jasonuscg

A sea lawyer!

TOF

Hey, are you one of those kids I nursed through boot camp back in the 50"s.

neorebel

Hey, are you one of those kids I nursed through boot camp back in the 50"s.

sea lawyer!

Nice.....one answer to one post and the smart ******** come out!

KRWeiss

Welcome to the forum.

There are quite a few instructors in these forums, some in the military but mostly civilian/LE. Unfortunately, that doesn't really set you apart from the average joe around here.

I see you're in Missouri. Thought I had been to all the navy bases and air stations in the U.S., seems we missed the Navy base there. In Missouri we've been to Whiteman AFB, Fort Leanord Wood, and Marine Mobile Command in Kansas City. Maybe you're commuting over to Crane division or teaching fundamentals to the recruits at the Great Lakes Station?

Anyway, try to enjoy your stay.

neorebel

Let me clarify myself...I am a former Fed and Navy firearms instructor. My last unit was a Trident Security Unit out of Bangor.....They always sent us to Alaska in the dead of Winter to guard a sub...brrrrrr the temps were down to 70 below!!

I am a Deputy Sheriff in Missouri.

Thanks for the welcome. It is always a pleasure to pass on information and knowledge gained over the years. I hope it helps

JeffWard

It's not a feature. It's not a malfunction.

It's physics and friction (a variable of physics). It has to do with the bite that the slide release has on the notch cut in the slide. If you WANT your M&P to do it, stone the area where the slide release holds the slide open a bit until it will do it reliably with a forceful reload. If you DON'T want it to happen, back-cut the area a bit so the slide release has more bite on the slide release notch. This is the same for every pistol I can think of with a slide release.

It's a fine balance between too much friction at this point and too little, but it's an easy adjustment to make. It taking a file to your pretty gun makes you nervous, have a gunsmith do it. OR learn the characteristics of YOUR gun, and train with those characteristics.

If some idiot is slamming a magazine home with their finger on the trigger, they pretty much should expect to shoot themselves... If you're the one who hands his/her gun to THAT IDIOT, you should expect to get shot too.

JeffWard

neorebel

Okay...never shoot with an idiot

Your explination is perfect!



I have never seen anyone shoot themselves.

I have seen the aftermath and hate doing crime scenes........

The last one was a murder suicide....what a waste.

rickp

This issue with the slide releasing on a mag change is NOT a normal thing and it should not be happening. I can understand why people like it because it can speed up the reload by not having to do a manual slide release, but regardless it should not be happening. This is an issue S&W should address.

I am an instructor and I shoot about 1000 rounds a month through pistol alone. I have worked with many other pistols like Sig, Glock, Browning HP, CZ, 1911, Beretta and others.
None have done it except for the M&P and the Glock, but the Glock did it once in a blue, blue moon. My M&P Shield doesn't do it either.

Like I said I can understand why some might like it, but when you start really working on speed and efficiency in your tactical training, (not just playing at the range) while shooting and sometimes the slide slams forward and sometimes it doesn't. It does affect your training, muscle memory and the times a reload can take.

rickp

Finally!!!! You're touching on what I'm talking about. The issue I have with it slamming home is that sometimes it does it sometime it does not. Since it does it more times than not, I do my emergency reloads in my work space in front of my face (still looking down range) then I punch the gun back out on target. When the gun doens't slam forward, after I insert the mag, I'm half way punching the gun back out when I realize the slide didn't slam forward. Now I have to bring the gun back into my work space and run the slide manually and punch the gun back out. When one is doing all this in just about 2.5 seconds it affects the whole process. I hope I'm explaining it clearly. Maybe the ones with some formal tactical training will know what i'm talking about and can relate.

This issue of the slide sometimes doing it and sometimes not doing it, affects timing, affects muscle memory, affects the entire reload overall, and training. When using the pistol in real world situations, IMO this is a NO GO.

jeremy1517

My M&P 9 also releases the slide on some mag changes. My issue, besides the release, is that it picks up the next round about half the time. That is scary!! I never know, unless I do a safety check, if a round is loaded or not.

Now, one thing I noticed is I think it's ammo related. Sounds weird but the mag release only seems to happen when I use the cheap federal Walmart ammo. I've never had the mag release on reload happen when I shoot my Remington Golden Sabre ammo, which is my self def. ammo.

Olympic Fox

Personally, I like the feature as it saves time on a reload. I can't think of any good reasons for wanting a defensive or competition pistol that functioned slower.

As for the concern that the shooter might have his finger on the trigger - that is an entirely separate issue & has nothing to do with gun design.

rickp

I would agree with you completely, except its not designed to be a feature. I called S&W and they agree that the M&P is not designed to do that but for some reason they are more delicate (for lack of a better word) to auto forwarding. As a matter of fact he even shared with me that people were calling S&W asking if they could do something to their already owned pistols that were not doing it to do it. He thought it was comical.

Like you, everytime this has happend to me I've been lucky that a round was chambered, but there are plenty of shooters out there inlcuding major schools and instructors (big flow of shooters going through) that will tell you that's not always the case.

I do all my speed or emergency reloads the same no matter what the pistol, and my M&P 9 and sometimes my .45 do it, the 9 even more than my .45 by far.

One explanation that was given to me as to when or why it happens, is where we apply the pressure on the base pad as we insert the mag. If you have a tendency to insert the mag with most of your hand weight on the toe of the mag, the pistol will have a tendency to auto forward more easily as opposed to inserting the mag with the hand pressure evenly across the bottom or more towards the heal of the mag. I tried it and sure enough it happened less when i used the latter way.

I'm all for trying to shave time of our manipulations and economy of motion, but not at the risk of developing bad manipulations or training scars. I was training a LEO getting ready to go to SWAT school and his glock was sensitive to auto forwarding. It got so bad with him that when the pistol didn't do it, he would sit there and start pounding on the mag inserted mag based pad trying to get the pistol to do it. He got so use to it that it was affecting his reloads and his manipulations in general.

Something to think about I guess!!

R.

ginzo

+1 I wouldn't call it "normal" but it can happen as stated in manual.