LA Sheriffs Dept dropping M&P9?...

Originally posted by kbm6893:
If the LASD feels their officers woule be better served with something else, what do you care?
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I am not sure why you got so defensive because I was on a rant and said so. Are you with LASD? The reason I care is that I hate to see S&W, Beretta, Glock, SIG or any of these companies have their good products run into the ground by agencies without sufficient cause. Two out of 49 privately owned pistols and some new recruits who might have crappy ammo or who might by limp wristing do not seem like a case of the sky falling in which justifies this kind of public over reaction by pulling all of these guns from service.

As to your question, I do NOT care what that agency thinks. If it were up to me, I would get all the gun companies together and stop servicing these whining agencies who get the firearms companies to bend over backwards to meet every demand, and then turn around and stab the company in the back by running down the product that their own testing revealed was appropriate not long before this sudden new revelation.

If agencies gave a crap about officer safety, they would buy cars that do not catch fire when rear ended, because accidents are far more prevalent than gun fights.

The fact is that it is easier to pick on a gun company, be it Glock, S&W, Beretta, SIG or whatever, than it is a giant like Ford Motor Company that has the resources to tell these agencies to "shove it."

I noticed when Ford threatened to shut down Crown Vic production a few years ago after numerous agencies defamed the car, the agencies all shut up and just started buying "fire retardant systems."

I find it hard to believe that this is really an "officer safety" issue, but perhaps I have been tainted by a series of incidents where agencies test a pistol, proclaim it worthy, then all of a sudden make a big public spectacle and run the product into the ground.

Often, it seems like more of an issue where someone got their feelings stomped on when a brand was adopted or approved that the "arms room," or the firearms people did not want, and so they make it possible to return to or adopt whatever they wanted in the first place.
 
Oh well....BFD! I am sure that S&W will survive.

If they feel better with Beretta's so be it.

Whipee do

Bob



Bob
 
Would be interesting to be able to follow this further.
If you make enough of anything there will be a certain failure rate. I've seen Bar-Sto barrels for a 1911 shear the bottom lug off for example and that is thought to be a premium barrel. When I went through the police academy in 1986 I saw Sig 220s in .45 repeatedly fail to extract with the training ammo provided. (CCI blazer in this case).
Its interesting but I've got three M&Ps that are performing well and I wouldn't get rid of any of them over this.
 
I have an M&P9 and two XDM9's. I have a few thousand combined rounds through these handguns with no malfunctions. I think I am going to gift the M&P to one of my sons and keep the XDM's. I like striker fired guns for nightstand duty due to simplicity of operation, mag capacity and easy tactical light attachment to the rail. Most bolt action rifles are striker fired with few problems.
 
Originally posted by shawn mccarver:
Originally posted by kbm6893:
If the LASD feels their officers woule be better served with something else, what do you care?
Click to expand...

I am not sure why you got so defensive because I was on a rant and said so. Are you with LASD? The reason I care is that I hate to see S&W, Beretta, Glock, SIG or any of these companies have their good products run into the ground by agencies without sufficient cause. Two out of 49 privately owned pistols and some new recruits who might have crappy ammo or who might by limp wristing do not seem like a case of the sky falling in which justifies this kind of public over reaction by pulling all of these guns from service.

As to your question, I do NOT care what that agency thinks. If it were up to me, I would get all the gun companies together and stop servicing these whining agencies who get the firearms companies to bend over backwards to meet every demand, and then turn around and stab the company in the back by running down the product that their own testing revealed was appropriate not long before this sudden new revelation.

If agencies gave a crap about officer safety, they would buy cars that do not catch fire when rear ended, because accidents are far more prevalent than gun fights.

The fact is that it is easier to pick on a gun company, be it Glock, S&W, Beretta, SIG or whatever, than it is a giant like Ford Motor Company that has the resources to tell these agencies to "shove it."

I noticed when Ford threatened to shut down Crown Vic production a few years ago after numerous agencies defamed the car, the agencies all shut up and just started buying "fire retardant systems."

I find it hard to believe that this is really an "officer safety" issue, but perhaps I have been tainted by a series of incidents where agencies test a pistol, proclaim it worthy, then all of a sudden make a big public spectacle and run the product into the ground.

Often, it seems like more of an issue where someone got their feelings stomped on when a brand was adopted or approved that the "arms room," or the firearms people did not want, and so they make it possible to return to or adopt whatever they wanted in the first place.[/QUOTE}

Actually, I am not defensive at all. I could care less what some PD issues it's officers. I personally thing that they are doing the right thing. Enough problems have arisen since adopting the gun to make the agency think it puts it's officers in danger. Was it a bad batch? I don't know. But I do know that it is better to be safe than sorry. And your post reaks of anti-cop sentiment, so I think that is where your rant comes from. If you have never been a member of any of the departments you slammed, how can you know why they made their changes? The NYPD Glock 19 was problematic from day 1, and Glock did nothing until they were about to lose the contract. They dragged their feet for over a year, and I wish the NYPD yanked those Glocks as quickly as the LASD did. And I don't think the LASD made this public. This is an INTERNAL memo that some member posted on the internet.

They should just give each officer a stipend to spend on the duty weapon, mags, and leather of his choice. I hate the fact that most dept's. force their choice of weapon on the guy who'se going to carry it.
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shawn
What should the LASD do now that they know their M&Ps have safety and or reliability issues? First, they do not want to have an officer killed or injured, either or the range or the street, because their weapon was either defective or had reliability issues. Second, if an officer were to be injured or killed and it can be proven they knew about the issues beforehand and did nothing about it, they are likey to be found negligent when sued and lose big.

Recently, a department in Wisconsin was aware of repeated reliability issues with their newer Glock 22s. They did nothing about it. An officer was wounded when his Glock 22 malfunctioned in a gunfight and he was shot. Thankfully he wasn't killed. I hope he recovers fully then sues the department and wins big. They deserve it.

I also know of an agency that disallowed the Khar pistols due to repeated unreliability issues. Am I slamming KHAR? No, I am stating fact; an agency disallowed their use after they discovered problems with reliability firsthand. Officers that owned them complained, even the ones that had them malfunction repeatedly on qualification courses. I suspect those officers would have been quick to contact an attorney if they were injured because their weapon malfunctioned, the city knew about the issues beforehand, and did nothing about it.

I would hope the LASD would coordinate with S&W to discover the nature of the problems with their batch of guns and resolve them. Maybe then LASD would rescind the order and allow the officers to carry them once again. All it takes is a memo.

It's easy to sit back and criticize (you call it rant) their actions but hard when you place yourself in their shoes and you have to deal with the issue in the real world. You've not provided any suggestions as to how LASD should handle the problem that is in presently their face. It sounds as if they are taking prudent action and trying to do the right thing. Given the dynamics involved, do you have any better suggestions or alternatives for these "MORON" cops?
 
There is really nothing unusual in what LASD is doing, although I personally think it is a bit over-the-top. When DoD had a small number of the initial purchase of Berettas fail, due to documented overuse, they didn't stop the issue of the weapon, although it did accelerate the completion of the Maryland facility.
If LASD thinks it is in their best interest, i.e., litigation nullification, to restrict the use of the S&W M&P until problems can be fixed or the weapons replaced with another brand, so be it. I have a S&W M&P9c that has never given me any trouble, so I plan to continue to carry it, despite what LASD does.
 
I see that only the 9mm is mentioned. Is it the only M&P approved, or were other calibers authorized but not having issues?

I feel if there is an issue it needs to be addressed. To do otherwise is negligent. Did LASD make the memo public, or was it an internal memo that got leaked?
 
It appears to be an internal memo which now can be found on the internet via Google. Apparently, they have been on the street since January 2009 and have had a high number of problems with a relatively low number of guns. Outside of LASD, if I had one that had proven to be reliable, and I was comfortable with it, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
I think the LASD did the right thing. Officer safety comes first. I do think that the M&P is a great starting point and has a lot of potential. Unfortunately it has had more than it's share of gremlins. Magazines dropping out, cracked slides, strikers breaking, out of spec frames, poor finish quality..and I'm sure that I am missing a couple of others. I do however believe that it is a sound design and will be a superb gun once it's debugged.

Glock has had it's share of failures too. Many of which Glock will not acknowledge. Frame failures, kaBooms, Failures to feed, failures to extract, broken trigger springs, bad magazines..etc.

SIGs have dropped in quality bigtime in the past few years and they too are suffering from multiple problems. But they also had major problems many years ago as well with frames cracking, feed problems and more

No gun is perfect. They all have their issues.

There are very very few guns that have been perfect from the factory with no serious issues.

Glock 17
Old Colt 1911's (not todays mass produced knockoffs)
Browning HiPower
HK P7
S&W 3rd Generation guns
 
Originally posted by shawn mccarver:
I am quite certain that if given a FAIR chance, S&W could fix this situation, if there is any problem other than ammo or operator error.
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I'll say up front that I own an M&P Pro. I'll also say that it experienced two FTE's and one FTF during the first 300 rounds (I'm keeping an exact log), but it's still pretty new (484 rounds since the last FTE). The FTEs have been with quality factory ammo.

So, that puts me in both camps....I love the way my M&P feels, handles and shoots, but I'm not willing to say it's reliable just yet. It's a well documented fact that a significant number of people have FTE problems with M&Ps. Go to pretty much any internet forum and there will be any number of discussions on this problem. On one competition oriented forum, in one thread, there were 20 people who discussed either their own or a shooting buddy's (mostly IDPA and USPSA shooters) M&P that was having FTE problems. There's no way it's a coincidence that these discussions are popping up all the time. If you go to the M&P forum it's one of the most common topics. Somebody buys a new M&P and after the first one or two range trips posts about how their gun is having repeated FTEs and looking for suggestions on how to fix the problem. I doubt folks buy and M&P, join a forum and start trashing their gun as a sport or as an outright lie....hard to imagine.

In one case the guy sent his gun back to S&W two times and it's still not running!

All of that tells me that while it's probably not a fatal flaw, it's probably something that Smith needs to examine and come up with a fix for. Most new designs have some sort of improvements made early on so it's not a bash, just what tends to happen with anything new.

Since the problem only seems to happen with some guns, it could something as simple as changing the spec on a process used in production. I'm not sure of the process Smith uses to cut the chamber or finish ream, but who knows...maybe it's just as simple as changing the spec on when the chamber reamer is replaced. Mabye it's a tweak to the heat treatment used on the extractor...simple stuff like that might be all it takes.

Police agencies have been known to release information like this for a couple of reasons that aren't bad or derrogatory. One, they might have honestly been trying to alert other agencies to be aware of the potential problem so if they spot it in their guns they don't waste time before contacting S&W and they don't endanger officer's carrying them. They also have been known to do this to get the manufacturer to acknowledge a problem and work with them on a fix. Not long ago a smaller agency in the upper Midwest was having problems with their Glocks (I'll leave out the specifics). Glock simply wouldn't work with them. When a large federal agency contacted Glock with the same problem all of a sudden Glock started working with them, and the small agency, to sort out the problem.

Sure, it's possible someone at that agency was pissed at Smith, doesn't like them (for whatever reason) and wanted to bash them, but there are a number of legitimate reasons why they'd put out the alert so I don't know why folks are so quick to jump on the agency without knowing all the facts surrounding the case...which we're not likely to get.

My only hope is that folks with problems send their guns back to Smith and once enough guns with the same problems show up, Smith will take a look and see if there's a tweak or improvement that will eliminate the issue entirely. R,
 
Hmmm....hates agencies that get companies to bend over backwards for them....how about those Brazilian 586's in 38 with 3 and 4 inch barrels? Or the underlugged model 10's? Gotta hate those. How about the 681 in 38 for the conrail PD. Gotta HATE that one....maybe the 520 for the NYSP...now THAT has really got to P#### him off. Or maybe that darned 2 12 inch model 10 for the FBI and the MSP? Or those pesky M & Ps to start with. Dang! Smith stealing back some business from Glock just for those MORON COPS, now there's one for the books! A man can only take so much. Joe in GA.
 
A quote from Chicken Little, "The Sky is Falling!" Let's turn in our M&P's and go to Glock's (NOT)! Or in the case of LACSD, let's go back to the Beretta's. They must be thinking, Heck if they are good enough for the US Armed Forces they must be good enough for our officers. Thanks but no thanks. I was happy to retire my Glock 23 and replace it with my issued M&P40C.

Ok, the improperly machined barrel is very bizarre since they are all milled with the same machine run by a computer. Not made by hand where someone can make a mistake. You'd think that if one was bad the whole batch would be bad. And as for the barrel that broke in two, yes it is possible that was a manufacturing defect as well. But, anyone else heard of squib loads in factory ammo? Yeah it's rare but it does happen. My agency's SWAT team has a number of rather expensive H&K UMP.40 sub guns with bulged barrels that were the direct result of firing factory ammo in full auto mode. If one goes pop instead of bang and the bolt cycles there is a strong likely (under full auto fire, NOT with a semi automatic pistol unless the operator is brain dead and does an immediate action drill on a gun that needs to have a bullet knocked out of the barrel) there will be bang following the pop and you'll end up with a permanently ruined barrel.

My agency did a rather lengthy test of the M&P 40 full size and compact models about two years ago and they ran them through the usual torture tests. Shooting tens of thousands of rounds with no cleaning, dragging them through sand and water, submerging in water, waterboarding, etc. The results were not perfect but exceeded the competition including some Glock models. The end result, we now have about 2,000+ M&P's in the fleet and they are running quite well.
In the year + that I've been carrying the 40C I have not had any malfunctions and I am very confident with it. The fit and finish is excellent and as long as I keep it cleaned and lubed I am pretty sure that it will live longer than I will. I also like it a lot more than my previous issued Glock 23.

Oh, one more comment... Recruits are notorious for not doing a very good job at cleaning their pistols. And if it weren’t for training staff doing inspections periodically I’m sure you’d have more people trying to clean with spraying WD-40 or throwing them in the dishwasher. We actually had one officer on my dept. that put his 4046 in the dishwasher and thought it would be OK since it was made from stainless steel. Go figure.

Most cops are NOT firearms enthusiasts and don't take 30-45 to thoroughly clean their pistols. So the recruits with the phase 2 problems, I'd like to see one of the armorers clean the gun properly and then run it through its paces. I'd be willing to bet that the results would be different. Oh, and how many inexperienced shooters have we seen doing things like limp-wristing. How many shooter induced malfunctions can we come up with?

I am sure that the LACSD thought they were doing the right thing when they yanked their M&P’s and blabbed there dislike for the M&P9 and how they went back to Berettas. In the grand scheme of things since they had a relatively low number of M&P's in service (in their recruit class(es)) they really didn't dump that many guns. And I am sure that Smith would love to inspect and test those pistols to find out where the real problem is. In the mean time, count the number of agencies (and individuals) that are thrilled with their M&P's. I'd be willing to bet it is in the high 90% range. What do you think?
 
While I believe the skin has been flogged off this horse, I felt compelled to comment. Those who are on the job understand why it was done, but I have always wondered why those who are not cops, have never been cops, seem to be such experts on the subject. Likely the removal of the M&P from service will be reversed after the problem has been resolved. Any firearm can have issues. In the distant past, the first issue handgun (it was provide your own prior to then) I received was a NIB M65 3" (was in CID at the time). I took it home and noticed the front sight was off center. I found I could remove the barrel by hand and that the frame was visibly cracked all the way through in the area where the cylinder crane met the frame.
We shipped it back to Smith and they replaced it. No big deal. We had more issues when we switched to the Gen 3 Smith autos. They fixed or replaced them. It seems to me to be a prudent course of action until all the facts have been examined.
 
Originally posted by JoeS:
When I went through the police academy in 1986 I saw Sig 220s in .45 repeatedly fail to extract with the training ammo provided. (CCI blazer in this case).
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I had problems with aluminum blazers in 10mm in a Glock 20 and Delta Elite. The Glock didn't fully go into battery almost half the time. Used premium ammo and problem was solved.
 
I'll just hang this in there about the extraction issues, I have no clue about the barrel failure...
When I went through the M&P armoror's class, the "book" showed how to check the extractor fit with a go/no go bar gauge like the 3rd Gen gun's go/no go bar gauge. But, the instructor said to disregard that, the gauge was not necessary. I've seen posts from people that returned guns for FTE(xtract), and there seem to be several that include the comment "adjust extractor and polish chamber" on the factory return slip. I just checked my MPB serial numbered gun and found ONE failure to extract in just under 2000 rounds. Since I had to knock that one out of the chamber with a hammer and rod, I'm inclined to think it was the reload, not the gun.
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Anecdotal evidence means little, but maybe they need that bar gauge after all?
 
I'd like to agree with the thoughts expressed by Jhp147.

I was just talking about this with some other M&P armorers.

I've been repeatedly told that S&W doesn't even yet offer an extractor bar gauge for the M&P 45's. The extractors are doing so well as 'drop in' parts in the .45 models that they just haven't seen the need to even get around to offering a bar gauge for that caliber.

I have a .40/357 M&P extractor bar gauge, and this is the one that was recommended to have when I attended my armorer class. Interestingly enough, although the M&P class certainly wasn't caliber-specific, only the .40/357 bar gauge was listed in the recommended armorer tools for attending the class. Not a gauge for the 9mm (and not for the .45, considering they don't offer it as an inexpensive basic armorer tool as yet).

You just don't hear about extraction issues involving the M&P45/M&P40/M&P357 guns, though. At least nobody I've talked to has heard of anything similar.

I'd have to wonder if S&W is going to decide that the smaller 9mm model, which uses the same extractor as the rest of the different calibers in the M&P series, really needs closer fitting. Dunno. I'm waiting to hear an answer as this situation is examined and addressed.

I also wonder if some revision of the chamber walls might not eventually be warranted. They made a slight change in the chamber wall taper during the 5906TSW production which was supposedly done to address some sticky extraction issues reported. (Opening the angle up 1 degree, I think.)

From what I heard, this revision could be identified by looking at the caliber stamping on the barrel hood. The previous slightly narrower tapered angle had the original small 9mm (9mm Parabellum?) alpha/numeric characters and the revised chamber angle came with the barrel hood marking done in larger characters which just said 9MM. Makes me wonder if something similar might be at play here in the M&P 9mm barrels. Again, I don't know, but am just wondering.

I see I'm not the only one, though.
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The PD Should have bought Sigmas!! That little underrated gun has the bugs worked out.
Holds better than a glock, cleans up easier than any S&W. They rarely jam, they rarely break.
And a heckuva lot less expensive than the Glock or M&P
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Do you think 46% of the new recruits would have a jam with a Sigma? NO!!!!!!!!!
I guess it wasn't cool enough and military sounding enough for LAPD.
 
+1 on the Sigma. I got the 40VE and love it. I had a couple failed to feeds with some cheep Blazer Brass a couple weeks ago, but have never had an issue with higher end ammo.
 
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