|
Smith & Wesson M&P®9
Performance Center® Ported Pistol Review In this part of my S&W M&P9 Performance Center Ported Pistol review, I show the external and operation features of this pistol. This pistol is a full size pistol chambered in 9mm with a black coated stainless steel slide, uncoated stainless steel barrel and a black polymer grip frame.
The stainless steel slide is actually Melonite coated which is a thermochemical treatment for improving surface properties of metals. These improvements increase surface hardness, lower coefficients of friction, enhance surface lubricity, improve running wear performance, increase slide wear resistance and enhance corrosion resistance. The polymer frame is made from Zytel (trademark owned by DuPont) which is used for its high strength and abrasion / impact resistance. Some of the unique features that you notice immediately are the cutouts in the slide and barrel, nylon cover for the C.O.R.E. mount location and tall sights. Also, the left side of the slide displays the respected "Performance Center" branding which gives you an idea that there are other internal enhancements as well. The Ported model also comes with three different palmswell grip inserts which include extra texturing for positive gripping. All these features are enhancements to the standard M&P9 pistols and these enhancements cater more to the target or competition shooters preference. I included these photos from Part 2 because they make this part of the review more complete and I like having them all on one page for my own reference. This pistol measured 1.3" in width which was across both the grip insert and slide stop. The pistol measured 5.75" in height and 8.4" in length which was slightly shy of the 8.5" in the specifications (no big deal). The pistol with magazine and no optic weighed in at 1 pound 11.4 ounces (27.4 ounces). Without the magazine it weighed in at 24.4 ounces which is very close to the advertised weight of 24.1 ounces. One of the first things you will notice about these ported handguns are the oval cutouts in the slide. The 5" barrel pistol has eight cutouts as shown below and the 4.25" barrel pistol has six. Only the forward cutout in the slide is actually needed for porting the gasses and the remaining cutouts give the pistol a unique look along with removing a small amount of weight. The cutouts are about 0.21" in width and 0.42" in length. In the area of the cutouts, the slide is about 0.10 thick, so the total weight removed by the six extra cutouts is only about 0.21 ounces. The ported slot in the barrel starts about 0.70" from the end of the barrel and is about .09" wide and 0.40" long. The front left side of the slide is engraved with "M&P9L" as shown below. The "L" refers to this pistol being a long barrel version which seems to be a designation adopted for the C.O.R.E. model pistols The bottom of the polymer frame under the barrel includes an integrated 3-slot Picatinny rail which is about 1.45" in length. The rail and slide length works well with a full size handgun light such as the Streamlight TLR-1 or 2 Series. The barrel is stainless steel and comes with a 5-groove RH rifling with a 1:10" twist rate. I also verified this twist rate by contacting S&W. The C.O.R.E. pistols come with a set of high 3-dot white sights. The height of these sights is intended to allow you to co-witness through your optic system. The front sight is not intended to be adjusted. The rear sight is intended to be drift adjustable for windage only. I'm a fan of the three dot sight pictures and the gaps between the front sight post and rear notch in the photo below looks pretty close to how your sights would look at arms length. I'm going to talk about sight selection further in the review, but I wanted to discuss the taller sights and co-witnessing some more. Some optical sights such as the Burris FastFire III can be installed on the slide, but the height of the body of the FastFire III covers most of the view of the front post. Other sights such as the Burris FastFire II allow you to see your front post and acquire a standard sight picture using your fixed sights. The height of the fixed sights on this pistol will allow you to get a good sight picture when using the appropriate optic. This allows you to use either your fixed sights or optical sight at any moment. When the optic is installed and operational, I would consider the fixed sights to function more as a backup sight. For some people, the fixed sights aid in getting the pistol into a near sight alignment and then they shift their focus to the red dot.
Figure 22 - Burris FastFire III
Figure 23 - Burris FastFire II
The rear sight has a set screw for locking the windage position. I checked the screws tightness and it seemed sufficient. In front of the rear sight is the polymer C.O.R.E cover which is held in place with two screws. C.O.R.E. is the acronym for Competition Optics Ready Equipment. As the name implies, optics installed at this location would be considered more for competition (or target) shooting than for normal defense applications, although they could prove to be very effective for any application. When the C.O.R.E. cover is removed, you see various features such as threaded optic mounting holes, two raised areas to help transfer recoil to the optical sight mounting plate (instead of the screws), the striker block access cover and the roll pin for the extractor. S&W provides a table in the Instruction Manual that lists the sights that will work directly with their C.O.R.E. system. Note that I already showed two Burris sights installed on this pistol, so other sights are possible even though they are not listed in this table. Also note that just because another sight can be installed doesn't mean that the sight will allow you to co-witness with the fixed sights. The table shown below also identifies the appropriate mounting plate and screws to use with the sight you select. Since I already proved both the FastFire II and FastFire III sights will work on this pistol, the mounting plates and screws shown below are the ones needed for mounting these sights. This next photo shows the five different sets of mounting plates and four different pairs of mounting screws that come with the pistol. Each screw comes with some preinstalled thread locking compound. Although I could have used one of my Burris sights, I decided to go with the Leupold DeltaPoint as my red dot sight. The DeltaPoint was on sale at Cabela's for $350 for the 3.5 MOA All Mounts version which seemed like a good price. This Leupold sight is also the one that S&W shows when marketing their Ported pistols as seen below so I felt it was worth checking out. If I had to make the decision again today, I might have selected another sight for this pistol (make sure you read my Range Test Results for comments on this sight because I would have preferred something easier to adjust). These next photos show the Leupold sight installed on this M&P9L Performance Center Ported pistol which I feel makes an extremely attractive combination and I also think that is why S&W selected it for their marketing photos. Based on the mount selection table above, it took the Type 2 plate and Type B screws to mount the sight. This DeltaPoint sight gives you the full co-witness capability with the fixed sights. For these next photos, I must say up front that the dot size in the photos is larger than what you see when looking through the sight with your eyes because the focus of the camera lens is focused on the fixed sights (not the dot). The dot size looks more like the bright center spot inside the red dot shown. The photo on the left shows the fixed sights and red dot in a true co-witness configuration. The photo on the right shows the dot in the center of the window and you can see how the fixed sights appear to aim upward. The photo on the right having the red dot centered in the window is what you will most likely see during your normal shooting situations for best field of view. In this next photo I shifted the camera lens focus to infinity (where the dot appears) to give you a better idea of the actual dot size with this sight. Leupold states the dot size is 3.5 MOA. The optical sight sits just behind the ejection port and in front of the rear sight. The outside portion of the chamber of the stainless steel barrel has a polished look. The top of the barrel chamber is marked with the caliber "9 MM". The Instruction Manual states the following on the use of +P ammunition. “Plus-P” (+P) ammunition generates pressures in excess of the pressures associated with standard ammunition. Such pressures may affect the wear characteristics or exceed the margin of safety. Use of “Plus-P” ammunition may result in the need for more frequent service. Since this handgun is marketed more toward a competition role, I doubt shooting +P ammunition would be desired and most likely I will never do it. There is a half circle cutout at the rear of the barrel's chamber which functions as a window to let you see if a cartridge is in the chamber. In the right photo below you can see the silver colored case in the chamber to identify that the gun is loaded.
Figure 40 - Unloaded
Figure 41 - Loaded The right side of the slide has "SMITH & WESSON" along with "SPRINGFIELD, MA U.S.A." milled into the slide. Also, in white lettering is the "CAUTION - CAPABLE OF FIRING WITH MAGAZINE REMOVED" warning statement. The polymer frame has a metal plate which appears to be glued to the polymer surface. The plate contains the serial number engraved along with a 2D bar code printed on the front of the plate. I used my cell phone to scan the code and the results were "06 17V55358 1P279380000 SHUS8823". I recognize the serial number in the last set of numbers, but am not sure about the others. On the right side of the pistol is the ambidextrous slide stop and you can see the end of the magazine catch button. The button can be removed and installed so that button is on the right side if desired. The trigger has a lower portion that functions as a trigger safety. As the lower portion of the trigger is pulled, the upper portion above the pivot pin pivots up/forward to allow the trigger to be pulled. As I mentioned earlier in the review, the trigger pull on this pistol came in at about 7 pounds which was not as advertised for these Performance Center pistols. I immediately sent the pistol back to S&W and they replaced the sear and the pistol now comes it at 5.4 pounds based on 10 pulls using a digital trigger pull scale. This was in the range of 4 to 5.5 pounds advertised, but I was hoping for closer to a 4.5 pound pull. Reset on the trigger was only about 0.07" from the adjustable overtravel stop. S&W advertises the action as a "Striker Fire (Double Action)" pistol, but I struggle believing that "double action" would apply to a trigger having a reset as short as 0.07". The overtravel stop can be adjusted by removing the grip insert and putting the provided Allen wrench through the hole in the rear of the grip and adjusting the stop. I was able to adjust the overtravel stop closer to the trigger by about one turn and still get a reliable trigger pull. The left side of the slide includes the "Performance Center" branding along with the S&W logo at the rear. Earlier I showed the "M&P9L" at the front (not shown in the photo below). The controls on the left side are the ambidextrous slide stop and magazine catch button (remember the magazine catch can be reversed to the right side). You can also see the takedown lever above the trigger. The slide comes with their standard wave pattern serrations for a no-slip surface when racking the slide. I found that the pattern provided a good textured surface, but was not so aggressive that it dig into your finger tips. S&W chose to remove the manual safety lever which is probably the right choice for a competition pistol and this is the same as their other Pro Series pistols. Therefore, the only safety features preventing the pistol from firing are the trigger safety and striker block. The striker bock is internal and prevents the striker from moving forward until the trigger is pulled. The pistol comes with three different size palmswell grip inserts; small, medium, large. The medium grip insert was installed on the pistol and the other two were in the case. It was easy to notice the difference in the feel of the grip with each different insert. The large grip was clearly for larger hands and the small for a smaller hands. For my hand size, I'm leaning more towards the medium insert, but I may try the large insert out at some point.
Figure 48 - Small
Figure 49 - Medium
Figure 50 - Large Changing out the inserts is very easy. Twist the end of the pin at the bottom of the grip 1/4 turn and pull it downward out of the grip (the pin on this pistol was very snug). The grip inserts can then be pulled off by tilting them out at the bottom as shown below. Identification of the different size inserts is easy because the size is molded into the underside of the insert. Without these markings, recognizing the large grip is easy due to it having a slightly different profile in the beaver tail area, but recognizing the differences between the small and medium is slightly more difficult. The pistol comes with two 17 round magazines giving the pistol it's 17+1 capability. The magazines have a steel body with polymer follower and floor plate. The front of the magazines are stamped with the caliber "9 mm" and the S&W logo. The photos below show one of the magazines in detail. The magazines have holes in each side to show how many rounds are loaded into the magazine. No, this is not a Blackhawk Serpa Holster advertisement, but I will say that I'm a big fan of this style holster and wanted to get one for this pistol. I already had a holster that fit my M&P22 pistol, but that holster does not work with the M&P9L PC Ported pistol because the combination of taller front sight and longer slide caused the sight to fully extend below the bottom of the holster. This caused the front sight to snag on the holster and the channel for front sight was also too shallow. After doing some research, I found that the Blackhawk holster size 13 shown below works so I ordered one. The exact model number is 413513BK-R. Although the front of the packaging states "Glock 20/21/37", the back of the package also adds "S&W M&P .45 9/40" to this holster's size description. At the Blackhawk website, they also add the words "Pro" to the S&W portion of the description. It would be nice if they also added the "C.O.R.E." acronym so that it is more clear because S&W does make a Pro version that does not have the taller sights. These next two photos show the pistol inside the holster and how much the barrel and sight stick out the end of the holster for this 5" barrel pistol. The sight cannot snag on the front of the holster and the channel for the taller sight is barely deep enough, but works. I will be honest in saying that the top of the sight does contact the bottom of the channel and this does cause a little resistance. If I press the release button with the pistol held with the barrel pointed up, the pistol will not drop freely from the holster like on my other pistols with their appropriate Serpa holsters. Personally, I don't think this resistance is significant and makes no significant difference when drawing and holstering the pistol.
Thoughts In my mind, there is no doubt that S&W has a great product with this new C.O.R.E Ported Performance Center M&P9 pistol. The features are ones geared towards a target or competition shooters preference. The only issue I found was the trigger pull was out of specification and S&W immediately fixed that issue. Take your time to look closely at all the potential red dot sights on the market and read other reviews to make your most informed selection when it comes time for your optics purchase. For those Serpa Holster fans, you have an option that works. For more detailed photos and commentary, make sure you check out the other parts of this review and feel free to leave comments below. The following links are provided to help you see other parts of this review.
Or If you would like to be notified about future Gunsumer Reports reviews via Facebook, make sure "You Like This" by clicking the Facebook "Like" button at the bottom or top of this page. If it already says "You Like This" beside the button, clicking it again will uncheck the "Like" status and you will not be notified.
|
||||
© 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024 Gunsumer Reports™, All rights reserved. FTC Disclosure |