Earlier this summer Louisiana Shooters Unlimited purchased a S&W Sport and a Colt 6920 to use as rental rifles for students taking our carbine courses. We decided to take the opportunity to begin a long term comparison study of the two rifles. Since the Colt came with 2 Colt 20 round mags, we purchased 8 more so the Colt can be evaluated with 10 identical magazines. Ditto for pmags and the Sport. Here are initial observations and measurements:

Initial measurements and data:

Our Colt 6920 was recieved with 4 position Rogers SuperStock. The SuperStock turns 5-8 degrees on the reciever extension axis under about 20 ft pounds of torque. It cannot be moved forward or back with handstrength when locked and no movement is observed when getting a cheekweld in normal shooting positions. The handguard rotates 10-12 degrees on the barrel axis under 10 ft pounds of torque and moves forward and back about 3/32's of an inch. There is minimal play between the upper and lower. When pushed together, no light passes through. When pushed apart, light and the corner of a 20 lb sheet of printer paper can pass through the gap, but 2 sheets of paper will not. The carbine weighs 6 pounds 14.8 ounces. The bolt carrier group weighs 11.6 ounces and the bolt is marked "MPC". Our three measurements on an RCBS trigger pull scale were 7-14, 6-8, and 7-8, for an average pull weight of 7 pounds 4.667 ounces.

The M&P 15 Sport has a regular M4 style stock which moves easily forward and back about 1/16 of an inch in all 6 positions and rotates 5-8 degrees with minimal torque. The handguard rotates 3-4 degrees under about 10 ft/lbs of torque and moves forward and back a detectable, but less than 1/64 inch amount under about 30 pounds of force. The Sport weighs 6 pounds 2.7 ounces. The complete bolt carrier group weighs 11.2 ounces and the bolt is marked "MP". The extractor has a doughnut o ring around its spring. Play between the upper and lower is on par with the Colt. Trigger pull measured 6-2, 6-12, and 6-4 for an average of 6 pounds 6 ounces.

Since the Colt was recieved with 2 20 round Colt magazines with black followers, we have purchased 8 of the same for the evaluation. Ditto for the 30 round Pmag shipped with the S&W in that we bought 9 more so each carbine begins with 10 magazines identical to what it was recieved with.

The Colt has a forward assist, an ejection port cover, and a grenade launcher cut which the Sport does not. Both have A2 style flash suppressors and bayonette lugs.


Front sight base markings:
Colt- "F" on the left, "<B>1" on the right
Sport- "A J F" on the left, "o 8 2" on the right

Handguards:
Colt is 2x shielded, 7 3/8 inch front 8 1/16 inch rear circumferences
Sport is not shielded, 6 3/8 inch front, 7 inch rear circunferences

OAL:
Colt 32 13/16- 36 1/8 inches
Sport 32 7/16 - 35 11/16 inches

Extractor spring
Colt- 4 coil with black insert
Sport- 4 coils with black insert and black o ring

Extractor
Colt is "C" marked
Sport is "I" marked

Colt bolt carrier is "C" marked

Throat

Colt - .15 on W.H. Merchant gauge
Sport- .14 on W.H. Merchant gauge

Barrels:

Colt is marked "C MP 5.56 NATO 1/7"
Sport is marked "5.56 NATO 1/8 5R"


Creep, reset, and overtravel

If we define creep as the distance between when sear movement begins and hammer fall occurs, overtravel as the distance between the triggers breaking point and stopping point , and reset as the distance the trigger must move forward for the disconnector to release, we get the following:

All measurements are of the movement of the tip of the trigger where the trigger is closest to the bottom of the trigger guard. Although the trigger tip moves in an arc, measurements are linear from point to point.

Colt- 3/32 inch creep, 2/32 overtravel, 5/32 reset
Sport- 2/32 creep, 3/32 overtravel, 5/32 reset


We mounted a Leupold 3.5-10x50 scope on each new rifle, sighted them in, then shot 12 loadings of common commercially available ammunition for groups at 100 yards. We repeated the accuracy eval with 11 of those same ammunition loads after each rifle had fired 1200 rounds.

Am I missing something here????? Like a summarization???

I am not trying to be difficult here but what is the point or what conclusions did you come to with your comparisons?

During the first 1200 rounds of use, only one issue came up. One of the Colt magazines was damaged during a reloading drill and it will no longer reliably hold cartridges. See photo-

Damaged mag photo

Environmental conditions during the accuracy evals were as follows:

Zero degrees for wind direction means the wind is blowing directly from the target toward the shooter

6/22/2012 before firing Sport 095

Ground very dry
Temp 92 degrees
Sky clear
Wind 355 degrees at 15 mph with gusts to 18

6/22/2012 post Sport pre Colt 883

Ground very dry
Temp 92 degrees
Sky clear
Wind 350 degrees wind 14 mph with gusts to 18

6/22/2012 post firing Sport

Ground very dry
Temp 92 degrees
Sky clear
Wind 345 degrees 12 mph

8/19/2012 before firing Colt

Standing water on ground
Temp 73 degrees
Sky cloudy
Wind dead calm

8/19/2012 post Colt pre Sport

Standing water on ground
Temp 73 degrees
Sky Cloudy
Wind 197 degrees at 2 mph

8/19/2012 post Sport

Standing water on ground
Temp 74 degrees
Sky cloudy
Wind 212 degrees at 3mph

The table with the accuracy data is published here-

Study data

Sorry, it took me a little while to get the links to work.

On paper, the S&W Sport looks better. At least in accuracy...

Less than 1/2 an inch at 100 yards isn't going to matter, unless one is going varmint hunting in the wide open spaces. We hope to find out some things about durability, reliability, barrel life, etc. Our evaluation won't end until one of the rifles can no longer be repaired. We are impressed with the accuracy of both rifles, and they are both 100% so far...

The varible is the shooter...means nothing unless rifles were shot from a Ransom Rest to eliminate the human factor..JMHO

Thanks for sharing.

We used the same shooter for all of the groups. We chose the shooter from among our instructors. The shooter for this test can be expected to be from .2-.5 moa of a variable 95% of the time. With as many groups as we are shooting, the shooter's impact as a variable can be expected to revert toward the mean. Using a Ransom Rest eliminates the rifles trigger as a variable. We are evaluating the rifles, not just the barrels.

Measured trigger pull weights in pounds-ounces

SW .....095............Colt...883
6-3, 6-2, 5-11........7-4,7-12,6-12

Creep, overtravel, and reset

If we define creep as the distance between when sear movement begins and hammer fall occurs, overtravel as the distance between the triggers breaking point and stopping point , and reset as the distance the trigger must move forward for the disconnector to release, we get the following:

All measurements are of the movement of the tip of the trigger where the trigger is closest to the bottom of the trigger guard. Although the trigger tip moves in an arc, measurements are linear from point to point.

Colt- 3/32 inch creep, 2/32 overtravel, 5/32 reset
Sport- 2/32 creep, 3/32 overtravel, 5/32 reset

Nice work, thanks.





Bill

Thank you for your testing and evaluation.

I'm looking forward to see how the Lexus holds up against the Ford in the long term testing and the MPG ratings.

P.S. I drive a Ford and it doesn't have a dancing pony on its side.

OP, Thanks for posting it.

sounds like a nice venture, keep us posted and thanks

So you're comparing a $600-$700 rifle to a $1000+ rifle side by side....


Interesting.

It doesn't seem like magazines factored in to much as far as what you've posted, but for the sake of accurate comparisons wouldn't it have been better to have used the same type of magazine in each rifle?

I understand the reasoning for using what the rifle came with, but I think the same magazines would allow for a better comparison of the actual rifles.

The magazines are as much a part of the rifle as the trigger, bolt, barrel, or the sights. There is no substantive difference between shipping a rifle with a substandard magazine and shipping a rifle with a substandard bolt. Would you suggest replacing the bolt carrier group from the Sport with a auto BCG from BCM to allow for a better comparison of the rifles? Heck no! So don't expect us to upgrade parts on the Colt.

thanks for taking the time to collect all the data.

Interesting. Always enjoy detailed rifle comparisons. Look forward to future data. Thanks for sharing.

Ford Mustangs may have dancing ponies on the side, but so did the Pinto.

Thanks for doing this. Any thoughts on sample size being representative?

http://www.macorr.com/sample-size-calculator.htm

Fords are shit, no matter whats on the side...even more so recently.

On topic: Thanks for the evaluation, looking fwd to seeing which one gets sick first.(and for what reason)

I suspect that it will be a while before we have anything really interesting to report.

Thats kinda what im hoping, and expecting. S&W has always made a good firearm imo, until those shitty poly-bottomed .40cal POS's like everyone went out and bought after seeing Bad Boys II. I got one when they came out awhile before that, to this day it still shoots a 6" group at 6 inches... Just horrible basically.  haha  My dad loves it, as he never shoots it and it rides in his spare truck. I was thinking about a smith AR for a beater/behind the seat gun, just still not sold on em and mostly only because I havent played with one personally yet. If the little guy can make it several K rounds without issue for you, I would see no reason not to try out a 15.

Another 3-4K thru that Colt, should be about broke in....

Good report!

I called S&W on behalf of a student whose Sigma had a 14 pound trigger pull. They told me 14 pounds was in spec. Fortunately the Sport has a crisp 6 pound trigger. The Colt trigger isn't bad for a moe trigger, about a pound heavier with a smidge more creep.

Broke in or broken?

ha...not even fair really as the s&w is gonna bury the overhyped colt

Hyped that they may, this Colt is a quality rifle. Looking past the raw data at the intended applications and we see that the Sport seems to do better with the hyper velocity varmint loads. Where does the Colt shine? The Colt shines with M193. Wow, imagine that.... A mil spec rifle that shines with mil spec ammo. With the long 77 grain sierra matchkings, the long bullets which the 1/7 twist is supposed to handle better, the Colt group is only 53/1000ths larger, not exactly a significant difference. What we see here is very early data in a long term study. It is too early to make conclusions.

Deleted

Not saying its not quality merely overhyped, overpriced, and no better than most.  Plus the qc sucks

My projection.....the S&W test rifle will die long before the Colt.

S&W just does not make the same quality firearms they used to make. I'm almost convinced their handguns are made by Taurus and stamped S&W.

Based on your experience of owning both, and the Colt failing? Please share with us.

I suspect that most of us will be gone before either of these rifles is beyond repair. We'll just keep replacing parts and carrying on. The current trend of civilians taking carbine courses is unlikely to continue indefinately and professional carbine users bring their own hardware. This will likely be an exercise in recording the life of the several parts in AR's which are more subject to wearing out.

In theory, the Colt should outlast the S&W....but will you get a 70% increase in life of the firearm to match the 70% increase in cost over the S&W?

I am not certain that an analysis based upon a linear expectation of rate of return is how most folks evaluate such things. People pay for reliability, consistency, customer service, and familiarity in addition to durability. Even in a strict linear analysis, from a total cost of ownership perspective in the first 20,000 rounds the Colt can be expected to cost less than 5% more than the Smith even if it costs just as much to maintain and repair it.

Delete double tap.

By definition, if an item is overpriced it does not fly off of the shelves.

Actually it's about 63.5%...get your facts right hehe JK

this should turn out to be an interesting long term test.

I for one tag this thread.

More so for how the test is conducted.

The endurance part of the evaluation or the accuracy testing?

I'm tagging for both. So far so good, keep up the good work!

Accuracy test procedure

1. Set up targets and prep data pad
2. Load magazines
3. Set up bench with Caldwell rest and gravel bags
4. Put scope on 1st rifle
5. Fire 10 rounds of Wolf 62 gr fmj  at 50 ft to 50 yds to confirm zero
And record environmental conditions
6. Load 5
7. Each 5 shot group is fired in about 10-15 seconds at 100 yards
8. Unload, reload, and shooter settling back into position takes about a minute. 
9.Each 11 group series takes about 15 minutes. 
10. Change targets and rifles
11. The next rifles fired 10 rounds at 50 ft to 50 yards to zero/confirm zero 
12. Record environmental conditions
13. firing the 2 nd series of groups and record environmental conditions
14. Retrieve targets
15. Measure and record group data

We shot the ammo samples in the same order each time so that the barrels would be at the same point in their heating cycle when firing each group, respectively. We change which rifle we fire first each time, so if shooter fatigue is an issue, it cancels itself out over time.

Nope, based on his emotional investment and fragile ego!

What are the numbers "095" and "883" in this table?

Inventory numbers on the rifles. There is a mistake someplace where the Colt in the study is mislabeled 095 on a data report. It should be 883. It was transcribed wrong. In any event, since we own multiple firearms from many brands, We use inventory numbers to keep track of firearms locations, maintenance scheduled and done, etc.

He was going to be Rugers95, but on tne way there his wheel sank into the mud and formed a long narrow channel from which he was tardy emerging.

In for updates.

Please describe the muzzle ends of both rifles, and the barrel diam's under the HG's.

Oh, and M4 feed ramps?

Both rifles have A2 flash hiders and both have M4 feed ramps. The Colt has an M-4 profile barrel. The Sport barrel is similar in profile, without the grenade launcher cut. My calipers are not here. Remind me on our next update and if the calipers and the rifles are at the same place, we'll get you some #'s.

Ha...i have owned colt and handled sw many many times.  Not my problem people fall for colt bs.  Colt is no better than most lower priced rifles.

Then dpms is teir 1