Posted: 11/18/2010 8:28:40 AM EDT
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Wife's full size M&P9 isn't locking the slide to the rear after the last round is fired.
It will lock if I insert an empty mag and manually pull the slide to the rear. She has six 15 round mags of different ages (two with the gun, two rebate mags, two bought at gun store), and the problem will occur no matter which mag is used. I'm thinking it's a problem with either the slide lock in the gun or maybe an ammunition issue? Ammunition is a mixture of WWB, Federal Red Box, and Rem UMC - all 115 grain ball... yeah cheap stuff. I'm wondering it the 115 gr stuff doesn't have enough "poop" to recoil the slide all the way to the rear on the last round to get the mag follower to lift the slide lock into the notch on the slide. It's a new gun, and I'm thinking maybe the recoil spring is still stiff and it just needs more breaking it. The slide release is really hard to push down when the slide is locked to the rear, regardless of whether a mag is inserted or not. The gun is about six months old and has about 1,000 rounds through it. Anything I can look for before calling S&W? I know they'll fix it, I'm just trying to rule out something simple first. |
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Look at your grip a second.
Take an unloaded weapon and with eyes closed make a speedy presentation from the holster... now open eyes and look at your grip. If your like me, it's your left hand (support hand) thumb that is causing the issue. On most SW weapons my support hand thumb sits directly on the slide-release when I quickly grab the gun and don't adjust or think about my grip. I don't do it on the M&P line, but on pretty much every 2nd and 3rd gen auto I find that my grip when stress-firing causes the slide-release to never engage. Other thoughts... is your recoil spring stock? If you replaced with a higher power spring, it could well be the ammo... guessing though if you have a factory spring and 1k rounds on it that it should be cycling fine with that ammo. Frame rails lubricated? If you have bare metal to metal, it is possible it's retarding slide movement enough to cause the "short-stroke" issue that would not lock a slide... but you'd expect to start to see feeding / extracting issues as well with that. |
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Quoted:
Look at your grip a second. Take an unloaded weapon and with eyes closed make a speedy presentation from the holster... now open eyes and look at your grip. If your like me, it's your left hand (support hand) thumb that is causing the issue. On most SW weapons my support hand thumb sits directly on the slide-release when I quickly grab the gun and don't adjust or think about my grip. I don't do it on the M&P line, but on pretty much every 2nd and 3rd gen auto I find that my grip when stress-firing causes the slide-release to never engage. Other thoughts... is your recoil spring stock? If you replaced with a higher power spring, it could well be the ammo... guessing though if you have a factory spring and 1k rounds on it that it should be cycling fine with that ammo. Frame rails lubricated? If you have bare metal to metal, it is possible it's retarding slide movement enough to cause the "short-stroke" issue that would not lock a slide... but you'd expect to start to see feeding / extracting issues as well with that. +1 on the grip, load a few rounds and shoot it one handed to see if the slide locks back. I took a Harrington pistol class last weekend and I was doing it to my G34. Not all the time but enough to realize it was me and not the gun. |
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Gun is stock except for an Apex DCAEK+RAM, except I didn't install the heavier trigger return spring (wife wanted the lighter pull) - so there's been nothing done to the gun to mess with the slide release/lock.
I'm gonna step by step try to troubleshoot this down with the tips others have given. AAC will follow, or I'll just send it to Smith - of course after I pull out all the Apex parts, which I'm trying to avoid. |
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I was at the range today. This thread popped into my head and got me looking at my grip.
I have the M&P 45, with the thumb safety. My grip it the high thumb over hold, like most 1911 shooters. As I was looking at my grip, I can see that if you do not have the thumb safety, that you could very easily, inadvertently hit the slide lock lever. Same thing that often happens with Sig shooters. The placement of the thumb and the proximity to the slide lock, often does not allow the slide lock to engage the slide, on an empty mag. |