Rust on M&P's.

I have been looking into switching to an M&P and don't believe the rust is much of a problem since the gun is guaranteed for life. I have also heard that the S&W customer support is very good. I have been considering The M&P and the very different Beretta 92 FS, but the Beretta's warranty and customer service have been challenged a lot lately so I am leaning towards the M&P.
 
The amazing thing about this issue is that it's lasted for 5 years. Most people have been told by S&W "yours was in a bad batch". Either that batch was really big, or S&W doesnt want to permanently fix the issue.
 
Seems to me that in every instance where the gun was sent back for any rust it was taken care of under warranty. Don't think I would be afraid of it.
 
Seems to me that in every instance where the gun was sent back for any rust it was taken care of under warranty. Don't think I would be afraid of it.
Very true -- every instance Ive read about indicated a good customer experience that resulted very quickly in a new slide.
 
I've heard leather holster's can promote rust? Has anyone found this to be the case?

They sure will. If you have a buscadero rig and leave shells in the loops they will turn green. I sold a Ruger Blackhawk for my neighbor. It had pits on the cylinder at 3 & 9:00, pits on the barrel below the sight and pits around the rear sight. This all from long term storage in leather.
 
s kelly

We did an extensive T&E when we went to the M&P in 2008, it pretty much tied with the glock in our evaluations..since we already carried smith & wesson 4566's the M&P is what we went with. after 3 years we were looking for a new pistol. We had problems of the slide not locking back when empty, internal springs breaking, ambi slide release lever was easy to hit with support hand..which caused the sliver to tear off the slide starting at the slide stop notch on one pistol. I guess we just kinda lost faith in them. There are a few officers who wanted to keep them but for the most part we were ready to move on.
 
Stainless steel parts can rust due to carbon steel being embedded during the manufacturing process. Carbon steel cutters will leave bits of steel behind. Blasting won't help. Dipping the parts in acid to "passivate" the surface is the solution.

^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^

We use some of the finest stainless steel alloys at work, but if the parts are not passivated almost immediately after production, they will begin to rust, even in a relatively dry shop environment. It's possible that S&W may have had a problem with incomplete passivation on a batch or two of the slides or an outside processor may have had a QC issue.
 
I've seen some data that metal corrosion may develop as a result of some combinations of cleaners and lubricants used in maintaining the gun - one of the tests strongly suggests Eezox is the best defense - I have some coming in to check out, but no first-hand data to confirm or refute that. Try a search on Eezox to see some of the testing.
 
I had an XD that rusted after 6 months of daily IWB carry. Not a problem with my Glock 19, 3 years of daily IWB carry and 26,000 rounds, not much black left on the slide but no rust and no problems. I don't think it is a big deal really. I have heard a little about the M&Ps rusting but if mine does it is not a deal breaker. I am really liking this pistol.
 
Leather will rust guns and knives--even ones with good quality steel & steel alloys. I have had very expensive motor boat propellers rust around salt water--I wash them w/ fresh water under high pressure, hand dry them or even occasionally use superfine wet sandpaper on them.

Usually, unless it's very poor quality steel, light surface rust getting worse can be prevented or arrested if it hasn't gotten out of hand. Commercially available Boeshield T-9 was designed by Boeing Aviation as a corrosion inhibitor for aircraft components and is excellent stuff for preventing rust--its like HD40 on mega steroids--we usually pack a spray can or two. Most marine shops stock it--good to have in the garage.

If rust has gone too far, then you're probably out of luck---like they say: 'rust never sleeps'.

Only metal I have that seems TRULY rust proof regardless of treatment is on knives made of dendritic cobalt steel--I always have one DCS knife on me when going on extended outdoor journeys. Dendritic colbalt steel knives have no magnetic signature, but I don't know of any guns made of that expensive steel--it might not be hard enough, although I'll bet David Boye, who's made some of my DCS knives, could manage it--but the FAA would hate it! H1 steel is the next best thing for rust resistance.

I wipe my guns, knives and other gear down if they've gotten wet and if they're wet from salt, including sweat, I carefully clean them with fresh water and in all cases, dry them. It only takes a couple minutes.

The most rust proof guns I have ever seen are Glocks. They have a hard time TRYING to make them rust--Glocks have survived some ridiculous torture tests. They have pulled Glocks out of lakes, creeks and rivers after more than a year, even soaked them in brine and while they might have some light oxidization (rust), the damn things still fired!

My every day carry stateside is an M&P (although I have several old and new Glocks, Sigs, HK, etc), but until 10 or 15 years have gone by and proven to me the M&P's are as durable as the Glocks-- if I'm taking ONLY one hand gun into the wilderness for a a long period, I hate to admit it, but it'd still be a Glock.

The M&P has never let me down and I like how it feels and shoots better than my Glock, but time is the true judge. I have never had a gun that I can shoot so accurately without fully sighting--I'm rather accurate by merely just fully extending my arm, looking down it as I point and then shooting with an M&P--very ergonomically friendly.

We'll see just how well the M&P's hold up over time, before I think about taking it deep into the middle of nowhere, which includes desolate ocean islands, with some people on them who have an intense dislike of Americans!
 
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I know that if I owned an M&P that rusted, S&W would take care of me with a new slide. However, does anyone know what the difference between the first and second slide would be? I haven't read of anyones second slide rusting, but am also unclear as to what the difference between the two would be?
 
I know that if I owned an M&P that rusted, S&W would take care of me with a new slide. However, does anyone know what the difference between the first and second slide would be? I haven't read of anyones second slide rusting, but am also unclear as to what the difference between the two would be?

Nothing, :):)they all learned how to maintain a gun....:)
 
I don't want to bore anybody with the details but I am one of the lucky few that did have to send their M&P back due to rust, twice! But I will say that they took care of me both times and the last time it came back the slide's finish did look different from the first two. It was surface rust from where the gun was contacting the plastic of the holsters I was using. First holster was, ironically enough, a Glock Sport/Combat holster and the 2nd was a home-made Raven Phantom knock-off. Both wore the finish off the slide at an alarming rate and rusted within hours of wearing it.

After getting the gun back for the last time I finally got my real Raven Phantom and the next thing you know all things are cured. What the initial problem was is hard to say. My M&P9 was the 4.25" Pro with night sites so it's possible that it just hit a bad batch.

I will say that I genuinely love the M&P pistols; I own 2 now and they have completely replaced my Glocks and for those that know me, that is a huge endorsement. I did a 2-day pistol course, Combat Focus Shooting developed by Rob Pincus, and brought the M&P9 to use. It did 1100+ rounds in 2 days with only the initial 7-point lube at the beginning of the first day. Ran like a top; only 2 failure to extract and they both turned out to be some pretty crappy range pick-up brass reloads that I didn't catch while reloading them. M&P9 is now up to over 2,000 rounds in a year and my M&P45 is my daily carry and IDPA gun, too. Simply love the M&P
 
Sometimes just a little tweak and change and results are different. I noticed with my 40fs back about 1 1\2 years ago after about 6 moths of owning it, a bit of rust on the frt of the slide where the holster wore the finish off. I didn't freak, I grabbed my trusty little bottle of Militec-1 oil rubbed it into the spot until the rust was gone. Since then, during the hot ugly summer, I pay a little more attention to it and rub a drop or 2 onto the slide when I'm sitting there tinkering with my toy.

If someone is having continual trouble with rusting, oil it, if that doesn't work, find the right oil.
 
So I did some more googling, this time to see how many police and military forces are using the M&P these days. HOLY ****, I simply had no idea how many folks were using this gun. This puts into perspective the large amounts of rust reports. I knew the gun had gotten more attention in recent years, but not like this. Lots of guns = lots of rust. This would be like the large number of Glock kabooms... because theres millions of them out there.

Feeling much better about it now -- now I need to get my wife to sign off on it. As much as she doesnt like me buying guns, she really HATES me selling guns, and owning both just isnt an option right now. Wish me luck!
 
I don't want to bore anybody with the details but I am one of the lucky few that did have to send their M&P back due to rust, twice! But I will say that they took care of me both times and the last time it came back the slide's finish did look different from the first two. It was surface rust from where the gun was contacting the plastic of the holsters I was using. First holster was, ironically enough, a Glock Sport/Combat holster and the 2nd was a home-made Raven Phantom knock-off. Both wore the finish off the slide at an alarming rate and rusted within hours of wearing it.

After getting the gun back for the last time I finally got my real Raven Phantom and the next thing you know all things are cured. What the initial problem was is hard to say. My M&P9 was the 4.25" Pro with night sites so it's possible that it just hit a bad batch.

I will say that I genuinely love the M&P pistols; I own 2 now and they have completely replaced my Glocks and for those that know me, that is a huge endorsement. I did a 2-day pistol course, Combat Focus Shooting developed by Rob Pincus, and brought the M&P9 to use. It did 1100+ rounds in 2 days with only the initial 7-point lube at the beginning of the first day. Ran like a top; only 2 failure to extract and they both turned out to be some pretty crappy range pick-up brass reloads that I didn't catch while reloading them. M&P9 is now up to over 2,000 rounds in a year and my M&P45 is my daily carry and IDPA gun, too. Simply love the M&P

Hey glad to see you hear Dusty Dog.
 
I had a couple of rust pits show up on my M&P9. I buffed it our and did not have any problems after that. However, since I had a bit of a buff spot it gave me an excuse to get it recoated. I had a friend give the slide a Titanium powder coat. Slide looks nice in gun metal blue and so far no rust from the Houston climate.
 
weum817, we T&E'd the M&P40 against the 4th gen G22 to replace our 3rd gen G22/23/27s. The M&P broke down during the first mag and once thereafter. The G22 went 8000 rounds without cleaning and had no issues. We're staying with Glock.
I've had 1 G19 that had rust pits all over the slide-don't know what caused it, but it was horrible. I also ran into a M&P40c that rusted all over the slide in a dealer's case. Overnight. Sometimes metals just rust, something gets on them and causes a reaction.
 

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