My brand new shiny shiny M&P .45 and my disappointment - another update post 75

I would think the reason for switching from Sig to S&W is because the s&w are made in Ma and they probably got a great deal on them. I have a p226 9mm it runs 100% with any brand of ammo i feed it. I have shot a good amount of m&p's and they all had ftf fte in my experience
 
Re: My brand new shiny shiny M&P .45 and my disappointment

ThePreBanMan said:
Just called them and got a recording that they are shut down for their "summer shutdown" until 8/12! Please call back then... etc... etc... WTF!!!!
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Yeah. 2 weeks every summer. I ran into that last year

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Re: My brand new shiny shiny M&P .45 and my disappointment

Not sure about the M&P 45, but my new M&P 9 runs flawlessly. Have put several hundred rounds through it in one week, of various types, including 147gr flat nose lead, 124 gr hollow point and 115 gr round nose.
 
WallHack said:
What the hell kind of guns are you buying??

Take it home, scrub it, lube it, load it, fire it. If it doesn't work, that's not a good thing...
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I tend to agree with this statement, unless it's a 1911...

If it has problems out of the box, I'll always wonder if when I need it most, it gets picky again...
 
My brand new shiny shiny M&P .45 and my disappointment

DMWB said:
Anyone who knows anything about what the government purchases and why should have the good sense to avoid same at all costs 90% of the time. Not that the M&P is a bad gun, but don't fool yourself into thinking MSP got them because of some significant tactical advantage.

Just because they drive Crown Vics and Explorers doesn't mean those vehicles are a particularly good choice for you or me.
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Absolutely agree


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You got a lemon. I have a 45FS and a 45C both have Apex DCAEK kits in them . Both guns have fed, fired and ejected any 45 ammo I have run through them.
 
Re: My brand new shiny shiny M&P .45 and my disappointment

I have an m&p .45c and have not had an issue. I have roughly 150 rounds through it and no fail to feed or extractor issues. Its pretty accurate also....hope they resolve the issue.

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I bought a brand new truck last week. Was all excited about the power roll down rear window. It's a 2012 (leftover), I had the 2008 model so I knew they were solid. Going home, I put the rear window down and immediately noticed *rattle rattle rattle* Metal on metal, coming from the window. Absolutely driving me out of my mind. Had the GF drive it while I sat in the back seat listening for the rattle. She started going on with the "This is a brand new truck, just take it in to service and have them fix it" And she has a point, I tell everyone that I buy new vehicles because of the warranty and I don't want to be dealing with failures on my own.

But I buy them for the catastrophic failures, tranny's, engines, axles wiring harnesses. I made a quick assessment in my head "Hour to the dealer where I bought it, up to 5 hours waiting in their shithole service department, hour home and there's a good chance they'll try to feed me that shit about it being a normal rattle or they didn't hear it." So, I rode in the back for a mile, narrowed down the sound to the tailgate, took the tailgate apart, found the metal on metal contact, tightened up the rod and voila. Problem solved in under 30 minutes. I shouldn't have had to do this, my warranty should have covered this, but frustration and time wasted waiting pisses me off.

You shouldn't have to diagnose this yourself, you could have a lemon, but from my personal experience with the 3 M&P's I currently own, the one I sold, the 2 extra slides I have and the 10+ I've worked on. I doubt you have a lemon. For $4.98 from SSS you can order the parts (Plus shipping via usps) and 20 minutes of your time with a hammer, punch and file. You can rule out what really is a very simple problem and in my experience is the only common problem with these guns. Or, you can wait till smith reopens in 14 days, spend 45 minutes on hold, pay to ship it back, most likely get 1 of the 2 problems fixed (if any, their customer service sucks) receive it back over a month later and then get frustrated again.

I like having a nice low heart rate throughout the entire day. The one time I've sent a product back to S&W and it came back with the same problem, I went through the roof with anger, it's just not worth it to me. But, to each their own.
 
partyboy424 said:
I bought a brand new truck last week. Was all excited about the power roll down rear window. It's a 2012 (leftover), I had the 2008 model so I knew they were solid. Going home, I put the rear window down and immediately noticed *rattle rattle rattle* Metal on metal, coming from the window. Absolutely driving me out of my mind. Had the GF drive it while I sat in the back seat listening for the rattle. She started going on with the "This is a brand new truck, just take it in to service and have them fix it" And she has a point, I tell everyone that I buy new vehicles because of the warranty and I don't want to be dealing with failures on my own.

But I buy them for the catastrophic failures, tranny's, engines, axles wiring harnesses. I made a quick assessment in my head "Hour to the dealer where I bought it, up to 5 hours waiting in their shithole service department, hour home and there's a good chance they'll try to feed me that shit about it being a normal rattle or they didn't hear it." So, I rode in the back for a mile, narrowed down the sound to the tailgate, took the tailgate apart, found the metal on metal contact, tightened up the rod and voila. Problem solved in under 30 minutes. I shouldn't have had to do this, my warranty should have covered this, but frustration and time wasted waiting pisses me off.

You shouldn't have to diagnose this yourself, you could have a lemon, but from my personal experience with the 3 M&P's I currently own, the one I sold, the 2 extra slides I have and the 10+ I've worked on. I doubt you have a lemon. For $4.98 from SSS you can order the parts (Plus shipping via usps) and 20 minutes of your time with a hammer, punch and file. You can rule out what really is a very simple problem and in my experience is the only common problem with these guns. Or, you can wait till smith reopens in 14 days, spend 45 minutes on hold, pay to ship it back, most likely get 1 of the 2 problems fixed (if any, their customer service sucks) receive it back over a month later and then get frustrated again.

I like having a nice low heart rate throughout the entire day. The one time I've sent a product back to S&W and it came back with the same problem, I went through the roof with anger, it's just not worth it to me. But, to each their own.
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Well I'm going to send it to them and see what the have to say. I appreciate the advice, but he extractor alone is 40 bucks, not 4.98 as you state, and frankly - I'm not paying that for a part that MIGHT fix the problem - and if it doesn't I'm still out the cash. Aside form the color not matching the slide either... I don't NEED this firearm, don't mind waiting to get it back provided its fixed properly. If its not - well than I write a letter to the better business bureau and maybe even Marsha. You'll be surprised how quick that gets some companies moving. But my life will not be adversely affected by not having the gun for a few weeks, or even a month.

My problems do not appear to be unique either:
M&P .45 feeding problems,please help!
 
Letters to Marsha? Without sarcasm font?

tumblr_m3vdp16AyW1qzbwkjo1_500.jpg
 
Yea what can I say... She would honestly be a last resort. But let's be reasonable. The last thing S&W wants is anyone on forums like these bashing their products, especially the one the state police are about to adopt.
I have faith this will turn out fine. I could be disappointed, but I expect to be cared for and content. I'll be sure to rant here if I'm not, among a few other forums, like the forums on S&W's own site.
 
Trust me. I've had my fair share of issues with them. I can't thing of a scenario other than outright theft where I would involve that mouth breathing naval gazer. [rofl]

and MSP has already fully adopted them. I have heard nothing but good things from their instructors.
 
ThePreBanMan said:
Well I'm going to send it to them and see what the have to say. I appreciate the advice, but he extractor alone is 40 bucks, not 4.98 as you state, and frankly - I'm not paying that for a part that MIGHT fix the problem - and if it doesn't I'm still out the cash. Aside form the color not matching the slide either... I don't NEED this firearm, don't mind waiting to get it back provided its fixed properly. If its not - well than I write a letter to the better business bureau and maybe even Marsha. You'll be surprised how quick that gets some companies moving. But my life will not be adversely affected by not having the gun for a few weeks, or even a month.

My problems do not appear to be unique either:
M&P .45 feeding problems,please help!
Click to expand...

No problem, I understand where your coming from. If you ever do decide to try it yourself though, I will be happy to help you out as I have done the work before. My recommendation on buying the parts was only if you would want to send it back at a later date and would be worried about S&W denying your claim for altering the original parts. This way you could toss originals back in the gun. Also, the $40 extractor you are referring to is the APEX extractor, which will actually cause you way more problems without filing it down.

Here is the link to the part I was speaking of. $2.64 M&P Extractor [1776] - $2.64 : Welcome to Speed Shooter Specialties
 
WallHack said:
What the hell kind of guns are you buying??

Take it home, scrub it, lube it, load it, fire it. If it doesn't work, that's not a good thing...
Click to expand...

A 1000 round break in is a small price to pay for something you may have to bet your life on.
 
I bought my FS M&P .45 just over a year ago and I HATED IT simply because of the trigger never had a failure of any sort but had only put about 50 rounds thru it before I threw it in the safe. I joined here shortly after and read about the APEX kit and decided to try it. I installed the competition kit and it was a totally different weapon. I now love the thing. I've put thousands of rounds thru it since and still no failures. The ammo ranges from reloads to all types of factory and even SWC, HP, FMJ Lead you name it. The thing eats reloads that won't cycle or feed in my 1911's and to put it like the OP it's been an absolute "garbage disposal". I will say that I hadn't bought a pistol in 20+ years prior to the M&P and there for it does feel rather cheap compared to others that I purchased in the 80's and early 90's but man this has become one of my favorite range guns at this point.
 
partyboy424 said:
No problem, I understand where your coming from. If you ever do decide to try it yourself though, I will be happy to help you out as I have done the work before. My recommendation on buying the parts was only if you would want to send it back at a later date and would be worried about S&W denying your claim for altering the original parts. This way you could toss originals back in the gun. Also, the $40 extractor you are referring to is the APEX extractor, which will actually cause you way more problems without filing it down.

Here is the link to the part I was speaking of. $2.64 M&P Extractor [1776] - $2.64 : Welcome to Speed Shooter Specialties
Click to expand...

Thanks for that link. I couldn't find that browsing through the parts catalog for the M&P 45 specifically. Do you know if these are factory parts from the S&W assembly lines or are they manufactured by a third party?

Description says manufactured by S&W but I just want to be sure. A quick DuckDuckGo (I'm not using spy-oogle) didn't find anyone else selling the parts - which seemed kind of strange.

Shit - if the extractor and the mag catch are only going to set me back a few bucks I'll have a go at it....

Edit:

Hell - i'm going to order the parts and have a go at it. For the 10 bucks I'll take the chance. You convinced me. Between shipping and the time to re-install the factory trigger - its worth a go I think.
 
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WallHack said:
If I HAVE to put 1,000 rounds through something to "break it in" and make sure it's "reliable" I'm NOT betting my life on it...
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You are missing the point. Very often you must put 1000 rounds or more through a weapon to insure its reliability. The pistol that went 200 rounds without a problem may fail at 500.
 
Update.

So I received the magazine catch and extractor. I installed them today. Sadly it does not appear either part has fixed either issue. Below is a pic of the mag catch issue interfering with magazine insertion. As you can see the mag catch is clearly obstructing the magazine from being completely inserted. I've disassembled the mag to make it easier to see in the picture. If I were to grind down the necessary material from the mag catch to allow clean insertion of the magazine - magazine retention would be negatively impacted. I know this because with the disassembled mag fully inserted I looked down the mag to inspect the visible part of the catch that was expose within in the magazine. I then deduced that removing the necessary material from the magazine catch would negatively impact magazine retention within the firearm. I did try multiple mags as well.

In other words - the frame appears out of tolerance - and will pretty much require a trip back to S&W for replacement.

IMAG0183.jpg

The next issue on the agenda was the failure to feeds. Based on the failure point (half fed cartridge which appeared to be hung on the extractor) I deduced something relating to the extractor was the cause. I replace the extractor - and sadly the problem persists. Check out the pic below held up to a light. As you can see the extractor is jammed against the cartridge case. It is actually lifting the cartridge so the face is not flush with the slide. Forcing it to become flush requires overpowering the extractor spring so the extractor can actually climb the rim ramp of the cartridge - and it is very difficult to do. This I deduce is what is causing the failure to feed. To summarize - it looks like the slide could be out of tolerance or possibly but unlikely it could be the extractor spring. When I replaced the extractor it did move freely and was free of obstructions.

IMAG0187.jpg

While I had the slide off I noticed something else too. (unrelated) the trigger bar barely engages the sear when the trigger is depressed. See below:
IMAG0186.jpg

Look how far out to the left the trigger bar is in relation to the ramp on the sear. Now this may be normal with the slide off as the slide may guide the trigger bar a bit. I was actually hoping someone here could chime in and let me know if their firearm does the same. I can freely move the trigger bar back and forth with my finger.


Man I must have bad luck with this brand or something. I've NEVER had good luck with S&W pistols. Guess its a phone call to S&W when they decide to show up back to work next week. But man, this thing seems like a bucket of bolts.. Again, I'm stunned that the state police are ditching the 226 for this.... I wouldn't trust my life to this thing for home defense - never-mind carrying it on the job day after day.
 
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Prebanman, if your local we could meet up and compare pistols and see if there are obvious differences in the areas you are having issues with. SmithWesson is closed anyway. You could pretty much verify if your pistol is out of tolerance. Mine works perfectly....watch me jinks myself.......and everything works as it should. Won't really change whats happening with your pistol but it would be helpful seeing how they differ if at all.
 

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