.....................ELB wrote:Whoops, I guess I am a bit late with this then -- I remembered this LA County Sheriff's bulletin after reading the first part of this thread a couple days ago, but just tonight got back to this. I ran across it at WarriorTalk (http://warriortalk.com/showthread.php?t=54097" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;). It was posted on 4 May 09. You have to weigh this against the positive reports you got in this thread. In any case, if you have any problems with your new pistol, don't hesitate to put S&W's warranty and customer service through their paces.ChuckW wrote:I also want to thank everyone for the helpful replies here. Based on the feedback in this and a couple of other threads on this forum, and some hands on range time with the M&P 9mm, I have gone ahead and purchased one! ...
Importance: High
Quality of Smith & Wesson 9mm M&P pistols has become a concern because of a recent barrel failure on an in-service deputy’s pistol, coupled with additional extraction jams on deputy recruit pistols (46% of recruit class experiencing some degree of malfunctions – mostly phase-2 jam failures to extract spent casings).
LEROY D. BACA, SHERIFF
Thanks for posting this, even though I have already purchased an M&P. :)
I read the whole referenced thread and certainly have no reason to doubt the Sheriff's memo that the described failures really occurred. However, here is a counter balancing post from the 5th page of the same thread:
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"I get a little tired of Agencies rushing to disavow a specific weapon then releasing a "slam" memo with little to no data. I am the Range Master of a large Texas police department and we have had far more experience with the M&P then what LASO is claiming regarding their M&P 9's.
"After much testing our agency picked the M&P 40 as the next "to be issued" gun once the money is made available. In the past, with almost 2000 sworn officers, our City felt it would be cheaper to maintain an "Approved Weapons List" as opposed to issuing guns after 1998. We previously issued the S&W 5946/5906's. We did NOT choose the M&P based on some old loyalty to S&W because, frankly, we were not a big fan of the 5946/5906's and after the Sigma, you have to really question a company's direction. However, we tested the 40, 9 and 45 and we were very impressed with them. The decision literally came down to the Glock 22 or the M&P 40. Due to the interchangable backstrap fitting a wider variety of hands, the M&P was chosen as the front runner. Now having said that, we have over 300+ M&P's on the street right now. A majority of them are chambered in 40 and the rest are a smattering of 9mm and 45's.
"We required our last (2) cadet classes to purchase the M&P 40 which equates to roughly 130 guns. Each cadet shot a minimum of 5000+ rounds during their 8 months in our academy. We did not experience a single barrel rupture, other catastrophic failure or any other significant issue. We did experience other smaller issues like a large amount of slide stops breaking on the right hand side and two slides cracked near the forward right side slide rail and a few guns failed to keep a magazine locked in but these were fixed very quickly by S&W. We did not have excessive problems with the FTE or FTF malfunctions. Did we experience some FTE and FTF's? Of course, but not any more than we experience with Glocks, Sigs, HK's and the other weapons on the list. At the rate we experienced FTE/FTF malfunctions, ammunition and worn springs could not be ruled out as being major contributors so I hazard to blame it on the design of the weapon. The M&P 40 has proven itself to us to be very durable and reliable. If it did not I would not hesitate in a minute to pull any weapon from our list that would put any officer in a dangerous position. I could care less about the brand or what not!
"Of the 5 firearms instructors I have working for me they have each fired a little more than 20k rounds through their M&P 40's and we have not expereince any problems. I personally have a M&P 9 that has a little over 45K rounds down the pipe and it has never expereince a single significant bobble. I have needed to replace the recoil spring a few times and have replaced the mag springs but it's still cranking out the rounds without a problem.
"Honestly, I hope no one takes offense, but the keyboard warriors out there need to have a reality check: NO gun is 100% reliable 100% of the time. As an LEO I can NOT afford to soley trust any one weapon system because like anything else that is a machine, it will inevitably fail!
"Just my 2-cent. But hell, what do I know, if the information comes from California it must always be right..... "
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I guess that I now own an M&P I'll just have to see what my experience turns out to be!