Badly broken M&P 9

bolewine · Mar 4, 2012

HI All,
Last week I picked up my new M&P 9. What a nice gun! After having every other brand of polymer pistol in my hand, this was the one, it felt good right out of the box. I took it home and polished the feed ramp and gave the gun a really good cleaning, as I do to any new auto I buy. Next to the range. After 250 rounds I was getting used to the trigger and shooting better than any other 9mm I have. I was really happy with my purchase. All week long I was telling my friends what a great gun I just bought. So…. Saturday rolls around and as usual I'm off to the range to shoot my usual selection of handguns. .22, .38, 9mm, and .357. the M&P was shooting really well and the trigger was getting real nice. And I was getting used to it as this is my first striker fire pistol. So another 200 rounds down range and all is good. For my last 50 rounds I decide to do some double tap drills. Well about half way through my first mag. I felt a sharp pain and burning on my trigger finger, and the gun fired with a strange dull thump. After checking to see if I still had a finger, and I did! I picked up the pistol to find that the frame had split right along where the slide takedown leaver goes through the frame along the trigger and all the way down to the mag. release. Dam did that sting. It also bent the left hand slide release. The slide functions and the trigger fires. Any one ever see this? *** this gun is only 2 weeks old with less than 500 rounds through it! I called my local gun shop where I bought it. And asked if I should send it back to S&W and Randy the owner said bring it back to his shop and either he or S&W will make it right! I'm going to take some pictures and see if I can figure out how to post them. What do ya'll think?
Glad to still have 10 digits

Brett

CCWKY · Mar 4, 2012

Please tell us what kind of ammo you were using. Thanks

bolewine · Mar 4, 2012

Some old American Eagle 9mm luger automatic pistol I had laying around for about 15 years, I was shooting up old stock to make room for my reloads wich I had planned to shoot out of this gun. I was going to start working up a load for steel shooting. next week.

Reguards

Brett

handgunner356 · Mar 4, 2012

A couple of things come to mind, did you recover the brass from the last shot? If so be sure to include it along with a lot number of the ammo. Could be a out-of-spec round, fired out of battery, squib round lodged and followed by a good round pushing both out. The last usually results in a buldged barrel.

aslap · Mar 4, 2012

I've always wondered..

If really old ammo wouldn't wind up with a much higher pressure spike when shot than new ammo.

I could imagine the powder breaking down and possibly leaving more of a volatile content than when new. I'm no chemist (and don't play one on TV) but I could sure see powder degradation going more towards shooting hotter than normal as opposed to shooting weaker.

Maybe.

Tony S.

FDE · Mar 4, 2012

I never seen anything like that happen to an M&P using factory loads. I'm glad you were not injured when the damage occurred! Send the gun back to S&W and they will make it right. Please don't let this freak occurrence keep you from enjoying the M&P; it really is a great gun.

growr · Mar 4, 2012

Your gun appears to me like it somehow fired out of battery with so much downward thrust from the energy.

Let Smith take VERY good care of you.

Randy

bolewine · Mar 4, 2012

Three other box's of this ammo was fine. I could not recover the case, as I was at a public range. 9mm brass all over the place, no way to tell wich one it was.

bolewine · Mar 4, 2012

I was using several different brands of ammo to test for function. Before I worked up a load, for accuracy. It also seems to me that it somehow fired out of battery. My goal for this gun was to use it to shoot in a local steel league. With my own cast lead bullets and a soft shooting load. But now ya wanna talk about "a little gun shy" ya maybe just a little!

geoff40 · Mar 4, 2012

If the barrel looks ok by eye, push a patch or 2 through it, see if you can feel a bulge. If the barrel isn't bulged, thats for sure a head scratcher!
Glad you're ok. Let us know when you get the answer please.

firecracker6 · Mar 4, 2012

That's really strange. I seriously doubt the age of the ammo had anything whatsoever to do w/ it. Back when I was in the Field Artillery we regularly used powder that was 30+ years old.

spirit4earth · Mar 4, 2012

Bad news! Sorry that happened. Will you get another M&P?

markush · Mar 4, 2012

Glad your ok...

His extractor is tweaked also. I saw the pics and immediately wondered if I was going to read anything about "reloads"...and indeed the OP did mention them in a second post

bolewine said:
I was shooting up old stock to make room for my reloads wich I had planned to shoot out of this gun.

Does this mean you had reloads on hand but you don't think you used them yet?

I would have scooped up every piece of brass at that range to ensure I found the offending case and could prove it was a factory round...Especially if I reload!

bolewine · Mar 4, 2012

The old stock was all factory odds and ends you know a box of this left over from a bulk buy.

markush · Mar 4, 2012

bolewine said:
Some old American Eagle 9mm luger automatic pistol I had laying around for about 15 years, I was shooting up old stock to make room for my reloads wich I had planned to shoot out of this gun. I was going to start working up a load for steel shooting. next week.

Reguards

Brett

bolewine said:
The old stock was all factory odds and ends you know a box of this left over from a bulk buy.

When it smells like fish...

Again, I'm glad you weren't hurt but I've read enough. I'm leaving now.

fiasconva · Mar 4, 2012

Please let us all know what S&W says and does about this, ok?

Fat B · Mar 4, 2012

Some duct tape and she'll be fine!

Ah, all kidding aside, I'm glad you weren't hurt. I've never hear of that before. My educated guess is something wasn't quite right with the ammo that you were using. Instead of bring it back to the shop I'd send it to Smith and Wesson to see what they'll do for you. Maybe metion the name brand of the ammo but not the age of it unless they ask. They may throw in some extra goodies to appease you.

geoff40 · Mar 4, 2012

I am no expert on this, but it seems to me that an out of battery round would have the action still open, and so I don't understand how the gas wouldn't simply vent instead of blowing the frame like that. I am very interested. Did it cycle a live round in to the chamber after this happened? Is the top of the magazine that was in the gun damaged?

scooter123 · Mar 4, 2012

bolewine said:
The old stock was all factory odds and ends you know a box of this left over from a bulk buy.

This sounds a lot like the tale told with some of those ziplock bags of ammo sold at gun shows. If you don't have provenance and lot numbers for every single round IMO it's safe to assume that ammo was reloads. If so, the result is what you now have, a blown up gun.

Key to knowing for certain what happened is the condition of the barrel. If the barrel is totally unharmed it's likely you had an out of battery ignition, which S&W will cover under the warranty.

If the chamber or barrel tube shows evidence of a case failure or squib, that won't be covered by S&W under it's warranty. The simple fact is that a case head failure is an ammo defect and a squib is a combination of ammo and shooter defect. Since you don't know the actual history of what you were shooting, and didn't recover the casing, that means that the cost for this will be all yours.

Not what you want to hear I'm sure. Just keep in mind that you weren't harmed and treat it as a learning experience.

bolewine · Mar 5, 2012

More pic's

Ok here's some pics of the barrel, I can't see any damage. The other pics are of the ammo I was using at the time this happened. This day at the range I fired three different brands of ammo that were leftover, full boxes of factory loaded American eagle-almost 3 boxes, 2 boxes of wolf factory loaded ammo, and 1 box of pmc factory ammo. I was running different types to see if this pistol had a preference or trouble cycling any of them. All have been around for a while and are the end of bulk buys of each brand. The only other ammo in my range bag that day were .22 factory ammo for my 22a, and .38 special that I have been reloading for years. 38 is what I shoot the most of right now. And haven't even set up to load 9mm, so it would be impossible to have any 9mm reloads in the bag. I had wanted to use this M&P to shoot in the upcoming steel league this summer. Where I would prefer to shoot lead, or copper pleated lead. With a light recoil, to help get back on target faster. I have never shot my Turuas 92 enough to reload for it. But, love shooting my Blackhawk with a red dot, a really accurate gun. And my S&W 38, that I carry every day. I didn't post these pictures so the nay sayers can smell fishy bags of ammo dancing in their heads. This is a serious situation and I wanted to see what the experts on this site had to say. As I had thought that this pistol had fired out of battery. Or maybe an out of spec. round.
Brett

Badly broken M&P 9

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