Quote:
Originally Posted by pyper22
why not just ask S&W, WHY, and see what their answer is. pyper
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I did that very thing in an armorer class.
The answer was pretty simple ... and Capt Crunch nailed it earlier.
The anticipated military pistol testing being discussed back when the M&P 45 was in development specified a model equipped with one, and S&W pretty much built the M&P 45 so it would meet the anticipated specification requirements. (That's also why the M&P 45 had a different extractor pin, making it potentially easier for military armorer service & repair.)
Naturally, once a certain segment of the commercial public found out there was a M&P 45 made with a thumb safety, they wanted it.
Then they wanted the manual safety available on the other models. (Of course)
The sudden public demand reportedly caught S&W by surprise. They ended up having to revise their frames and sear housings to accept the thumb safety (which, as has been mentioned, blocks the trigger bar).
Of course, once it became a production feature ... then a certain segment of people complained about having thumb safeties.
They apparently listened to the market studies when they were designing the M&P Shield, and included the manual safety as a "standard" feature.
Naturally ... big surprise ... people are complaining about it having a thumb safety.
Hard to please everyone, isn't it?
FWIW, I have a pair of M&P pistols ... 1 w/thumb safeties & 1 w/o. Both work just fine for me.