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I'm thinking it's breaking there because the slide is a little weakened there because of the slide stop notch cut in the slide.
That and the slide is likely tilting to the right during firing causing stress on that slide of the slide as it's pulling upward/away from the locking block. I'm sure S&W will do something to make it stronger there like lengthening the rails on the locking block and/or making the slide stop notch smaller from front to back.
Chief Armorer for Elite Shooting Sports in Manassas VA
Chief Armorer for Corp Arms (FFL 07-08/SOT 02)
I do not think the barrel had anything to do with this. I have seen a couple of these slides cracked in the same place.
I have a few M&P's with huge round counts with no trouble. Every gun has a bad exapmle from time to time. God, I mean glock has been around forever and you still see a major flaw every now and then.
I would not let this stop you.
CHECK 360 David
I wish Smith & Wesson would replace his whole gun so they could get ahold of the that gun as a unit. It would be interesting to keep shooting it to see how the crack progresses (if it does at all) and when (if) it ever affects how the gun functions. For all we know, it could go indefinitely as it is and never cause a problem in terms of how it functions.
Since you probably have a better understanding of the M&P internals than most, do you have an educated guess as to what did cause the crack? Also I would be curious to hear the respective round counts on the guns with cracked slides that you have seen, if you know the round counts.
Thanks.
Edited to add:
GOTM4, missed your post on the suspected cause the first time. Sounds logical, enough.
Last edited by David Thomas; 01-08-08 at 01:36. Reason: clarification
I agree with David. This whole rush to the latest and greatest (and the corresponding, "oh, that gun is so last week) is silly.
If you aren't armed when you take a dump in your own home then your opinion on what is a practical daily carry weapon isn't interesting to me.
Unless GOD himself makes the weapon, it will break. The simple truth is that if it is made by man, it will break.
We can go over to GT and look at countless threads where Glock's have gone down for all kinds of things. I do not fault Glock for cracked slides as I would not fault S&W. It happens.
I also do not see any bandwagon in regards to S&W M&P. It is a quality weapon and gives shooters another option. If people are happy with their Glocks, then they should keep them. If they are not happy with them (like me), then they should try an M&P.
C4
True but IMHO there are two types of failures. One is related directly to an inherent flaw in the design, which is the more troubling of the two. It is too early to tell if that is the case here but I suspect we'll know shortly as these guns get more and more rounds down range in larger numbers. The second is a flaw in the material used. That failure happens with anything ever made by man.
Grant,
I think you're right on track. I've cracked a Glock 17 slide at about 55K rounds that took about six years of service life to accumulate. And if S&W (or Glock) is replacing cracked slides with no problems as both of them do, then it's pretty much a non issue. Try getting an auto manufacturer to replace a major component in comparable use circumstances and see how that works out for you.
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