I bought an m&p 40 a few months back. When I got my two magazine rebate they had a different baseplate than the two that came with the gun. In the photo it is the one on the right. They do not drop free, only coming about 1/3 of the way out of the grip. Anyone else had this issue? I'm going to call customer service to see if they'll replace them with the older style.

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All my M&P9 magazines look like the bottom magazine and all drop free.

Since these are plastic there's no reason you can't remove any high points on the other magazines. I doubt S&W will exchange them, but who knows.

Never depend on your magazines to drop free anyway. You'll merely look stupid shaking the pistol on the range. At 0200 in a dark parking lot things are different. Strip the magazine out of the pistol, every time.

-- Chuck

Plastic? All my M&P mags are steel. Are these 10rd mags that are sticking, could it be where the base attaches to the tube?

No my mags are full capacity mags and are all steel. This morning I field stripped the pistol and took some fine grit sand paper to the inside of the magazine well. That seems to have fixed the problem. I'm just curious, does anyone else out there have these mags and if they have had any issues with them, or if my pistol just has an extra tight may well.

Thanks all,
Mike

I find it odd. On both my M&Ps, the magazines fall out so well that I almost think they're spring loaded.

I have had to clean up the magwell and the mags using alcohol because of some residue from my mag holder. I also have had an issue of mags falling out during a match but called S&W and they gave me a new retention spring which took care of the problem.

The two mags that came with the pistol jump right out its the other two that were giving me trouble.

What kind of residue was building up in your may well? Like leather particles? I'm using kydex mag pouches and holster right now.

I decided to post the problem because I hadn't seen any other posts about it and thought you all might be interested.

I love my M&P by the way. I worked for an agency that issued 4006tsw's. It was a good gun and got me hooked on Smiths. But this gun is a dream to carry compared to the substantial hunk of steel that is the 4006.

Mike

Just grabbed my M&P9 and darned if the mags ain't steel!

See where the wear marks are rubbing. Magazine catch is a common place in many pistols.

-- Chuck

I have Fobus 2 mag holder and on the inside is a patch of material that helps with the retention. Some of the glue from the material had gotten on my mags and then transferred to the gun. Simple alcohol rub cleaned then right up. Don't get me wrong, the Fobus equipment I have is great, just one of those things. I have not had an issue since with the mag holder or my holster for that matter.

I've got 3 steel mags for my M&P .45 ... they all drop just fine.

Swap a base plate from a magazine that pops out with one that doesn't. Test both mags.

I know this thread is two years old, but I have this exact problem.
Mags that came with the gun fly out of the frame, while mags purchased after get stuck. Same story with the different base plates. Even milled the mags, still stick.

Any suggestions?

Additional info:
Over 3k rounds thru the weapon.
The follower on the mags that came with the gun sit higher than the mags I purchased after.
The two mags were purchased from different stores.

All of my FS 9mm mags drop free from my two 9mms. I bought a lightly used M&P VTAC .40 locally, and the two FDE mags are a bit sticky. The other .40 mags I have drop out with no problem. It appears there may have been a run of magazines that might be slightly bigger than specs?

I think I agree with you that there might be a run of mags that were slightly with slightly larger specs. I also have the VTAC, but I have the reverse problem. The ones that came with it jump right out of frame, but the ones I purchased after crawl out, if they make it out at all.

I am waiting to hear back from the customer service. I'm not sure what they can offer; maybe exchange mags for better ones.

I had this problem with my .40S&W. I honestly believe we are running into an issue with stacking tolerances. The mag well in your gun may be a the tighter end of the tolerance and the mag you're having trouble with is at the larger end of its tolerance.

I did three things to solve my problem:

1. Lightly sanded the inside of the mag well.
2. Lubricated the magazine tube with Froglube.
3. Worked a lot with inserting and removing the mags.

Now all my mags drop freely.

__________________
Freedom isn't free.

Just got a brand new mag in. It sticks like the others did. Hmmm, must be a mag problem.

__________________
Freedom isn't free.

One trick I've used is to coat the mag tube with white shoe polish and see where it is actually rubbing. Then I either work the tube or magwell to get the clearance that I need.

I coat the magwell with some CLR, nice thin rubdown and you should be fine

Sent from my C811 4G using Tapatalk

Living here in the desert, coating a magwell with any type of lubricant is asking for trouble. The dust klings to anything with lube on it.

I usually just use a couple of drops of Tetra Gun on the slide rails, and the pistols work fine.

I had the same problem with myFS40 two-tone. Sent it to SW and they changed out the mag. followers. Now all three mags drop out fine, not as strong eject as my 40c but they eject fine.

__________________
Aim Small-Miss Small

Same issue with my compact M&P 9mm…doesn't fall free some of the time. The FS guns work great.

I have a M&P40 I just picked up 2 weeks ago. I have the same issue with the magazines. Now from what I understand, there has been several production changes. Changes to the slide catch, followers, and the trigger bar. All which seems to have some effect with each other.

With the slide catch:
20130921-M&PSlideStops_3Gen | Modern Service Weapons

On Gen 2 & 3, the "tang" seems longer, which is supposed to sit on the magazine follower shown in this picture:
Tapatalk

Now on this site, it lists all the latest production updates:
Current production S&W M&P's (Update)

I believe that since all the latest updates are not installed together it may be causing the magazines to get stuck. Each change created a domino effect. Just my opinion and my rant...Because this is my very first pistol I ever owned and shot. And I suck very badly! HAHA!!

Or you can try this fix:
How to fix the magazine drop free for M&P 9 - YouTube

I now managed to fix a few issues regarding the magazine not dropping free. I took off the slide lock, & with 2 pliers I repositioned the "tang" that pushes down on the magazine follower. Very positive magazine ejection! This issue was more obvious for me because I'm a lefty. So the magazine catch is on the left side of the magazine well pushing the magazine to the right. So I remedied it. While I had the slide lock out, I slightly bent in the right slide lock button that rides against the trigger bar. It increased the audible/tactile feel of the trigger reset.

All functions well! I hope this helps anyone with similar issues.

I believe the comment about plastic was referring to the base plate itself rather than the entire magazine - and that it some portion of the larger base plate was causing interference then it could be easily modified.

Both magazines that came with my new M&P40c failed to eject about half the time. I remedied the problem by taking a fine grit piece of sandpaper to the forward, left edge of the plastic magazine follower. There is a small, angled edge of the follower that rubs against the slide stop just sufficiently keep the mag from dropping when the mag eject button is hit. If you insert a magazine with the slide removed you can see the SMALL amount of material that needs to be de-burred. It took only about two passes with very fine grit paper. I did this to all my mags and now they drop fine.

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Well, Polpaul1, you have potentially ruined your mag follower. That corner that you filed, is supposed to go under the slide stop. It is what pushes the slide stop up to lock the slide back after the last round.

The mag followers that ride on the side of the slide stop tab are actually defective and S&W has redesigned them. They will send you a couple for free if you ask.

__________________
Freedom isn't free.

I'm sorry, that previous post sounded rude. That was not my intentions. I wasn't at home when I posted it and couldn't include these pictures.

I believe that you were having this problem:


However, this is how it should work:



By sanding off that corner, you've actually increased the possibility of a malfunction.

__________________
Freedom isn't free.

I heard "Dremel Tool and a cutting blade" on a video about fixing a gun.

That's a big red flag right there.

Rastoff, YES...your pictures are exactly the problem I was having. Actually, I did not remove the corner--only smoothed it out very slightly. That appeared to fix the problem and I've had no issues since. But I will take your advice and contact S&W for replacement followers. Looking at your pics it's clear the followers I have are not designed correctly. My fix might work temporarily but it's not a good permanent solution. Thanks for letting me know.

Kinda doubt it's a design problem after 7 years of production-although there's been some very slight revisions; generally about height of follower to ensure loading of the last round. Possibly, very possibly, a bad follower mold.

Or, as some have suggested, tolerance stack-with or without bad follower.

I called S&W and they sent me two new followers. I replaced the ones that came with the gun and that solved the problem.