Traded an AR I had laying around for a Non-Ported 9L CORE. Came with 5 mags, a bladetech holster, Talon grips, Apex Ram, and supposedly the APEX Competition kit.

The trigger feels really good outside of the curved trigger. Nice and smooth.

Finish is decent, a few wear spots from where the guy holstered it.
Bad news is no original parts and he lost all but the #2 plate, including the original Cover.

Hopefully Smith will replace those. I have a Burris Fast Fire 3 on the way, as that is what a buddy is using, and was told I needed the #5 plate.

Kind of wanted a ported model, but none showing up on the trader places here so I jumped on this one. To be honest, I didn't notice much difference, if any, on my buddies Ported CORE and my Pro 5".



My M&P family


(The pin for the sear block housing is missing from the 5" Pro because the new CORE came with some thumb rest thing that had a longer pin)

Finally got around to shooting the core. The competition kit is quite nice. Though the hinged trigger still sucks so I traded it out with an Apex trigger. Haven't been able to shoot it since.
To be honest the competition kit is nice but not mind blowing vs my 5" pro. A little smoother and lighter, but my 4.25" pro is very heavy compared to this core with the apex kit.

A buddy bought a used 40 pro with an apex kit installed but he never figured out which kit. It has the aluminum trigger but is has almost zero pre travel or over travel so I'm guessing it's an fss kit. I may look into getting one for my core.

Also, the optic plates finally came in, so have my fast fire 3 mounted now.

I bought a used one in 9, that the original owner had installed a forward facing trigger in. I put a fast fire three on it and it never shot great. I installed the Apex fitted barrel and holey cow does it shoot great now! It reminds me of my old 52 Smith.

I shoot it in local Steel Challenge matches and could never get use to the dot sight. Also the front of the lens was always covered in carbon fouling so I sold the sight. I can't imagine how a ported barrel would do on sight fouling.

So got to the range to shoot the CORE with the FF3 on it, and got it sighted in fairly quickly, but after about 3 mags I couldn't see the dot through the center anymore, only around the edges. The lens looks fine but it appears that maybe a casing flew back and crack the glass. Kind of disappointed.
Wasn't really paying attention to how it was throwing cases. Will have to go back soon and see where its ejecting cases at.

So the lens covering the LED emitter got cracked. So I sent the FF3 back and Burris shipped out a new one, just got it in yesterday. Also put in a flat faced FSS kit. Dry firing, I wasn't sure I would like the Flat trigger but man, at the range, it is an amazing trigger.
I did use a factory trigger return spring and the competition striker spring.
Also went ahead and replaced the extractor with an APEX one just in case.