I just picked up my first handgun, an M&P 9 FS. I have a couple of questions.
1. The magazine follower on both mags is light gray. In pictures I've seen online, they are black. Do they occasionally change the colors?

2. I live in NJ, so I had to get the 10 round mags, but there was no test fired shell casing in the carry case. My FFL said they are not included in the 10 round versions because they are illegal in MA, so he said S&W doesn't put them in any of the cases because they don't know what states the gun will finally be sold in.
Is this true? I don't see why S&W can't include them and the MA FFL dealers remove them before handing the gun over to the customer. Have any of you in NJ received the test fired shell casings? I will call S&W to verify if this is true, but wanted to check with the forum .

Anyway, this gun is well made and very comfortable in the hand and I can't wait to get it to the range after cleaning it first.

I have a Performance Center M&P 9mm About a year old now. Yes on the grey but they are 17rnd mags and mine came with a spent casing.

My full size M&P 9 also has 17 round mags with gray followers and came with a spent casing. However, I read somewhere that S&W recently stopped including spent casings with their guns because the law requiring them was changed. My new M&P Shield was manufactured earlier this year and did not come with a spent casing.

My M&P9 FS has a May 15 2016 build date.

Grey mag follower, no spent casing. So same as you.

Manufacturers stopped including spent casings about a year ago due to some b.s Mass law not proving as successful as the liberals in Mass thought it would. You're good!


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My new 9L Pro (dated 6-17-2016) came with two 17 round mags with grey followers and had a black magic marker line across the follower of each mag. The OEM mags I bought separately did not have the marker lines.

If you want to know whether the handgun was test fired, look around the firing pin on the breech block and there will be small amounts of brass in a faint circle from the fired casing. Also the finish on each of the 4 steel rails on the frame will show small shiny marks from the slide recoil that happened when it was test fired. So I didn't need an empty shell casing to know mine was test fired.

Correct, the supplied mags for mine also had the black marker line
I'm guessing a QC thing. 4 S&W mags purchased later also
same as your's, no marker.

Thank you for all your responses. I did call S&W today and they said they discontinued including the test fired shell casing because one state didn't require it anymore.
My mags also have the black marker lines on the followers.