Quick and Dirty M&P 9 Review

driller212

driller212

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Hey guys,

I thought I would make a quick review on this pistol. It is great value for the money. Mostly I want to do this for someone on the fence or wanting an affordable modern pistol for the range. I will keep it short as I myself prefer short and to the point reviews.

Basic Info:

I purchased the M&P 9mm kit locally at the end of September. It came to about 650 taxes in, and included 3 mags, a magazine holster, 3 grip sizes, a maglula mag loader, and a holster for the pistol. The only other kit that even resembles this, and is also good value is the jericho pistol range kit. This kit to my knowledge only comes with the 4.25" barreled version of the M&P which is a nice size pistol for a beginner IMO.






Reliability and Functions:

I have had 0 malfunctions of any kind with this pistol in my experience. The one problem I encountered was with the magazine release (or magazine catch if you are a technical term nazi). It was very difficult to actuate with the slide back, and required some light filing to fix. A video can be seen on it here:
[youtube]QbeGB5BUelU&index=22&list=PLT3_Gb4uTMRMfN-2mxnt2zA0ZRVilvpFi[/youtube]

The sights I find ok. I find the front sight to be too "fat" for my liking, and would prefer something much slimmer (of course this would be at the expense of robustness).

It is simple to operate, no safety, and not a bunch of levers to clutter the gun and confuse new shooters.

Accuracy:

This pistol is more accurate than me, however I will post a couple pics of groups I have gotten at 10yds with it. I would say I get around 4 inch 5-6 shot groups at 10yds consistently if I do my part. The pistol is probably capable of 1-2" with better sights and/or a better shooter.

6 shot group:


12 Shot Group:


If you are on the fence about this pistol, it is great and I don't think you will regret it. It is ideal for beginners and great for experienced folk as well. It has a great reputation with shooters. In fact I had a guy with a sig shoot mine and say he liked it better than his sig.

Anyways, I hope this helps some folks out.

Play safe,

- driller
 
One big negative about this gun, for those thinking about it. The magazines are a major pain. Getting that 10th round in is pretty much impossible by hand. Now I know why they included the Maglula uploader in the kit. Even with the uploader, you still need to push really hard down to squeeze that 10th round in.
 
Ah yes, that was something I did not mention. I can not for the life of me get the tenth round in. I doesn't really bother me personally, but it might bother some people.
 
Good review. I was lucky to get my M&P9 range kit for $550 at the TSE easter sale last year.

Its worth noting that the APEX trigger kits and a nice set of sights make a big difference on this pistol.

I'm waiting for CTCS to get the Apex FSS kit back in (any other place have FSS in stock?), and have VTAC sights installed that I was lucky to get at the Milarm sale for 50% off as they regularly go for $330.
 
Protege said:
One big negative about this gun, for those thinking about it. The magazines are a major pain. Getting that 10th round in is pretty much impossible by hand. Now I know why they included the Maglula uploader in the kit. Even with the uploader, you still need to push really hard down to squeeze that 10th round in.
Click to expand...

You can disassemble the mag and shave down the followers legs until it fits with ease. I know many CGNers have done this but I personally dont find the need.
 
Cutting a couple coils from the magazine springs in addition to trimming the followers also helps. I found that with my M&P, the magazines would just barely take a tenth round using the Maglula tool, but it was virtually impossible to seat the fully loaded magazine with the slide forward. These two simple modifications make this possible to do without an unreasonable amount of effort.
 
Protege said:
One big negative about this gun, for those thinking about it. The magazines are a major pain. Getting that 10th round in is pretty much impossible by hand. Now I know why they included the Maglula uploader in the kit. Even with the uploader, you still need to push really hard down to squeeze that 10th round in.
Click to expand...

There is an easy cure. Remove the follower and sand down the front and back legs. The new followers in the 10 rd mags are to deep and bottom out on the springs making the 10th rd almost impossible to seat. Sand them down and the mags will load the 10th rd with ease.

Method must work enough of us have suggested it. :>)

Take Care

Bob
 
I trimmed the followers on my 9mm mags as well (didn't touch the springs), and now they are easier to load to 10 than my Glock 10 rounders. Also, impossible to get 11 in, so no worries there.
 
Note the new M&P's generally do not need the APEX kits - the triggers are damn nice from the factory -- the PRO's are now even better.

I have APEX kits in 5 of my M&P's -- however those are all over 2 years old.


My main M&P CORE has over 30,000 rds on it -- only stoppages/malfunctions have been not attributable to the gun (2 user error - I rely too much on auto-forwarding of the slide on reloads, and 9 ammunition issues, 2 dead primers and 7 rounds out of spec that would not fully chamber [buddies reloads I used at a class])
 
KevinB: I must agree with that. my M&P 9 trigger is stock and when I had the chance to fire an M&P 9 with an Apex kit, I wasn't blown away. In fact, I couldn't have much cared to have one installed, at least at the price that was being asked for the kit. Mine's a 2013; when do you think the triggers started being improved?

I purchased a storm lake threaded barrel and dropped that in as well, back when I was planning on selling the gun, figuring that'd make it a little ###ier for buyers. After comparisons, I might just put the stock barrel back in now, since I've decided to keep it. A lot of what I've heard about M&P problems just don't seem to apply to the newer models at all.
 
For guys with older M&P 9MM's for around a $100 you can get yourself a 1 - 10 twist barrel. I did my older PRO and it does make a difference in accuracy particularly if you like 147 gr bullets.

Just replacing the striker block with an Apex version will clean up the trigger a lot for guys with older guns and crappy triggers.

Take Care

Bob
 
Canuck44 said:
For guys with older M&P 9MM's for around a $100 you can get yourself a 1 - 10 twist barrel. I did my older PRO and it does make a difference in accuracy particularly if you like 147 gr bullets.

Just replacing the striker block with an Apex version will clean up the trigger a lot for guys with older guns and crappy triggers.

Take Care

Bob
Click to expand...

Do you know if that applies to the older 5" models?
 
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