I have a M&P15-T...I heard some folks saying that S&W does not make the M&P rifles themselves, ie that it just slaps the logo onto them. Is this the case? What about the new piston versions?

Made in Smith & Wesson plant. Very, very early M&P 15's were made by StagArms, I think.

Bruce

Bruce

Barrels are made in their Thompson Center facility...state of the art barrel production plant. 100% S&W.

Correctamundo! Smith bought Thompson Center and are toatally done "in house".

rags

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RIP Shipmate

Yeah, I actually heard that they are one of the only AR manufacturers who does it all in house/sole source.

Does anyone know how the barrels are made? are they cut rifling or are they cold hammer forged? Thanks.

I'd be interested to know this also. Anyone?

I'm not so sure that the S&W uppers are made totally in house. I thought that as well, as I had seen tv shows and youtube videos of S&W's plant and interviews where marketing execs made the statement that uppers and lowers were forged in house, yet we find other forgers markings on our uppers. We had a thread about it last week...

http://smith-wessonforum.com/smith-w...-receiver.html

More than likely the barrels are all button rifled . The R5 barrel is for sure And the melonite finished R5 barrels are shooters. Some uppers and lowers come in as forgeings and are milled in house . Some have NO marks from out side venders and seem to be forged in house. Most all milled in house. They do own forgeing equipment so its a matter of supply and demand right now but the same quality parts the better companies use when brought in.

I am more interested in how the barrels are rifled. 5R rifling is just the type of rifling but the implementation can be done by button rifling, forging, single point cut rifling or broach rifling. Not sure which one was used.

Does anyone have a picture of what's rolled-marked on the barrels?

As for the assembly and manufacturing, I have confirmation directly from, at least, 2 S&W sources that the M&P15 are done in-house.

I have a question about the Melonite coating on the Sport. Is the actual BORE of the barrel coated?

My Sport is a really great shooter - I'm very happy with it in all respects. One of the first things I noted was that it seemed like the bore came clean much easier than my other AR. A couple of patches and they were coming out bright white. Some of that will be due to the reduced angle of the lands I'm sure, but is the bore also Melonite-coated? When you look down the bore, it appears bright, just like any other.

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Roger
USN, Retired, NRA Lifer

Melonite is not a coating it is a metal treatment that turns the outer layer of the base material into something very hard and durable. If you look up into the sticky thread index and read this thread you will learn more than you could ever imagine:
http://smith-wessonforum.com/smith-w...ecs-sport.html
just know that through the engineering tests it way outperforms chrome plating you find on other barrels and S&W are starting to use this barrel on other M&P15 series rifles that originally didnt use it.

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Grover Oathkeeper