The "tactical" world has rediscovered the B8. It's kind of funny to me because I 'member back when I was getting into training hearing so many people dismiss the idea of shooting at bullseye targets as outdated nonsense that didn't reflect the realities of combat and I distinctly remember thinking "Weren't a whole bunch of old school gunfighters excellent bullseye competitors with handguns?" But I wasn't the expert, so...you know. It's been amusing watching things evolve to the point where now B8 accuracy at 25 yards is moving past being a flex to being seen as some sort of baseline requirement for carrying a defensive handgun.

The dot has contributed to this phenomenon significantly. Some people love the dot because they can't really see irons very well. Some people love the dot because they love any new thing that comes down the pike. But I find that lots of people love the dot primarily because it's the only real coach they've ever had. The dot sits on top of the slide screaming at you and allowing a lot of people to actually call shots or see that they're doing something nasty to the gun during the shot process that they didn't see with irons because irons whisper while the dot screams.

The fact that the typical dot is an aiming reference that's a fraction of the size of a front sight helps get a better read on where, exactly, the gun is aligned...especially if you're used to irons with a high-visibility front sight and wide rear notch for combat style shooting. So now that people can see what they're doing wrong and they're comparing B8 scores, it's not really shocking to see the 1911 coming back new and Tactical! flavors because they're easier to shoot very accurately at distance. 1911 triggers are great for that.

Enter the Stack-A-Toe. You can get 9mm capacity and 1911 trigger with a dot to boot! The numerous issues with 2011 magazines over the years have supposedly been "solved", and you can buy them for only $70-$100 a pop! Oh, and the gun itself is like $2500 bucks before you put an optic on it!

I've spent silly amounts of money on 1911 handguns before, so I can't throw too many stones. Like I said: I like a nice 1911.

But what if you could get about everything people want from a Stack-A-Toe for less than half the price?



That is an M&P 2.0 factory cut for the Aimpoint Acro. I can't tell you how nice it is to just do up one fastener and have all the concerns about mounting an optic completely evaporate. Put a little VC3 on one fastener, torque it sensibly...optic mounted. Hell, I didn't even have to wait to shoot the gun because I re-used a prior application of VC3 on the fastener from a mount on another gun and it's not budged a millimeter after almost a full case of ammo. This is the way optic mounting should be.

...and if I was issuing guns to typical police officers, this is how I'd insist we do it because this is as fool-proof as you can get an RDS handgun setup. Changing a battery in an electronic sight shouldn't be an armorer level task. This dancing around with umpteen plates and footprints is beyond tedious. The RMR was first and now we're stuck with that frankly stupid optic mounting method for Lord only knows how much longer. Blech.

So the M&P can be had with a less troublesome and more reliable optic mount than a Stack-A-Toe...if you are in LE. Or you can talk to the right people to get you around S&W's silly "LE Only" restriction on this particular SKU. (No, I won't tell you how I did that.)

Expect to pay about $650 for the pistol itself.

What about a 1911 style fire control? Well, the M&P can be had with a thumb safety. If you don't have one with a thumb safety, it can be added in minutes with the right parts. The right parts are cheap and widely available. So now our $650 M&P bumps up another $40 to get the safety parts.

Of course, then we come to the real reason why people love the 1911 fire control...the trigger. Short takeup, minimal trigger travel, and a clean break can make up for a world of sins on the fundamentals...and the trigger as it comes from the box isn't anything like a 1911 trigger. Enter Apex. You can get multiple flavors of trigger from Apex. Personally I'm not a fan of the forward set triggers on M&P pistols. I prefer to have some takeup on the trigger because this is intended to eventually be a carry gun and I'd rather not have a gun set up to go bang immediately upon touching the trigger. (That's one of my gripes on the P320...and most of those don't have safeties)

I installed the Apex Action Enhancement Duty kit in this pistol. I bought the cheapest one with the polymer trigger...and I'll be buying the polymer version from now on because it's actually easier to install than the aluminum one. This results in a trigger that has a somewhat long takeup, but then has a relatively short travel and clean break beyond that. It honestly reminds me a lot of the feel of a P30 LEM trigger with the TLG modifications....which I've always liked. Unlike the P30's LEM, the reset is short on this setup. The kit is $165, so we're up to ~ $850.

And this was good enough to shoot very good B8 scores as the gun came from the factory accurate enough to easily hold black at 25 yards and the modifications make it much easier to wring out every X ring hit the gun is capable of. As an example of accuracy, I ran the "Dicken" drill at 40 yards on a Tac Strike silhouette with 10 hits in 7.59 seconds with the factory barrel and this trigger setup. So you can stop here and you've basically achieved Stack-A-Toe like performance for 34% of the price.

...but if you're willing to spend a little more, you can probably do a bit better. And by "a bit" I mean:



That's actually a 5 shot group of 124 grain +P HST, but as best I can tell the fifth shot went right through one of the other holes, but it happened so cleanly I can't identify it...and given what you see there, that's perfectly plausible. This is the result of a semi-drop in Apex barrel.



Answers to common questions:

1. No, fitting the barrel isn't hard. It simply requires patience and a deliberate process. I did it while sitting in front of an episode of Miami Vice.

2. The resulting trigger is not quite as nice as a 1911 trigger. The "duty" kit I installed results in a long takeup before you get to the part of the trigger press where you are actually interacting with the sear. I like that on a carry gun because it gives more opportunity to realize you're on the trigger under stress. A forward set trigger basically eliminates most of the takeup and means you're on the sear pretty much as soon as you're on the trigger. Some people like that, I do not.

3. The safety should be very positive in operation. If it's not, replacing the safety bar (it's a stamped steel part) or more likely removing and then re-installing the safety detent and the spring that  works it usually clears that up. The detent might occasionally have some flashing from the molding process and might need to be smoothed out a little. Most often the problem is that it's a bit fiddly to get the safety and detent lined up with each other just right as it goes back into the gun to produce that positive "click" engagement and disengagement. Took me a couple of tries to get it just right, but with patience it was doable.

4. You don't have to install a new barrel. Some guns are just fine from the factory. Some are fucking terrible. In general the 2.0's are better than the 1.0's in terms of barrel fit. But I've yet to encounter an M&P with an Apex barrel in it that isn't a sub 1" gun at 25 yards.

Comparing an M&P with basic upgrades to a Staccato is like saying Gilbert Gottfried is just as good of a narrator as Morgan Freeman because he’s also famous and can read from a script, too.

Stacattos aren’t great values… but nothing near the top of the heap (well past the point of diminishing returns) ever is.

this. I like M&Ps, shot them in all sorts of competitions, carried them, etc. The BEST M&P trigger is almost as good as a basic 1911 trigger. Nature of the beast. Accuracy is close with hand loads and a new barrel and a lot of practice and a dot. But is it worth $2k to has slightly better? up to the consumer.

a pinto would get me to work as fast as my lexus, while being cheaper...

Luckily we don't have to depend on subjective metrics of narrarator rating to make a comparison.

We can have objective measurements:

- Mechanical accuracy
- Speed
- Performance on timed, scored courses of fire

What matters with a handgun is where the bullet holes end up and how quickly they got there.

People are buying stacatto pistols to shoot more accurately and more quickly. If you can get the same or better results in every useful metric then it's a perfectly valid comparison.

Nobody buying/carrying $2k-3k handguns is doing so just because it checks all the boxes.

Everybody I know who bought a stack-a-toe did so because they shoot better with it.

I've owned an M&P 2.0 & Staccato C2, I was really impressed with the M&P and really NOT impressed with the Staccato. If someone said they'd give me one or the other but I couldn't sell it, I would get the M&P. Maybe the one I had was a dud but it actually shot worse than my Glocks, clearing a plate tree with it which is fairly easy if you don't rush was very challenging with it.

It would probably also increase the amount of simian poo flinging involved, and I ain't got the patience for that bullshit today.  

I actually shot some scored stuff against someone using a stack-a-toe not long ago and the other guy lost handily. At which point he said "well, with a match barrel" and I just stopped and looked at him for an uncomfortably long time until he realized that the dude with the $3,300 pistol (before optic) probably ain't in a position to whine about the unfair advantage I got from a scratch-n-dent barrel I fitted to the gun myself with a file, some diet peach Snapple tea, and Sonny Crockett.

It's highly likely my pistol is more mechanically accurate than his, but that weren't why he was getting pantsed.

The racegun getting beaten by an M&P with an Apex barrel phenomenon has happened before in some PPC competition out west where dudes get kind of salty that a motherfucker with a ratty looking M&P with an Apex barrel in it is beating their dedicated PPC competition guns.

I'm reliably informed that some of the Apex gunsmith barrels have shot width of the bullet groups in fixtures.

I've never seen a properly fitted Apex barrel shoot more than an inch in an M&P. So if you have an M&P and you like everything about it but the accuracy, it can be fixed and a whole lot easier than you might imagine.

I have a Staccato and like it.

But I constantly fuck with 2 of my friends that have one and carry one primarily because I shoot consistently better with a very similar M&P set up(Overwatch trigger and I don't know where the hell you got a P-2).  It's legit like 87% of the gun the Staccato is for about $800 total.

That said I train on pistols a lot more than my buddies. Nothing replaces the travel of a 1911/2011 like trigger when you have the skill to push it.

I just ordered one.

...on May 25th, 2021.

It only took like 13 months to get.



A swinging trigger will never be quite as good as a straight-travel trigger for sure...but set up right it's possible to have a whole lot of the performance advantages while having a trigger that I think works better at preventing negative outcomes for most people under significant stress.

A top competitor isn't going to be able to run this setup better than an Atlas with a 1.7 pound trigger. But this is intended as a daily carry gun, not a racegun even though it still runs really fast and this particular pistol can shoot side by side with Bianchi and PPC guns for accuracy. Having a carry gun where I can put the dot on the center of the head of a TacStrike steel target, press the trigger without moving the gun, and put a 124 grain HST bullet exactly where the dot was when the shot broke at 50 yards seems pretty useful to me.

You get the Staccato and buy yourself the M&P and keep both.

Yeah, I just want to point out that it most likely shot fine. You just shot worse with it. Not trash talking, just pointing out that was clearly a training issue.

S&W's LEO restrictions are a big hinderance.

Your ACRO model is LEO.

But even more inexplicably for me, the 5" 2.0 Optics ready is also LEO only.



That said, I'm strongly considering pursuing a 'Stack a toe' MP build based on the 2.0 compact.

Is there any difference in accuracy for the 'semi drop in' vs 'gunsmith fit' barrels?

Yes...but not necessarily inherent to the barrel.

The gunsmith fit barrel has twice the extra material on it that the semi-drop in barrel has. That allows somebody with a mill to very finely fit the barrel to the gun and will likely get you smaller groups. You can accomplish the fit at home with a file, but it's going to be a whole lot of filing. I mean, a stupidly long time trying to file to get a fit.

It's highly likely to take long enough that somebody does something stupid and ruins the barrel.

If you're patient and meticulous you can definitely do it at home. But if you are going for maximum accuracy it's really one of those situations where there is such a thing as one pass too many with the file.

It's the shooter more than the gun. I could clear a plate rack with a red ryder faster than my son could with any high end pistol. But he's 6 and I've been practicing for years.  

People that shoot at high levels run 2011s because the SLIGHT increase in accuracy/speed is worth it. Give a random C class guy a nice M&P and then a 2011 and they may or may not see improvement. Give a dude that shoots and trains and spends money on competitions and you'll see them with a 2011.

How often? shit, here's data: https://www.targetbarn.com/idpa-uspsa-nationals-gear-used
70% of the top firearms used are 2011 platforms. But there are a bunch of smaller 2011 builders so it's likely that that number is higher, especially as referenced by the magazines used. 88% of them are 2011 mag producers, not anything else. Are tuned/quality 2011s better than tuned/quality M&Ps? Clearly. Is it worth the 2-6 THOUSAND dollar difference? Not to the average guy, but to the top few, absolutely.

edit/. I went through the stats posted and literally the only time I see S&W mentioned is under revolvers.... not production, not carry optics, not limited, not open.....

One of the primary reasons that the 2011 dominates is because most of those top level guns have a 2 pound trigger.

The difference between a 2 pound trigger and a 5 or 6 pound trigger is the difference between a mistake showing up in the A zone versus showing up in the C zone. That's significant in competition.

A two pound trigger is a fucking TERRIBLE idea on a street gun.

One of the most impactful posts I've read on this board about handguns, were a few of yours Re:1911s.

I think a lot of the newer posters missed out on the JW777 world heavyweight title run some ~10 years ago

This is the one I want to match my 4.25". Fucking tarded what S&W and sig offer as LEO only.

Also, if anyone wants a factory acro cut M&P, there is one on Va Gun Trader. I do not know the seller nor have any monetary interest in the pistol for sale, just saw it this morning while checking the site.

I'm a big 2.0 fan and can get the LEO versions but none of mine are.  I really don't understand why Smith has a LEO only on some models.  I don't think a lot of agencies are going to choose Smith over Glock and the Sig 320 models, just my opinion.   Glock and Sig sell the same models as LE and the military use and make a lot of money off them.

I learned a lot about shooting classes from the JW777 posts


Attached File

I dont get it either; not like these are select fire or something.

Especially the 5" optics ready though - thats just as / more interesting for competition and target use. Its basically the G34 demographic.

Do any LEO's even issue the 5" M&P?

Only ones I've read about are the standard size models, 4.25-4.5 in barrels in different calibers.

Would an aftermarket slide cut allow the ACRO to mount lower on the slide?

Sig does some fucking stupid LEO shit also. I want a non ugly green-gray 226SAO, they have a black legion model, LEO only purchase.

I will reserve judgment until I know what season/episode of Miami Vice.  Black car/White car?  Details man.

Stack-a-toe….

I ordered mine as a fun gun.

I like your Hookers & Blackjack Staccato much better than the real Staccato

I need to get a M&P 2.0 Compact and go full Apex on it.

Are the semi fit barrels a reasonable project for someone comfortable with building ARs, tuning 1911 extractors and fitting sights?  Because that’s about the total of my “gunsmithing” skill set

I concur, this is an important detail to the discussion at hand.

Third.

Lots comes down to the shooter. It is a very common phenomenon been for lots of years ( decades really) that people buy fancy equipment to try to buy skill, precision ,accuracy whatever you want to call it.

I think dots are a huge advantage IF practiced with, and properly understood. Many think slapping a dot on a gun is an instant fix for accuracy issues, which in most cases it is not.

I don’t think a dot increases accuracy- really. What it DOES do is increase accuracy at speed, or allow accurate hits much faster.

Plenty of old school bullseye shooters with iron sights can easily be more accurate than the majority of shooters using dots, the big difference is time. The dot shooters get the accurate hit faster in most cases.

For me ( being one of those old bullseye shooters) accuracy is not the problem. For me speed is the issue. I am so engrained through decades of precision shooting to push for accuracy, that I can’t speed myself up. I see those groups get sloppy ( I will call anything bigger than 5” at 25 yards sloppy) and I subconsciously put the brakes on. Tough to overcome.

Probably would sit it a tad lower than the factory cut. But on this particular gun the height works with the sight height for a solid lower 1/4 co-witness.

Out Where the Buses Don't Run.

The semi-drop in barrels require fitting the back of the barrel hood and a fitting pad on the bottom of the barrel. The actual work is simple. The patience to do it properly is all it takes. You just file a little, check it, and then file a little more, then check it, etc. The tough part is resisting the temptation to go Tasmanian Devil with the file and fuck it up. Hence the need to have Miami Vice on. Keeps me relaxed.

In that it is a much finer sighting reference (3.5 MOA vs about 14 MOA for a front sight) it allows you to place the gun on target more precisely. When I shot the pictured group I could literally see what part of the X I was holding on. That helped contribute to a tighter group.

Sir you have built a fine pistol.  You are a scholar and a gentleman.

One of the best episodes.

I'll post the same comment here as on PF.

I wish you could fit a 320 safety on M&Ps. The Smith safety just doesn't fit me well. Iirc I could probably fix it but I'd just make it look like a sig safety. Which is the only thing I like about the 320.

I don't think so because of the striker block design of the M&P.  Look at the retainer plate at the bottom of the ARCO cut.

Potentially. I've not had the chance to sit this gun side by side with an aftermarket milled gun to see, but I think there's still meat that could be taken off this bone. As it sits, the rear sight is in the lower 1/3 of the optic so you have a better than usual iron sight picture with the Acro mounted. I'm going to break out my calipers tonight to see if the rear sight on this gun measures any different than on my Compact CORE gun. I'd bet they are the same but I can't eyeball down to 1/10th of an inch.

The factory ACRO cut uses the same screw-down plate that the CORE guns use to hold down the striker block spring...although I think if you direct mount an Aimpoint the bottom of the optic will be just fine for the same task.

The other odd thing about the factory ACRO gun is that they use the same size extractor roll pin as the non-cut slides, so the roll pin actually protrudes up from the slide. Once the optic is mounted it is protected, but I thought that an odd choice.

Please keep GD posts in GD. - DJ

Everything in life is perspective.

Why buy an Aston Martin if you can have a souped up Honda Civic?

Staccatos are awesome pistols, but I went back to Glocks for practicality.

If you dig the M&P, run that shit, but I never once thought to buy Staccato just because they were more accurate. There's a plethora of reasons they're great pistols.

I'm seeing a SKU for this that doesn't look like it's LEO retricted. What about this model is only available to LEO?

It seems people struggle over the "why" of doing this.

One of the primary gripes I hear about the M&P is the lack of accuracy. Well, this fixes it. Like nuking the planet from orbit level of fixes it. You fit a barrel and you're now left with a pistol that is most likely shooting sub 1" groups with duty ammo. So if accuracy is your issue with the M&P, that problem is solved.

If the issue is you don't like the factory M&P trigger, the Apex kit will let you get a trigger like one of the (frankly scary) upper end Sig P320 triggers in the gun with the forward set kit, or a trigger that apart from takeup is really not too far off from a 1911 style trigger if you get the Duty kit.

I didn't build this because I would rather have a Stack-a-toe.

Quite the opposite.

What I'm after here is the reasons why people are buying Stack-A-toes without the expenses and risks involved in buying one.

You know what complaint I've never heard about the M&P? Reliability. Even specimens with minute of barn accuracy at 25 yards still functioned reliably. The magazines are durable and reliable and don't require any special care. They work and shoot best with a good recoil spring assembly in them, but apart from changing that at sane intervals they don't require much more than a little bit of lubrication to run. The magazine springs especially seem to live a longer reliable life than factory Glock magazine springs. See, I remember the last time that double stack 1911's were going to be the gun that all the serious guys used and then it turned out that they weren't anywhere near reliable enough to actually be a duty gun. Everybody says the new 2011 magazines are the heat and solve all the problems of past magazines...but I've been at this long enough to remember how many times "everybody" has been wrong before. I already know that the M&P is reliable in the long term and doesn't require much TLC to keep it running.

This past weekend I stayed with a buddy who just bought himself a Stack-A-toe and I spent the weekend comparing it to the M&P I built. The ergonomics of the grip on the M&P are vastly better for my hands. The Stack-A-toe still has basically a big square shaped grip that prevents getting my hand on the gun where I want it. How your hand gets on the gun has big implications for how you are most likely to apply grip pressure and that, in turn, has implications for your ability to shoot accurately at speed. It's a hell of a lot easier to get to the magazine release and slide release on the M&P than the Stack-A-toe. Competitors don't run their guns dry, but it's pretty common to go to slide lock on the street.

The M&P conceals a little bit better, too...again because it doesn't have that huge magazine well opening at the bottom that sticks the bottom right corner of the gun out more than I would like.

I didn't build this gun crying that I can't have a Stack-A-toe. I could move my custom 1911's and fund a brace of Stack-A-toe pistols tomorrow and spend zero real money doing it. I'm not buying a Stack-A-toe because that gun makes absolutely no sense for my use.

The goal here was to have a gun that actually fits my hands, allows the simplest and most reliable optic mounting possible, and that met my requirements for safety margin when reholstering a loaded handgun. And because it's an M&P I knew how to make the trigger really good and how to make the thing truly match accurate with my carry ammo, so why not?

As it sits now, this pistol is better than my Gen5 G17 MOS former carry gun, AND better than my buddy's Stack-A-toe for my use. And it's better for me than either of those without giving up any capabilities either of those guns brings to the table while actually beating them considerably in a couple of metrics. This gun is precisely the loophole in the market I've been looking for.

Every inquiry I've made about this pistol to this point has said that it's an "LE only" sale by S&W. If they've removed the restriction that's awesome.

There's no legal reason why S&W can't sell this pistol to everybody. I have no idea why they are reluctant to.

ACRO model is available to anyone. Lame they didn't include the newest trigger.

If you guys are finding a non-LE restricted SKU, please share in the thread so we can find more of them.

13353 is the only SKU I'm aware of and it's explicitly stated to be LE only by S&W:

https://www.smith-wesson.com/product/mp-m20-1?sku=13353&preselect=1

It seems strange that S&W thinks only LEOs are professional enough for this slide cut.

I was just listening to a podcast yesterday with Bryan Eastridge and Erick Gelhaus discussed red dots for pistols, and Erick's wishlist for a rds equipped handgun concept was very similar to what you have here.