I recently purchased my first M&P, a FS 9. The main deciding factors on going with this over a glock were my very knowledgeable friend, who owns a bunch of glocks, recommendation, how much better it felt to hold, and the fact that it was advertised as fully ambidextrous.
As soon as I got home with it I moved the magazine release to the right side. I went to the range to zero at 25 yards without issue, I only loaded my magazines with 5 rounds each during this. This next week I attended a pistol class where most evolutions involved two ten round mags. I instantly experienced a ftf after 4-6 rounds fired. This ftf was caused by the follower getting caught in the magazine retention notch and then not properly feeding the rounds. This happened for the entire three hour class. Happened almost every time with both of my mags and one of the instructors, we even tried to file down the front left corner that was getting caught, didn't help. Needless to say it took away from the class some when I was having malfunctions with every mag.
When I got home and investigated further I realized that this was all caused by switching my mag release to lefty. There was a post on this
forum or another about it and how getting first gen followers would fix it.
I called S&W cs,, explained my issue and the resolution and he sent me three followers in the mail. Originally the rep said he was not aware of this issue and had to check on it. When he came back he said ya that happens and sent the followers. I told him that I was disappointed that this issue is not posted anywhere for these weapons and it should be and he said that was above him but he'll run it up the chain. I don't think this was an adequate response. These pistols have been out long enough that this should be resolved better than this. What would have happened if I never went to the range and had to use for sd and had this failure. The weapon is either fully ambidextrous or not and with this issue I don't think it is. Now that I have the old followers I have not had an issue but this important piece of information should be included in the manual where it tells how to switch the mag release.