Hi folks, I am new to this or any other forum. I am hoping to pick your brains a bit. I recently purchased an m&p 9L ported core and I can't hit squat with it. It seems to have excessive play in the barrel and slide. Does anyone have one with similar issues?

Is there movement when you press on the barrel hood?
If the play is between the slide and rails, it's normal to have a little. Where are your rounds landing? Low?

I invite you to web search on "pistol target diagnostics" and let us know where your rounds are landing.

Hey blacktalon jhp, thanks for the reply. First, I am shooting off a solid cradled rest. Out of a 10 round string, the majority are going high and left, 1 or 2 around bullseye and a flyer or two low left. The barrel hood has no vertical movement but plenty of horizonal movement. It really seems to have too much rail to slide movement both front and rear. Hopefully it is just me though. I will work on that first.

Have someone better shoot it

What a real kick in the balls. He shot the pistol from a rest.

To the OP, search this website and the forum on brianenos.com. Also search youtube for Apex Tactical's video on their barrel. Hopefully you don't have one of the very inaccurate ones; but as someone who experienced this same problem, I say that it's possible... especially if you've bench rested the gun as you say.

When doing your search, make sure to look for info on "early unlocking". This causes there to be play in the barrel before the bullet is out of the muzzle. Another thing that I have found is that there is a stupid amount of side to side play on some M&Ps. When I dry fire from a rest with a red dot mounted, the dot jumps to the left when the striker releases... the amount of the dot movement varies from pull to pull but ranges from almost nothing up to two+ times the width of the 6.5 MOA dot. This is causing a ridiculous amount of horizontal spread on my gun, even when shot on a rest.

How big is your spread and at what distance?

Which would even better explain high and left if he's wrenching on the gun during the pull, especially if he's 'cradling' the dust cover portion on this rest.

Some were going high, some were on, and some were low.

One of the first thing that people suggest when someone says their gun is inaccurate is to shoot it from a rest. When this guy says he shot it from a rest, that's apparently not good enough.

You suggest that he have someone else shoot it. (My statement has more to do with how you said it, rather than what you said.) Regardless, in the last thread that I saw someone say that they had a gunsmith and a firearms instructor also shoot their gun, it was suggested that maybe they all were pulling their shots so it wasn't good enough.

The point is that it takes a real masochist to post about problems around here unless you're willing to hear how it's you, not the gun... no matter what steps you've taken to eliminate yourself from the equation.

I would try it again at the range, if it does not improve for you I would call S&W and talk to them about the results, They have pretty good customer service for the most part and they maybe willing (I bet they will) help you out and want to see the gun to make sure it is in spec.

I'll just drop this here

You'd be surprised how using a rest can be complicated. Depends on the equipment layout. For handguns shooting off lower rifle rest height, most people have to contort in a very unnatural way- hunch over the table, crane the neck back level, shoulders up darn near the ears, etc. I see it just about every time I see people resting a handgun. The use of the word 'cradle' leads me to believe this was the case of resting the gun instead of, say, the forearms on a sandbag.

If you have a warranty send it back and have them fix it. There ARE problems with the 9mm pistols.
It may take two or more times. Ask me how I know.

VERY VERY TRUE

The distance I am shooting is 45' the spread is sometimes as much as 5" to 6"

By wrenching do you mean twisting the gtip?

If it's not shooter error, then that's pretty bad. My gun shoots like that (actually worse than that at times). Short story is that I sent it back to S&W, I called them to check on it, they told me that it was "within spec" and that they were going to send it back to me. I asked them to check it again, they said they were sending it back to me, and that if I found it to still be an issue then I should return it back to them again. Pretty asinine if you ask me since (1) they didn't do anything to it and (2) they still were in possession of the gun at the time. I didn't bother sending it back a second time.

I would recommend you try a sampling of ammo weights. Try bench resting again. If you can get groups at longer distances, that would be good as well... however if you're getting groups half a foot across at 15 yards, it's probably unnecessary. Just to pacify the naysayers, do some dry-firing from the rest before live-fire to make sure the sights are staying stable. It is usually preferable to rest your body instead of the gun... that being said, I find that resting the gun sometimes tends to shift POI but doesn't usually open up groupings.

When dry-firing, pay very close attention to see if the front sight jumps left or right when the striker releases. If it does, see if you can determine for certain that it's not shooter input. Your gun has (1) an overtravel stop and (2) a lighter and less gritty trigger pull, so it should be much easier to firing the gun than with a stock base model. I notice that, due to side-to-side slop between the frame and slide, that there is play that happens from either the momentum of the striker or release of tension between the sear and striker. This is secondary to the "early unlocking" issue. I was seeing maybe half of the shots go about where I called them with the other half spread out all over the place... some of the groups were in the 12"+ range at 25 yards. Shoot 10 round groups from the rest... since there is so much variation in shots, I needed to shoot more rounds. If I only shot three round groups, it's possible based on dumb luck that the three rounds might be relatively tightly grouped. The fourth one might be 8" away.

Are you shooting with a red dot? If so, make sure it's cranked down tight.

If you've done all this and your gun is still shooting flyers, you will have a decision to make. Even though my experience was poor, I would suggest giving S&W a shot at making it right.

I recently picked up a 9L Ported CORE and until tonight have only shot it on the IPSC course. Out to 50 yards I've had no issues hitting Steel or A's. Only issue I did have was getting it to cycle proper with reloads. Once I stepped up the charge, problem solved. With all the debate on these in regards to accuracy I figured I should go put it on paper and actually see how mine is. @ 25 yards just resting my arms on the bench to help eliminate the offhand movement and I'm under 3''.

Pretty confident once I get use to the red dot & trigger I will be able to tighten up the groups. And I haven't really done anything with the reload other then trying different primers which was the simplest first step.

I'll trade you guns... I'll even pick up the freight both ways and throw in a few extra mags. ;-)

Forgot to add... My recommendation to the OP. If you feel the barrel is perhaps unlocking to early and is suffering from the infamous dwell time issue then try this. Reload some rounds with 3grs of titegroup @ 1.140'' OAL. It will not cycle. In fact, I'd be surprised if the slide even budges. Therefore, the barrel will not unlock and dwell time is no longer an issue.
Sure you will have to rack the slide and feed them in and out etc. But if it still will not group. Then dwell time is not your issue.

If the barrel is fitted incorrectly or is extremely loose. I don't see how dwell time could even begin to be an issue as the barrel needs to lock up the same way every time, or at least as consistently as possible. And if it doesn't, then it won't group.

Interesting suggestion, however, it doesn't take much at all for the barrel to start to unlock. If mine moves the teeniest amount, it starts to drop. I did a comparable experiment and physically held the slide shut with my support thumb against the back of the slide. Unfortunately, the violence of a round going off introduces so much movement into pistol that it's impossible to say exactly what was going on for sure.

I didn't think of simply loading a very light round to try it... but based on 15 years of reloading experience, I'd be very surprised if you could get it low enough to both fail to move the slide AT ALL and still have the bullet exit the barrel. If the round pushes the slide back just a few thousandths, the slide will start to unlock / drop on my pistol.

To see if this was indeed the issue, I fired the gun with a different OEM barrel from another M&P that is more accurate... the gun was far less accurate using this barrel than the other gun was using the same barrel... so it's not the barrel.

Send it back to S&W I just went through this with my 9mm 5" Pro. Barrel and Slide and front sight was replaced. Shoots good now.

I can't help myself. I have to add this: I have NEVER seen so many people discuss the reasons for inaccuracy of a firearm as I have since joining this forum. Changing sight height ,barrels, testing, firing experimenting, changing sights, trigger kits, blaming people for how they shoot... if you bought a new firearm you should be able to just shoot it! From My experience. Some may have good accurate pistols some may not. Some may just try to defend them for whatever reason. I personally saw real problems with the M&P that I never saw with any other brand I own. ... i.e.. Walther, Beretta and CZ , Striker or hammer fire. I have also shot SIG, and Glock, Nothing was like hurling rocks like the M&P. There is a REAL PROBLEM with these M&Ps, In the area I live there are MANY for sale used. All Models, .45 9mm .40 Full size Compact, etc. Dealers Don't want them, and dealers and Gunsmiths alike don't have much good to say about them . No matter if they sell them or not. Its a decent design, just not well executed and I'm sure the ones used by their shooting team and on TV are specially made and tested as are the ones sent out for review. They can send the customer any freebees they want to. it doesn't make up for the failure of the firearm to deliver. As someone that got burned... What we are seeing here is a Company that is spitting out firearms "haphazardly" and skipping quality control to meet the demands and cash in on the rush on gun purchases. If a person wants a project gun. Go buy someone elses problem for $200 and experiment. We buy these new. and higher end models thinking we are buying a well made firearm. As far as them correcting the problems with production updates... Mine was manufactured in March of 2016

JUST MY OPINION

Hi Every one! I am in Australia! Just picked up my ported core yesterday!
first time to own a pistol,I just started shooting IPSC. I am X grunt so not new to shooting.
My pistol shoots very low and slightly to the left,and iam not talking new shooter low and left! its really low!
I shot it yesterday first time,also got a couple of our clubs top shooters to try also very low slightly left!
Please recomend replacement sights shooting IPSC?
also the front sight fouls up from the ported barrel couldn't see the white dot at all after 6 to 10 mags!
I am also considering an Apexp trigger kit any recommendations?
Also mag springs very tight hard to put rounds in??
Thanks Martin

Dawson Precision is the way to go but I'm not sure about availability down under.

Enjoy your foray into competition, it's a lot of fun.

UpLula magazine loader is the cure

__________________
Science plus Art

Yes fouling front sight! My main issue with porting, I wish I had done the research on ported barrels before I purchased it, I would have gone with the non-ported. I suppose a non ported barrel replacement, Of course have no Idea which aftermarket non-ported to drop in the 9L PC ported.

Video was Excellent, but focused on barrel performance only. There are too many other variables in the accuracy issue. The Apex man mentioned twice that the true benchmark are finely tuned 1911s. If you really want accuracy, dump the polymer gun and get a good 1911 and practice, practice, practice! Regards, Ed

What grain bullet are you using? Try different grain bullets. I might be that yours does not like 115 grain bullets, that it loves 124 or 147. When my daughter bought her CZ One of the things she had done was having FO sights put on. We shoot 124 grain bullets. The original FO sights that were put on where shooting low by multiple inches. They had to put a different height front sight on so it shot true with 124 grain bullets. So my suggestion is to try different grain bullets, you might be surprised.

As to the Apex kit... are you going to go for carry optics class? If no, then I recommend the FSS kit. The FSS kit is in both my 5" Pros and the husband's Core. On my ported core, I am keeping my options open. I already had an Apex competition spring kit and an Apex competition kit that I took out of another gun. From those parts I replaced the trigger return spring, the sear and sear spring and the striker spring (not really needed). It is running great at 3 lbs and I still have the original physical trigger. So with a barrel swap (I also have an Apex barrel) I can shoot in carry optics if I want.

As to the front sight dot disappearing due to crud being ejected from the ports... I think that is just the nature of the beast.

Guys complaining about the front sight fouling up must be shooting some real dirty ammo. I shot 150 rounds on Saturday and the white dot was still perfectly visible. I'm currently using W231 in my 9mm reloads and it burns super clean. Entire gun was cleaned in a few short minutes using LPS.

Perhaps try a different brand of ammo or switch powders.

Maybe some people shoot more.

Claims to have shot 6 - 10 mags. If they were 17 round mags then he shot between 102 & 170 rounds.

So in this particular case if I had shot an extra 20 rounds to match his 170, the dot still would have been visible.

I can't imagine that putting it on a rest scatters the shots so widely because if it's off, it should be consistently off in one spot. No offense OP, but have the range master shoot it and see what the range master's results are.