when mounted on the M&P:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0163.jpg?t=1177797512
Enough to apparently strip the black finish right off the housing. :eek:
The unit still functions properly, however, so I'm not too worried.
All in all, not bad. I am growing to really like the M&P. It is as easy to shoot well as my pet 1911 after the trigger job, and it still comes in well under the cost of my 1911....
Leading me to believe that I might just need to pick up one of the .45 ACP versions soon.....:D
Right off the bat I really liked the feel of the M&P. People often accuse me of having a poor opinion of Glocks, but in my experience they aren't ideal for me. To give you some idea of why this is, here's my right hand after 100 rounds of 9mm ball through a Glock:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0152.jpg?t=1177794251
This is while only using a business-like grip for about 50 of the 100 rounds I fired today through the Glock. The Glock's grip is such that the slide chops into my hands and causes me to bleed profusely. Most of the blood has been cleaned off here, but you can get the idea. It gets worse with every subsequent round after this point.
The M&P, however, doesn't have this problem. The grip of the M&P is designed to prevent this sort of damage to a large handed shooter like myself, so I instantly liked it better than any Glock I have ever owned. I also found the stock Novak sights to be MUCH better than the standard sights found on the Glock. The stock Glock U/Dot sights are just awful, in my opinion. I would always end up either replacing them altogether with good sights like Hienie's good Glock sights, or blacking out the rear U and then taking a file to widen the rear notch and narrow the width of the front sight.
With the M&P all I needed to do was black out the two rear dots and the sight picture was to my liking. I would still like a bit wider rear notch, but I really don't need it.
The only area I thought the M&P needed some help in was the trigger. The trigger of my M&P out of the box was a bit heavier than that of my Glocks....but it still had a bit of a tendency to disrupt the sights right as the trigger broke. I have noticed that most of the striker fired pistols I have ever tried (save the Walther P99 in "single action" mode) have this tendency to some extent or another. The problem wasn't as bad in the M&P as it was in some of my Glock pistols, but it was still pretty annoying and hindered accuracy for me.
In hopes of curing this little annoying proclivity, I got in contact with Dan Burwell and sent my M&P off to him.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0154.jpg?t=1177795184
Yesterday my pistol arrived back from Dan's shop after having one of his standard trigger jobs performed on it. Dan had my pistol back to me exactly one week from when I shipped it.
That's darn good turnaround time.
Right off the bat I could feel the difference in the trigger. It was appreciably lighter and it seems to engage farther back in the pull now than it did out of the box. This gives the trigger more takeup than it had before (if that's the right term...) but frankly I don't mind it.
Most importantly, I found that the sights no longer moved when the trigger broke. Not even when I held the weapon as weakly as possible and pulled the trigger.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0155.jpg?t=1177795549
I went to the range today to see what sort of impact the trigger job would have on my accuracy.
I was very pleased with the results:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0160.jpg?t=1177795652
This is the head of a silhouette target that I use. The target was set out at 15 yards. I proceeded to fire 5 magazines worth of ammo through my Burwell customized M&P as fast as I could with a reasonable sight picture (The pictured round is a 7.62x39mm to give you an idea of the size of the target) with speed reloads.
Aside from a few called flyers which were the result of my own failure to get an appropriate sight picture, the majority of the rounds chewed the very tiny X ring (including the red dot in the middle of the X ring) almost completely out of the target.
While I may not be much of a threat to Todd Jarrett, that's pretty freakin' good, and a dramatic improvement over how the weapon performed prior to the trigger job.
Not bad for 50 bucks.
Not bad at all.
All told I fired about 350 rounds through the pistol today and I couldn't be happier with how easy it is to make good shots with this pistol after Dan's work. Dan's trigger job won't make it feel like a top notch 1911 trigger, but his work will lower the pull weight, make the trigger break MUCH cleaner than stock, and will dramatically shorten the reset on the trigger.
You super fast USPSA/IPSC guys like Robb will appreciate the shorter reset, and everybody will appreciate the cleaner breaking trigger.
If you have an M&P and you are wondering if sending it to someone like Dan for trigger work is worth it, YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES.
I also obtained a Surefire X200B from Grant,which you can see in the pictures. The M&P ran perfectly with the X200B mounted to it for all 350 rounds today. My only advice is that if you are going to fire 350 rounds through an M&P with a n X200 mounted to it, you should stop every magazine or so and wipe off the lens....
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0161.jpg?t=1177797300
It gets kinda dirty....
The lens sticks out past the barrel of the M&P a fair amount, so it is subject to getting a lot of crud deposited on it from firing...and that crud doesn't come off easily if you let it build up on there. I have been trying to clean the lens for an hour and I STILL have a bunch to get off.
The lens housing is also subject to some pretty nasty abuse when mounted on the M&P:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/jwayne_777/IMGP0163.jpg?t=1177797512
Enough to apparently strip the black finish right off the housing. :eek:
The unit still functions properly, however, so I'm not too worried.
All in all, not bad. I am growing to really like the M&P. It is as easy to shoot well as my pet 1911 after the trigger job, and it still comes in well under the cost of my 1911....
Leading me to believe that I might just need to pick up one of the .45 ACP versions soon.....:D