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Old 12-02-2009, 04:10 PM
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Fastbolt Fastbolt is offline
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S&W has been in the process of revising their M&P striker since some early small number of scattered reports of striker breakage, especially when a lot of dry-fire was apparently involved.

The new revision of the striker appears to be made from stainless steel (instead of MIM). It lacks the angled corner of the earlier striker where the body is of lesser thickness than the head. It's like one large shaft of steel with the body the same diameter as the head. Robust. No sharp angle for the possible development of a stress riser. The foot appears a bit narrower than the earlier MIM striker's foot (although I haven't checked it with a micrometer) and looks very smooth.

The spring keepers have been replaced with a single large keeper, required because the original design (common to other striker-fired guns of recent design) used the rebated shoulder behind the striker head to hold the keepers in place. The new keeper is larger and appears thicker and has a specific orientation. I'm guessing a benefit of having a 1-piece unit might be eliminating the potential for warping edges of the separate pieces, which could risk overlapping at the seam where they met and lifting , creating drag inside the firing pin channel (like Glock armorers are told to check for during inspections).

Although I've had no problems with my original MIM striker unit in my M&P 45 over the course of the last year and about 3,000 rounds, I decided to install a new unit when I received it in a regular parts order, just to see if it felt any different. I was expecting some initial roughness until the striker foot wore a bit against the original sear, but I was surprised to find that the trigger now felt almost a bit smoother than my original well-worn striker. Interesting.

A friend who just received a new M&P 45 told me that his gun appeared to have a stainless striker, so it seems the new revised striker is in the pipeline for both production (at least in the .45 models) as well as parts. I'm not getting rid of my spare MIM strikers just because of the new design, though, and will keep them for spare parts.

I can try to take pictures of the new striker unit later, compared to the earlier one, if anyone is interested.

Before folks get too busy pointing fingers, it might be fair to consider that Glock is still revising parts in their models because of issues being reported by some of their LE customers. I was told by the company (as an armorer) a while back that the current trigger bar for the G21 is now different than the current one for the G30, and both of them are different than what was considered current just before the LAPD situation occurred a while ago. Slide rubbing on the vertical safety extension of the trigger bar (which lifts the safety plunger), and involvement of the safety plunger & firing pin, has apparently been reported by some customers to have been causing issues in some small number of newer guns. I'm only dealing with one new Glock .45 in this regard at the moment, though.

I'm curious to see what the latest revised models of the Glock line will have to show in a couple of months, too. Aside from offering replaceable grip inserts, I've heard some rumbles about a new recoil spring assembly for the full-size .40s. It would be nice if the functioning problems occasionally reported by some users who attach lights to their .40's have finally been addressed and resolved. A friend of mine who recently retired from another agency told me a little while back that a lot of their guys were still having functioning issues when they attached lights to their guns. My friend didn't use a light on his gun, though. FWIW, I'd also had occasion to speak with an armorer for that agency a little earlier who also said they were having a number of their officers experience feeding issues when they used lights. Last I heard they had received new magazine springs to try and address the issue (although their guns were only about 4 years old, according to him). These are the kind of things that can keep armorers busy.
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Last edited by Fastbolt; 12-02-2009 at 07:06 PM.
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