Take down lever on Smith & Wesson M&P9

strykrpal

strykrpal

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This question goes out to all the S&W M&P owners out there:
When field stripping, once you flip the takedown lever to the down position, should it stay there until you manually flip it back? Mine will snap back to the horizontal position if I'm not holding it while I remove or reseat the slide.

Is this normal behavior or does my new M&P9 need some adjustment?
 
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Caboose said:
Your not confusing the mag safety lever with the take down lever are you? Your take down lever should stay in the down position.
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No, I do mean the take down lever on the exterior left hand side. Mine has a tendency to snap back to the horizontal position while removing or replacing the slide. In order to field strip or assemble I'm having to keep it held down with one of my fingers, which is awkward especially while trying to lock the slide back after reassembly.
 
strykrpal said:
No, I do mean the take down lever on the exterior left hand side. Mine has a tendency to snap back to the horizontal position while removing or replacing the slide. In order to field strip or assemble I'm having to keep it held down with one of my fingers, which is awkward especially while trying to lock the slide back after reassembly.
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When I had my M&P 40 it did the same thing. I just held it with my finger.
 
If you look at the sear that lever is connected to, you'll notice that when the lever is pressed down (to dissassemble) it lowers the back part of the sear, making it flat, so the slide can pass over that back part of the sear. Once you've got the slide off, pull the lever to it's original position and you'll notice the back of the sear come up again (which would stop the slide from travelling forward past that point) which as the slide is pushed back over it, it's not impeded, it just pushes it down a bit (it's on a spring). You can do this yourself with your finger to see. You know those uni-directional road spikes they have permanently installed on the exit to secure perimeter facilities, like some governement buildings and whatnot? Where you can drive over them one way, because they're not pointing that way and just get pushed down into the ground on their springs, but you can't the other way, or you puncture your tires? Same thing.

As for the takedown lever. It's flat on one side and rounded on the other and pressure is pressed on it by the guide rod and recoil spring. That spring will prefer the flat side, if that side is even slightly facing it, so it will take very little for the lever to return to it's original position, once the slide is one and pressure from the recoil spring is on it.
 
Thanks all for the replies, I feel a lot better now, although looking through the gun's manual, it doesn't appear to be normal behavior. The manual doesn't say you have to keep holding it, and the diagram clearly shows the lever staying in the lowered position all on it's own while removing the slide. Same goes for reassembly.

I figured out how to remove the takedown lever and there's a little wire clip that holds it in place (looks like a piece of paperclip), I'm thinking maybe this clip is supposed to be applying more tension on the lever and because it isn't, the recoil spring assembly is able to easily flip the lever back to the horizontal position.

It's not a big deal, I can just hold the lever down while assembling/disassembling. It's now more a curiosity than anything. Gave me a good excuse to take apart my M&P and really study how the components work, so it was a good learning experience.

If anyone can shed any more light on why the takedown levers on M&Ps don't function as the instructions indicate, please share it with the rest of us!
 
Contondant said:
As for the takedown lever. It's flat on one side and rounded on the other and pressure is pressed on it by the guide rod and recoil spring. That spring will prefer the flat side, if that side is even slightly facing it, so it will take very little for the lever to return to it's original position, once the slide is one and pressure from the recoil spring is on it.
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Yep, normal, simple physics.
 
as per a thread on MP-Pistol.com the early Revision M&P stayed down but a change somewhere along the way made this happen. Its is indeed normal.
 
GIGGIDY said:
as per a thread on MP-Pistol.com the early Revision M&P stayed down but a change somewhere along the way made this happen. Its is indeed normal.
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That would explain why the manual doesn't mention it. Seems they never bothered to update the manual.
 
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