M&P 2.0 Compact 3.6" RSA failure

Got my 2.0 Compact back on in July, and I've been shooting it whenever I can. So far, not one single bobble. The gun has been flawless, but when I broke it down at about 150-175 round point, I noticed the recoil spring had begun to "walk off" the end of the guide rod. It looked like this:




No way I could get the recoil spring assembly (RSA) back into the slide. I could never get the guide rod lined up through the now uncaptured end of the spring long enough to get it back into the slide. I finally had a thought, and pushed the spring down onto the guide rod, and then cinched a zip tie at the end to hold the spring down. Then I slipped the RSA back into the slide and clipped the zip tie. Voila'. The slide cycled fine, and when I went back out to the range, the gun cycled fine. I called S&W CS, explained the problem, and they promised to send out a replacement RSA.


In the meantime, I read of another shooter with the same gun, same problem. He said he ordered a replacement RSA from MidwayUSA, and it dropped in and functioned fine. I thought I'd give that a try, as I didn't want to wait for the part from S&W to arrive.


The RSA advertised by Midway (and others) is S&W Part #: 391160000, which S&W specifically says will not work in the 2.0 Compacts. The CSR at S&W told me the correct part number for the Compact RSA is #3002626.

When I got mine, I decided to swap it into my 2.0 Compact to see if it would work, as I was headed out for another range day, and didn't want to leave behind what has become my favorite pistol.

Although the RSA didn't really compress when installed into the slide like a normal RSA, it functioned fine and I put 120 rounds through the gun using that RSA without a single hiccup. (Man, do I ever love this gun).

The new part finally came. The part number is, as reported, #3002626.



The spring is yellow, like the 1.0 Compact one, but you can see it's noticeably longer.



2.0 right, 1.0 left.

Here's the 1.0 RSA



And the 2.0 RSA



The 2.0 RSA looks like it's almost .1" longer.

So, the RSA's are clearly different parts. The 2.0 RSA is longer. It looks like they both have 24 coils, but there's no telling if the spring rates are the same, etc.

So, moral(s) of the story:


Check the RSA in your 2.0 Compact closely, especially if it's the 3.6" model. Mine started walking after 150 rounds or so.


S&W will ship out a replacement free of charge, but it took over 10 days to arrive, and I can almost see Springfield, MA from my house. YMMV.


It appears that the 1.0 RSA will work in a pinch, but I wouldn't want to use it long term.

Hmm...as a recent 3.6" new owner, this makes me nervous.

Unless you also posted to reddit, OP, this makes three instances of recoil spring failures on this model.

See:

M&P 2.0 w/ 3.6" barrel - recoil spring failure : SmithAndWesson

And:

Should I be concerned about the recoil spring on my M&P 2.0c 3.6" barrel? : SmithAndWesson


Sooooo....

zspibble said:

Hmm...as a recent 3.6" new owner, this makes me nervous.

Unless you also posted to reddit, OP, this makes three instances of recoil spring failures on this model.

See:

M&P 2.0 w/ 3.6" barrel - recoil spring failure : SmithAndWesson

And:

Should I be concerned about the recoil spring on my M&P 2.0c 3.6" barrel? : SmithAndWesson

Sooooo....

Click to expand...

Not me. Not on Reddit.

Seems worth giving it the once-over when you're cleaning. As I mentioned, as long as the RSA remains captured by the slide, there was no function issue, but still.

Same exact thing happened to mine. Got my 3.6" about a week ago and put around 150 through it. Shot great. Felt great. No hiccups. Fired fmj, and 3 different hp's. Popped the spring out to clean everything, and saw a few spring coils had slipped off the guide rod.

I was initially kind of annoyed. This is my first MP pistol. Gonna call S&W see if they'll send me replacements. I just "screwed" the coils back on the rod, went right back to normal. Don't know how they slipped off.

The front of my spring is spray painted yellow. I don't know what that's about. That was kind of annoying too. I got yellow paint chips all in my slide lol.

Man it was fun to shoot though. Softer shooting than my Glock 17. Just has a nice feel. Hope it proves to be tough and reliable over time. Seems like this spring issue is common, so hopefully SW will tweak the design a bit.

Looks like a call to S&W is in order, before it becomes a problem.

I got my new spring,, after an email to S&W, last Friday. Just about 10 days after the initial email.

Just got off the phone with customer service. They're sending me a "one time courtesy RSA replacement under warranty".

Whatever the heck that means. I didn't necessarily care for a couple things the guy told me - 1) this is a courtesy replacement. If it happens again, he said I'll have to send my gun in. 2) this is a new pistol and th first call they've received about the recoil spring assembly. I suspect that was a lie. If this was in fact the very first call they've received, it would mean, for one, the creator of this thread is a dirty liar! And two, I would imagine they would have a few more questions for me as they might be curious what exactly happened to cause the first failure of a recoil spring in the 3.6 compact. The call was about as satisfying as talking to a service writer at a big car dealership.

Anyway, new spring should be here in 7-10. I hope nothing happens to that one because I don't really want to ship my pistol back, I might just prefer to sell it at that point.

Plus I'm fairly certain it ain't the gun that's causing this somewhat questionable looking spring to fail. I really think it might be as simple as the cap on the front of the guide rod is too small. You can slip the springs over it. You should not be able to do that. It needs a wider cap holding the springs in.

Mashburned said:

Just got off the phone with customer service. They're sending me a "one time courtesy RSA replacement under warranty".

Whatever the heck that means. I didn't necessarily care for a couple things the guy told me - 1) this is a courtesy replacement. If it happens again, he said I'll have to send my gun in. 2) this is a new pistol and th first call they've received about the recoil spring assembly. I suspect that was a lie. If this was in fact the very first call they've received, it would mean, for one, the creator of this thread is a dirty liar! And two, I would imagine they would have a few more questions for me as they might be curious what exactly happened to cause the first failure of a recoil spring in the 3.6 compact. The call was about as satisfying as talking to a service writer at a big car dealership.

Anyway, new spring should be here in 7-10. I hope nothing happens to that one because I don't really want to ship my pistol back, I might just prefer to sell it at that point.

Plus I'm fairly certain it ain't the gun that's causing this somewhat questionable looking spring to fail. I really think it might be as simple as the cap on the front of the guide rod is too small. You can slip the springs over it. You should not be able to do that. It needs a wider cap holding the springs in.

Click to expand...

[Crossposting here, as there are two threads sort of talking about the spring right now]:


The nut at the forward end of the rod doesn't look quite big enough for the spring, I agree. At 100 rds, I disassembled and it looked like the tippy of the yellow painted end of the spring was starting to work its way over. I finger-snugged it back down, then fired another 150 rds through today.

Just finished cleaning, the spring stayed put after this most recent range trip...

I don't understand why S&W continues to have problems with the RSA's on the M&P series. I have both a Shield 9 and 45 that had the RSA's blow apart within the first couple hundred rounds. This doesn't seem to be an ongoing issue with other manufacturers or third party replacements, so why can't S&W make a solid RSA?

Is there a 3rd party replacement for the 3.6" RSA yet?

Yep, it's the same old story- they ain't got time to do it right, but they got time to do it over.

Here's something I noticed well before I found the coils had slipped off my guide rod, and noticed more as I play around with it now...

If I'm doing a press check, resetting the trigger, etc, that short pull is extremely light, and the slide fails to return to battery upon release. If there is no round in the chamber the slide will return to battery on its own (barely) but if a round is chambered and I pull the slide back slightly, it will not snap back in battery on its own. I have to kind of shake the gun and give it some momentum to slam back home.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the spring gets very tight towards the end of the pull. It's not easy to lock the slide back for example. And it's not easy to slingshot the slide on a reload. The slide is very hesitant/hard to pull back once it's locked. That's kind of annoying. It barely moves backwards after the lock position...if that makes sense. Makes it difficult to slingshot.

I hope that makes sense. This is my first MP pistol, so I don't gave anything to compare it to other than my glocks which feel very different in terms of how that RSA feels and operates. Those are a more smooth and steady pull throughout, where this one starts extremely light, so light that it won't snap back to battery after press check,, and then ends up extremely heavy, so heavy it's hard to lock back and slingshot. It just feels uneven.

Why press check when there is a hole for a loaded chamber indicator?

I am NOT a fan of press checks. In part because of the chance for not going into full battery. Regardless of manufacturer, any press check should be followed with inspection and/or a routine tap to the back of the slide to ensure that the slide is in full battery position. Simple to do.

Of course a spring will be light when it is near fully extended (relaxed) and hard when compressed to near maximum. There should not be much movement further rearward after fully locked back. You only need about 1mm to release the slide lock to slingshot. Personally I like the very small movement necessary to perform the slingshot.

These guns are not meant to be babbied. And slowly and gingerly/timidly doing a press check and not ensuring with a tap on the back of the slide to ensure in full battery is just asking for trouble. In my opinion. YMMV

I agree. I don't do press checks with live ammo. There's no reason to.

I'm just working with this spring and getting a feel for it and how it behaves.

When you do a press check does your slide slam back with some authority? Or is it weak and sometimes gets hung up?

Got my replacement RSA in the mail today.

It's not a dual spring assembly. It doesn't feel "janky". Operates smoothly, slams back into battery with sufficient force after press checks. More even and substantial feel to it compared to the defective original dual spring.

...we'll see it it pops off the guide rod. The front of the rod still looks insufficient, like that spring could hop off the front, but I'm assuming this single spring won't do that just based on the fact that it was the secondary dual spring that came unthreaded on the original RSA. I'm also assuming there's a reason they sent me this new single spring, and they know it works like it should. You know what they say about assuming...

The new RSA they sent is product code #3002626

Got my new rsa today. It seems the last half loop of spring comes along side the end cap of the guide rod. Maybe this is where the issue arises from? Not being completely under the cap, but halfway off to begin with?

My new one was the same, it does look odd, but after shooting it the end of the spring was forced back under the end cap. See what yours does.

The new spring performed well for me. I think it was just a design problem with that double spring.

Mashburned said:

My new one was the same, it does look odd, but after shooting it the end of the spring was forced back under the end cap. See what yours does.

The new spring performed well for me. I think it was just a design problem with that double spring.

Click to expand...

Wait...are you saying your original spring wasn't a single spring?

And reading I see you have the 3.6" 2.0c...I have the 3.6" and am fairly certain it has a single spring assembly standard...now I need to look more closely...wondering what other 3.6" owners have to say about single vs double spring?

My 3.6" is single spring. Another thread has shown now several failures of the guide rod spring on the 3.6" version.

Very disappointing as I recieved my 3.6" and have not even gotten to the range yet, and now these reports of guide rod spring failures. Makes be less confident about eventually carryimg it of rhe slrimg could fsil at any time.

Yes I know ANY spring on ANY gun could fail at any time. But there is a big difference in your confidence when there is only one spring failure report per 100,000 guns, versus 7 failuers in 10,000. Or whatever the numbers are. You get my point.

Mashburned said:

The new spring performed well for me. I think it was just a design problem with that double spring.

Click to expand...

These guns come with a single spring. Not a double spring setup. The original poster posted a picture of this "double spring" setup, and what you are actually looking at is a picture of a single spring, that broke in half, and then wound its way down the guide rod, effectively shortening the spring. Its not a double spring. Its a broken spring.

I have highlighted the broken spring location in the original op's picture.

If you own one of these pistols and find a "double spring" recoil spring setup, its broken.

Are the newer 2.0 compacts having this problem, too? Is it just a 3.6" problem, or 4" too?