S&W M&P 10MM is hot garbage.

KH56010

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This is the saddest post I’ll ever have to make. I’m a M&P fanboy. I have too many to count. Competed in USPA with multiple M&P 45s in Limited 10, M&P 40s in limited, currently compete with M&P 9mm CORE 2.0s and carry either an M&P 40 or M&P 45.

So I got the M&P 10mm, I love the 10mm. I have the G20sf and XDM Elite 10mm.

Took her to the range today and she shot me in the face twice. Literally. In a single mag two completely intact rounds ejected into my god damn face. This was on top of the 15-20 failure to feeds.

Unfortunately I can’t resell this gun. Because I’ve already ordered a Deadpool holster. And it looks awesome. So I’ll be fixing it in the next couple weeks. Oh and the accuracy, the sights are offensive. It shoots way left and you have to shoot so far above the point of point of aim that you would think you’re shooting a 223 at 300 yards. If this was my first gun, I’d leave the sport.

Initial issues that are clear as day to me but apparently not to S&W:

The sights are the wrong height
The Extractor is way too tight
The feed lips on the mags are too short
The Magazine follower is defective and causes the bullet to jump out on the last round
The magazine catch is too small (tons of reports of the magazine shooting out of the gun)
The recoil spring is too weak

I’ve got new sights, recoil springs, extractors on order. See what happens. This was destined to be my new carry gun… right now I would prefer my attacker have this as his offense. Because it doesn’t work and with the current sights, he’ll miss anyways.

Just a small update on the sights. As installed at the factory, the front sight is 88 percent of the height of the rear sight. .30 vs .34. On my M&P 40 4" (My 10mm is a 4") The front sight is 72.73 percent the height of the rear sight. The Dawson CORE sights I ordered are only available in one option for all models. That is a front sight that is 73.47 percent as high as the rear sight. FROM THE FACTORY, the sights are off by 15 percent. And confirmed by the gold standard in sight manufacturers by the ONLY sight they offer for this style firearm. Infuriating.

Okay second quick update. The first round that shot me in the face was a UMC 10mm. The second was a Magtech 10mm. Now if I had read that this gun was built around Hot ammo or High end ammo, whatever that is. Then I would calm down and say "Well UMC is known dog crap, and Magtech is kind of low end, it's sure no Underwood" Go look up Smith and Wessons press releases. This firearm was designed around "Magtech 180grain ammo" Honestly they should almost get sued for releasing such an unreliable piece of crap. People get 10mm's to defend against bears.
 
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Why didn’t you send it to S&W for service before dropping you own $$$?
Okay in reality, look at the issues I posted.

Will they give me new mags with longer feed lips?
Will they give me an updated follower?
Will they give me a filed down and updated extractor?
Will they give me a higher pound recoil spring?
Will they give me an updated mag catch?
Will they install a shorter front sight?

These are all HARD NOs. They will polish the feed ramp, fire one round and waste 5 weeks of my time.
 
Okay in reality, look at the issues I posted.

Will they give me new mags with longer feed lips?
Will they give me an updated follower?
Will they give me a filed down and updated extractor?
Will they give me a higher pound recoil spring?
Will they give me an updated mag catch?
Will they install a shorter front sight?

These are all HARD NOs. They will polish the feed ramp, fire one round and waste 5 weeks of my time.
This is why I wait a year or two for new guns to be out on the market, even if they're something as simple as a different caliber. The only time I jumped on a new gun before it was a year old was the Charter Professional because I wanted me some 7 shot .32 Magnum and of course Charter for the very first time in their history decided to make the Professional their first revolver to ever use a fiber optic front sight and you have to hold the fiber optic rod about halfway out of the groove in the rear sight to avoid shooting low.

At least that's a workable solution, but it shouldn't be that way and Charter can't fix shit. S&W should be able to fix anything, but they'll probably wait to release a Gen 2 of the 10mm M&P, so owners of the busted 1st gen can buy another one that actually works and S&W can double their profit.
 
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Took her to the range today and she shot me in the face twice. Literally. In a single mag two completely intact rounds ejected into my god damn face. This was on top of the 15-20 failure to feeds.
snip

Okay second quick update. The first round that shot me in the face was a UMC 10mm. The second was a Magtech 10mm. Now if I had read that this gun was built around Hot ammo or High end ammo, whatever that is. Then I would calm down and say "Well UMC is known dog crap, and Magtech is kind of low end, it's sure no Underwood" Go look up Smith and Wessons press releases. This firearm was designed around "Magtech 180grain ammo" Honestly they should almost get sued for releasing such an unreliable piece of crap. People get 10mm's to defend against bears.

So you had two types of ammo in a single mag?

Not that it really matters with plinking ammo. Have you tried it with real 10mm ammo?

If I saw that press release, I would never buy it. They are telling the public they designed it around a plinking load. Do you have a link from Smith saying this?
 
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Sending it back in to replace the parts with more stock parts that won't work. Is a waste of time. Even with the work he is doing, it still won't fix the mag issue.
 
The lack of the finer points in the details seems a common place problem in the firearms industry where they let the public do the R&D/QCing on the fly, S&W isn't the only one. It's the same as in the auto industry as somebody mentioned above, don't buy a first year release else you'll be the test pilot.
 
The OP makes some very good points and raises an issue that I have experienced myself. You "fall in love" with a particular gun and purchase one. The gun has numerous problems and quickly becomes a big disappointment. You badly want to make it work. You try a bunch of different things, you spend a lot of time, money and energy in this effort. At some point 1. either the problems will be resolved (a long shot) 2. you will learn to live with the gun's shortcomings 3. you will part ways with the gun.
After several bitter experiences with this I have learned to be thankful for what I've got. I've bought a few "dogs" but I also have some guns I really enjoy shooting. I got rid of the "dogs" and shoot the guns I like.
 
The OP makes some very good points and raises an issue that I have experienced myself. You "fall in love" with a particular gun and purchase one. The gun has numerous problems and quickly becomes a big disappointment. You badly want to make it work. You try a bunch of different things, you spend a lot of time, money and energy in this effort. At some point 1. either the problems will be resolved (a long shot) 2. you will learn to live with the gun's shortcomings 3. you will part ways with the gun.
After several bitter experiences with this I have learned to be thankful for what I've got. I've bought a few "dogs" but I also have some guns I really enjoy shooting. I got rid of the "dogs" and shoot the guns I like.
I had exactly this with a ruger 45colt/45ACP revolver. I eventually chose option 3.
 
On this subject, I offer the following experience, without judgment or comment.

One: One way of another, I have been engaged with Smith & Wesson for decades. Today I own a passel of older S&W DA revolvers, some Third Gen autos, and a handful of modern M&P autos (both gens).

Two: Until recently I have never had a problem with any S&W firearm.

Three: Recently I acquired a new M&P 2.0 that consistently failed to go into battery 25-50% of the time. Changing ammo or mags did not alleviate the failures. Sent it back with a detailed explanation of the problem. Got it back with a note about polishing the chamber and feed ramp, which did nothing to solve the problem. Sent it back a second time and got it back, this time with no note and still the same problem. Eventually, the pistol was replaced with a different new one of the same model, which has functioned 100% as it should.

Four: A year or so ago, one of my shooting buddies acquired a new Ruger 10-22. Consistently failed to feed. Wrote a detailed evaluation, which he sent to Ruger. They said send it back; we elected to drive it back. A couple of weeks later Ruger advised they had found a dimensional issue with the receiver and told Ed to come back and pick up a new one.

Five: More recently, another buddy acquired a new Ruger SR-22 pistol. Every once in a while (maybe 5-10% of the time), it went dead trigger. He sent it back to Ruger and in less than a week it came back (no note) and now functions perfectly.
 
Going to comment on why I don’t send guns back to the manufacturer as I wait for these parts to come in.

Just in the last 18 months:

Aero complete upper in 308 with too tight of an extractor (two o rings) and an undersized gasblock/hole

S&W victory with an out of spec ejector

Dead Foot Arms defective folding stock

FoldAR upper improperly machined that wouldn’t accept most mags

Glock 19 failing to go fully into battery

Two different RIA shotguns with FTF FTE issues which required a ton of filing and deburring

Springfield Hellcat failing to lock back on the last round.

That’s 7 trips to the post office, most likely issues not being fixed, not trusting the fixes since I won’t know what they actually did. And prevailing thought is that anything sent back is gone for 5 weeks or so. So that’s 35 weeks of guns or accessories at the manufacturer for issues I was able to fix on all of them for probably about the same amount of money as shipping and a couple hours.

The only firearm I’ve ever sent in was a Springfield XD 45. It would not feed 45 wad cutters. After almost 2 months it came back with a note that there is an inherent design issue that prevents reliably feeding wadcutter ammunition. That’s it, no polishing or anything. Just a note that basically said deal with it. So now I just fix my own stuff.
 
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