This is Not a Review of the M&P 45

One of the things that gun bloggers like to do is review guns. Frankly, it’s one of the main reasons any of us to do this in the first place. Oh sure, we speak proudly of how we’re here to “help new shooters” or “promote gun rights” and so on. Ultimately, in the back of our heads, we’re all thinking “if this site gets big enough, I can justify playing with more guns! I might even be able to score some test guns!!” Sorry, fellow bloggers, I had to let our big secret out. I do this for two reasons:

1. I think it makes for a funny, if not self-deprecating joke
2. The fundamental problem with that whole “not big enough blog yet” is the root problem of the following commentary on the M&P 45 and why I won’t be posting an official review.

I have often spoken of how a great way to experience guns is by renting them if that option is available to you. It just so happens that a local range has one heck of a great selection of guns to rent and I have often rented from them. The guns are usually maintained only to the point of “enough to keep it working” and they’re almost always so filthy it’s difficult to see the dot on the front sight. Considering that my site isn’t popular enough to the point that manufacturers want to send me T&E (testing & evaluation) guns, renting is pretty much my only option. I’m not complaining, mind you, renting has always given me a pretty good idea of how a gun is going to shoot.

Until now…

You see, a couple days ago I went to the range and rented two guns: an M&P 45 and the XDm 45. When I rent, I like to get two similar pistols so I can have points of comparison…and so I can get two reviews out of one visit.

I started with the M&P and immediately noticed that I liked the ergonomics. It pointed well and the sights were easy to pick up. This day and age, however, saying a gun has good ergonomics is kind of like saying “wow, the sun came up this morning”. Manufacturers spend millions of dollars in research and development for the sole purpose of making a gun feel good in the hand. For the most part, a gun will always feel comfortable. Some will feel better in your hand than others but that’s because everyone and every hand is different. The M&P felt comfortable to me and, with its replaceable backstrap would probably be able to make it feel even better.

Moving on, I’ve been shooting Glocks for a while and have gotten to a point where I tend to ignore the slide lock button. Seriously, on a Glock it’s just about useless. What I do is reload and then partially rack the slide. That partial racking didn’t seem to want to work on the M&P. I had to use the slide button. So there’s the first problem. That’s such a strange thing that I’m not sure if it has to do with the M&P or the fact that it’s a rental. It’s the first time I’ve ever run into something like that, however. Either way, I don’t like being restricted to one option and this problem annoyed me.

The other thing was the trigger. I always start out with a few rounds of dry fire just to get the hand of the trigger pull and on the very first pull I was shocked. After saying “what the!?” loud enough that my buddy leaned over and asked if I was ok, I tried it a few more times. Same thing over and over. I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to find a word to describe this trigger. The best I’ve been able to come up with is “spongy”. First off, they have this articulated trigger safety that’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. Where Glock and others have a trigger with a built in lever that must be depressed before it can move, the M&P has a trigger that flexes in the middle. Once you start to pull the trigger, it has a squishiness to it all the way up to the point that it breaks. Once it breaks, the only way to know when that happens is the gun goes off. As far as the trigger reset, I wasn’t able to distinguish one. There was no noticeable “click” or feel that announced “hey! I’ve reset! You can start pulling the trigger again!” It seemed like I had to let the trigger all the way back out before I could pull again. Did I mention it was a pretty long pull for a single action, striker fired gun?

Now, this trigger felt so terrible that I can’t fathom that a company would release a gun that felt like this. The problem is that I have seen more than one review complaining about the trigger. Was it just a used and abused rental or is the trigger really that bad?

This is the problem: there are too many questions and factors here. In this particular case I can’t just chalk up some of the weirdness to the fact that it was a rental. Until I can do further research on this, I cannot in good conscience release an “official” review on this gun. It’s not fair to Smith & Wesson and I’m certainly not going to put out information that I’m not certain is 100% accurate (rounded up from 99.9999999%).

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