Was cleaning my M&P Pro 9 today and noticed some ugly looking wear on the front edge of the barrel hood and where it interfaces on the slide. Had the gun for about a year, it currently has 1857 rounds through it. I have been using brian enos slide glide regular and heavy as my lube. I have been using the factory recoil spring and guide rod. Only modification is the apex competition action enhancement kit. Anyone else experience similar wear?

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It appears to have a jagged edge.....is it actually gouged or rough where the wear marks are?

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MSP - Retired

Looks normal to me

Yes it is very rough along that edge.

I'd be slightly concerned if it was my pistol. Wear "marks" are one thing, but chewed up metal is quite another IMO.

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MSP - Retired

OK, the polished area on the angled portion of the chamber block is normal. The jagged edge of the chamber block is unusual. I can't speak to the similar appearance on the forward edge of the ejection port. It'd be difficult to say which may have caused the other. However, the jagged edge of the chamber block appears to continue on angled areas to the sides of the wedge that rides on the upper inner surface of the slide. This hints that it may be a machining error, rather than wear.

I'd send pictures to S&W customer service, they might want to take a look.

BTW, technically, the "hood" is the little projection on the upper side of the chamber block at the rear. The slide engages it to push the barrel forward into battery.

Only thing about "brian enos slide glide" is that it's not CLP, such as Frog lube or FP-10 that I use for example. "CLP stands for Cleaning, Lubrication & Preservative as set by military standard MIL-L-63460.

There should be no rough jagged edges. Was everything smooth when you got it?

The edge of the barrel edge doesn't look right to me(I only own and familiar with Glocks though, not M&P's), but I would definitely send the pics to S&W with a detailed description and I imagine they'll have you send it in.

The wear below looks identical. This was at 20K rounds. I changed to a KKM barrel on my Core and 70 K rounds later, it has the same look. It's caused by the repeated hammering of the barrel locking up with the slide. I did send pictures to S&W in Dec 2013 (when that picture was taken). their answer was that it's normal. I haven't noticed any change in function or accuracy. I'm coming up on 20K on my new (this year) gun with a KKM barrel and it's looking the same way.

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I have the same on my Shield.

Bk, yours looks better than his, it's fairly smooth and even wear... At 20,000 rounds.

His barrel has less than 2000 rounds.

It does seem unusual.

The only pic relevant it the locking area of the barrel hood. It's easy to see the wear in that area.

Most of the time such questions are usually answered with, it's fine/normal... But this time I feel it is out of the ordinary.

I think the difference is in the picture. When I look at mine (the barrel, not the picture) it looks identical to his picture. I'm just not a very good photographer.

normal for a mass production gun.

If you had relieved that area when the gun was new, it wouldn't look like that. Also, if the manufacturer had done the same when it was still at the factory, it wouldn't look like that. But, that would have taken just a smidgen more time, so they didn't. These parts then, had to find their "happy place" via shooting it. It probably won't change appreciably for some time now. You've "shot it into compliance".
As an example, I have a Kimber Solo carry 9 that had an area on the under side of the slide, and the corresponding area on the top of the barrel, show evidence of that exact kind of wear. When I got it back from Kimber after a warranty claim, it had factory machined relief cuts in those exact locations.

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I don't know if these pics are any better, but mine looks a lot better than the OP's:



There is a little jaggedness to it, but nothing like the OP.

Granted this is a .45, but it has just over 2K rounds through it. This means the wear should be similar to the OP's gun.

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I thought the barrels were stainless under the finish?

Rastoff, the edge on your barrel hood, is that rust or lube?


As for the wear on the slide, my shield has that, and only has maybe 300 rounds through it, but the barrel is fine.

IMHO, it is ugly but not harmful in the long run. If it were mine, I would 'dress' off that edge with a stone starting with a course and finishing with a fine. Then I would watch it for a repeat of that battering pattern. This indicates that the recoil shoulder position for the barrel is much harder in the slide than in the barrel.

First of all, even stainless steel can rust. It just depends on the type of stainless. The type necessary for guns will rust. It's just more resistant to oxidation than regular carbon steel.

Secondly, there is no rust or lube on the point you reference. It is simply the lighting. Shiny surfaces are hard to take pictures of because they reflect the light. In this case, it's reflecting the wood on my workbench.

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Ahh, I was wondering.

I use lubriplate on that point, to ease some of the friction that may occur.

I got a reply back from S&W today. Here is their reply:

Here's my M&P40 barrel and slide after ~30,000 rounds.
I do lube this point along with where the barrel locks up with the slide in front and the slide guides each time I clean the gun. I use just a tiny dab of general purpose Walmart grease.

OP, the good thing about the gouges is once it is there, it should get to a point where it stops. I would only be concerned if I could feel a ridge building up on the slide which is causing the gouging. If not, no worries. Be sure to document your call to S&W so that if it gets a lot worse, you have documentation that they said it was "normal".

Fordfan485....I know this is kind of an old thread ,don't worry about the wear in the slide and barrel but the jagged edges on front of barrel hood isn't right unless it's just the angle of pic. one thing, many people think their pistol,gun is wearing because of shiny places on slide etc... So they glob grease or oil,don't worry about it , it is called "Marrying" yes,it does need a small sheen of lube but pistol parts like the slide were made to rub against each other. Striker fired with small slide rails to full length slides. If I shoot a lot I would worry about the barrel wearing out before the slide. You will get many opinions about lube, my opinion unless you have a high count race pistol just lube with oil you don't need grease,again,my opinion. I have been using Weapon Shield CLP or slip 2000 ,even just a sheen of Breakfree as lube for a long time with no problems. Yes,grease does stay but once you reattach slide it pushes most of it out anyway. Heck,full stainless (lower and slide) you can use a shaving cream brush sprayed with just a bit of Breakfree and just lightly brush it on. Also on the M&P DO NOT remove the Melonite finish on the barrel and polish it like you see some people do on You Tube. That finish is there for a reason it protects the barrel and it also acts as its own self lubricant. So unless wear marks become gritty like sandpaper or pitted don't worry.... Again,you will get all kinds of lube thoughts this is just my opinion . I never used grease on a pistol and never had any problems so if you want a slide to slide like butter buy a high end full stainless 1911.Sorry I know i'm getting off subject ,when a pistol cycles there is more violent wear on the barrel then the slide.

You're banging metal against metal. It happens . . .

Edit: Apologies for the ghost thread reply . . .

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Where Rastoff lives there's almost no humidity. I once was a Kern County deputy sheriff stationed at the Mojave substation. The County fire department there had a humidity gauge.

My M&P 9c has about 300 rounds through it and it looks exactly like the OP's pictures. It's a mass production product. If I had paid a lot for it, I would probably complain. However, my pistol shoots perfectly so I'm OK with it.

UPDATE: Out of curiosity, I felt the edges of the slide opening bottom and the barrel hood. The opening was jagged and rough to the touch with "burrs" sticking out while the barrel hood had grooves worn into it. It is obvious that S&W uses a poor cutting technique when cutting the opening in the slide. My Glock 17 Gen3 has nothing at all like that after thousands of rounds being fired.
Even though this poor craftsmanship doesn't hurt the pistol's performance, I used a very fine file and very fine sharpening stone to make both edges smooth to the touch. It isn't noticeable unless you look for it, but there is a fine silver line on each. It probably didn't change anything in performance but it makes me feel better now that the edge is smooth. It also means that my next pistol will probably be a Glock instead of an M&P.

This is my SW Performance Center 9
Left stock barrel with about 4000 rounds thru it
Middle is 5" Apex barrel with 3000 rounds thru it
Right is 5" Apex threaded barrel with about 1000 rounds
Slide has around 8000 rounds on it

I use Pro Gold grease on those contact areas because of the metal on metal design. Even on the slide rail grooves. Specially on the Apex barrels because of the tight fit gunsmith design.

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My condolences. Bob Hope once said, "If America ever needed an enema, Mojave is where it would be inserted."

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Bob Hope was oh so right. I won't go into why I was exiled from Bakersfield to Mojave, but I served my sentence (six months) and returned to the "city."

Yeah (chuckles), like Bakersfield is so much better. You're much better off in AZ brother.

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