I am going to start shooting my M&P 9 Pro, and will record observations here. Hopefully this can help me think through any issues that come up, and serve informational purposes for people contemplating the M&P.
I have been shooting my G34 since June 2010 and have 12605 rounds through it, concluded at the GA State IDPA match this past weekend. I don't have another big match until February, so now is a good time to reevaluate and experiment with gear. I think the Glock design is brilliant, except for left handers, where the lack of a slide catch lever is a hinderance. I have not been able to get my reloads to the level of consistency I would like due to the lack of this lever available for a lefty. This fact represents 80% of the reason that I'm going to try the M&P.
Since the M&P is similar in so many ways to the Glock, yet on paper is more lefty friendly, I bought one in March 2011 to try out. Since it was in the middle of my shooting year, I did not actually shoot it much. It also had some ergonomic quirks that I thought I could address before shooting it much. The reasons I bought it, in order:
1) Ambi slide catch - Hopefully lead to more consistent reloads for me as a lefty.
2) Factory beavertail on the frame - the Glock gives me slide bite if I don't put a thin cloth tape strip around my palm. This "fix" works perfectly, so it is a pretty minor issue, but hopefully the M&P beavertail will take care of this.
3) Reversible mag catch - I've played with the mag catch on both sides of the M&P a little now, and the difference is extremely minor, but I think I am going to try hitting it with my thumb instead of my trigger finger for a while to see if I like it better.
Ergonomic "mods" I have performed very recently:
-Grip: I have very large hands, and the narrow front strap of the M&P is a departure from the Glock. It could be overcome like pretty much anything else, but I believe that larger grips and finger grooves are superior in terms of recoil distribution. The large M&P backstrap unbalanced the front to back width in my opinion, does nothing to widen the front strap, and also creates too much of a bulge in the middle of the grip, creating a potential "pivot point". I believe Glock is superior here in that you get full vertical engagement of your hand to grip the entire frame top to to bottom, not just the middle. After trying several variations of this solution, I settled on the following for now: Use the small backstrap (leads to the flattest base), and then build it up bottom to top with cloth tape. Enlarge the bottom of the grip especially. Then put a Hogue Handall over it. This gives a large gripping surface all over the gun, plus finger grooves. My concerns are twofold: One, I wish the Handall did not have the palm swell integrated. I might try to sand off some of this. Second, I amm not sure it will stay in place adequately. Time will tell.
Magazines: The HUGE lip on the baseplates has got to go. It changes the orientation of the mag in your hand during the reload vs. pretty much any other magazine on the market, and provides a nice catch point to knock your back magazines out of their holders when you are grabbing the one in front of it. I ordered one each of every type of M&P baseplate I could find, and in the end went with factory compact baseplates with the metal round surface locking plates. This makes the mags dimension more like most others.
I will be using Comptac paddle holster and will be dry firing this week, hope to get some live fire in with it this weekend.
So far the gun has 444 rounds on it; 400 by me in a practice session when I first bought it, and 44 fired by a buddy of mine who wanted to try it out.
I plan to shoot it for the remainder of the year and decide at that time whether to switch to it for next year or not.
I have been shooting my G34 since June 2010 and have 12605 rounds through it, concluded at the GA State IDPA match this past weekend. I don't have another big match until February, so now is a good time to reevaluate and experiment with gear. I think the Glock design is brilliant, except for left handers, where the lack of a slide catch lever is a hinderance. I have not been able to get my reloads to the level of consistency I would like due to the lack of this lever available for a lefty. This fact represents 80% of the reason that I'm going to try the M&P.
Since the M&P is similar in so many ways to the Glock, yet on paper is more lefty friendly, I bought one in March 2011 to try out. Since it was in the middle of my shooting year, I did not actually shoot it much. It also had some ergonomic quirks that I thought I could address before shooting it much. The reasons I bought it, in order:
1) Ambi slide catch - Hopefully lead to more consistent reloads for me as a lefty.
2) Factory beavertail on the frame - the Glock gives me slide bite if I don't put a thin cloth tape strip around my palm. This "fix" works perfectly, so it is a pretty minor issue, but hopefully the M&P beavertail will take care of this.
3) Reversible mag catch - I've played with the mag catch on both sides of the M&P a little now, and the difference is extremely minor, but I think I am going to try hitting it with my thumb instead of my trigger finger for a while to see if I like it better.
Ergonomic "mods" I have performed very recently:
-Grip: I have very large hands, and the narrow front strap of the M&P is a departure from the Glock. It could be overcome like pretty much anything else, but I believe that larger grips and finger grooves are superior in terms of recoil distribution. The large M&P backstrap unbalanced the front to back width in my opinion, does nothing to widen the front strap, and also creates too much of a bulge in the middle of the grip, creating a potential "pivot point". I believe Glock is superior here in that you get full vertical engagement of your hand to grip the entire frame top to to bottom, not just the middle. After trying several variations of this solution, I settled on the following for now: Use the small backstrap (leads to the flattest base), and then build it up bottom to top with cloth tape. Enlarge the bottom of the grip especially. Then put a Hogue Handall over it. This gives a large gripping surface all over the gun, plus finger grooves. My concerns are twofold: One, I wish the Handall did not have the palm swell integrated. I might try to sand off some of this. Second, I amm not sure it will stay in place adequately. Time will tell.
Magazines: The HUGE lip on the baseplates has got to go. It changes the orientation of the mag in your hand during the reload vs. pretty much any other magazine on the market, and provides a nice catch point to knock your back magazines out of their holders when you are grabbing the one in front of it. I ordered one each of every type of M&P baseplate I could find, and in the end went with factory compact baseplates with the metal round surface locking plates. This makes the mags dimension more like most others.
I will be using Comptac paddle holster and will be dry firing this week, hope to get some live fire in with it this weekend.
So far the gun has 444 rounds on it; 400 by me in a practice session when I first bought it, and 44 fired by a buddy of mine who wanted to try it out.
I plan to shoot it for the remainder of the year and decide at that time whether to switch to it for next year or not.
