Another Cracked slide

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brucepointdi

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Shortly after completing an IDPA match on Saturday I began to clean my M&P 9 finding that I had a cracked slide. In searching the forum I found pictures of another cracked slide similar to mine. Am waiting for a shipping label to send it to the factory. It was a good shooter prior to this problem.

Our SO's are planning to inspect every M&P pistol before they can be used. They feel that the metal on the slides could break up causing catastrophic failure. Even talked about banning them until cause is made known.

It would be wise to inspect your M&P slides for cracks. I would hope S&W will release information on the problem before someone gets hurt.

Jim
 
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Shortly after completing an IDPA match on Saturday I began to clean my M&P 9 finding that I had a cracked slide. In searching the forum I found pictures of another cracked slide similar to mine. Am waiting for a shipping label to send it to the factory. It was a good shooter prior to this problem.

Our SO's are planning to inspect every M&P pistol before they can be used. They feel that the metal on the slides could break up causing catastrophic failure. Even talked about banning them until cause is made known.

It would be wise to inspect your M&P slides for cracks. I would hope S&W will release information on the problem before someone gets hurt.

Jim
 
Was the fracture in same area of the slide as the other poster? The fracture appeared to be a failure in an area where there should be little stress on the metal. Bad news.
 
Yes it is in almost the exact same place but my crack is about twice as long and runs up further. Like you said it is in a place of little or no stress. That is what has our safety officers freaking out. If it cracked there then why not in a critical stress point.
 
How many round shoot until slide crack. Can you claim Smith-Wesson for this problem.
 
Originally posted by brucepointdi:
Yes it is in almost the exact same place but my crack is about twice as long and runs up further. Like you said it is in a place of little or no stress. That is what has our safety officers freaking out. If it cracked there then why not in a critical stress point.
Click to expand...

It cracked there because of a machining issue causing a stress riser which lead to failure. It's a non-critical area of the slide, your SOs need to place a wet cloth on their foreheads and lie quietly for awhile.

Yes, it's covered by warranty, the first known incident happened on a weapon with over 22,000 rounds. Changes were made to the machining procedures/tooling in that area of the slide.
 
Non-critical? Any part of a gun I pay good money for that breaks is critical. A question for the original poster, did it take you 22,001 rounds to crack your slide?
 
Non-critical in this case means does not affect safety. In point of fact, in the two cases I'm aware of, it didn't affect function either. Didn't appear to affect function in the OP's weapon here.

The early Remington 1100 experienced some incidents of receiver cracking at the rear of the ejection port. Changes were made to the machining of the port and the problem was eliminated. Not all early 1100's experienced the issue and the model has achieved an outstanding reputation for reliability over the decades.

Isolated incidents of stress cracking in non- critical areas of mass produced items is one of those things that drive designers and engineers nuts. You do calculations, prototypes, tests to destruction and field tests and somehow these wierd events still occasionally occur.

Folks, we're talking about a small, longitudinal crack in a section of the slide rail. Bothersome if it happens to occur on your weapon, but speedily and cheerfully handled under warranty. This is not in the same class as the Beretta slide fractures that launched the rear of the slide at the shooter back in the 1980's.
 
I think we are aware of what non-critical means, WR. Point is, it shouldn't be fracturing. The warranty doesn't make it okay. You sound like a S&W rep, "Folks, we're talking about a small, longitudinal crack..." That's a crack I can do without, thank you.
 
Not a rep/S&W employee, however, I do have production and prototype machining experience in addition to nigh onto 40 years professional experience with firearms.

With this latest case, we know of 3 incidents out of a total production over 250,000 (a bit over 1 ten thousandths of 1 percent) at this point in time. The probable cause was determined and changes made some time back.

We have several hundred M&Ps going into their third year in service with no issues. I have a personlly owned pistol, as do numerous others without issue.

What I'm trying to do is put some perspective on the subject for those who might be interested in additional information on the subject. You're free to do as you wish.
 
No disrespect intended, WR. Seems like an unusual place for a fracture. I'd beg to differ on only 3 incidents in a quarter of a million, there have been at least 2 incidents on this forum that echo a friends recent fracture on his M&P, here in Connecticut.
 
The key phrase is "we know of".
From reading on the M&P forum there is one fellow who had a slide crack at over 20k rounds. He got a new pistol and has in excess of 50k through that one with no further issue.
Considering the failures I've seen on pistols over the years and considering that these have been in non critical areas it hardly seems worth getting too worked up over. Any model of pistol ever made can and will have failures.
 
As noted earlier, wierd stuff occasionally happens-especially when we're discussing stress cracks (ask me about my flatbed trailer
icon_mad.gif
, since fixed). And, it's happened to every known manufacturer at one time of another. Colt at one time had an epidemic of broken 1911 slide stops. Some of the explanations I heard for that blamed everything in the known universe but the factory. Smith at least has taken ownership and is fixing each of the very small number-whatever that might be- that have happened to date.

I've never actually seen one of the cracked slides, but looking at very good photos, I kinda wondered if that one particular incident wasn't a result of a forging defect in the steel. The engineers beg to differ, they've got better creds.

That particular incident is the first known and is featured on the M&P forum in the torture test thread. The cracked slide continued to function normally (for several thousand rounds, IIRC) until S&W delivered a replacement so that they could study the weapon. The replacement
weapon has since exceeded 50,000 rounds without incident.

And what JoeS said whilst I was typing this.
 
Originally posted by conn ak:
No disrespect intended, WR. Seems like an unusual place for a fracture. I'd beg to differ on only 3 incidents in a quarter of a million, there have been at least 2 incidents on this forum that echo a friends recent fracture on his M&P, here in Connecticut.
Click to expand...

Guns always break more on the Internet.
icon_biggrin.gif
 
The repair center at S&W is probably a busy place if you read this forum daily.
 
Originally posted by AKsRule:
Originally posted by conn ak:
No disrespect intended, WR. Seems like an unusual place for a fracture. I'd beg to differ on only 3 incidents in a quarter of a million, there have been at least 2 incidents on this forum that echo a friends recent fracture on his M&P, here in Connecticut.
Click to expand...

Guns always break more on the Internet.
icon_biggrin.gif
Click to expand...

yep. they break more on the net and they are dangerous, just like cars.
 
Originally posted by conn ak:
Cars don't kill...
Click to expand...
Whats your point? By the same token, guns don't kill...

Although there may be 4 or 5 M&Ps affected, I believe the cracked slide rail WR referenced was fired many hundreds of rounds after the crack was discovered with almost no noticeable effect. The gun's owner (and S&W) was interested in finding out if the crack would rapidly progress and cause the weapon to fail, it did not.
 
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