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At slidelock, mag inserts, slide drops, nothing chambered. ?


Aristotle

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So I've had an issue with my M&P that has plagued me. When I shoot IDPA and go to slide lock, I do an emergency reload, drive home a fresh magazine, which usually drops the slide ala Glock, but a round does not chamber into the gun. Consistently happening.

Anyone else experience this issue? Outside of that, I have had only 1 FTE with the gun after close to 5k rounds. I plan to shoot more IDPA this year, so I desperately need to get this remedied.

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You and others aren't going to like my answer but here it is; Stop doing that! if slamming a mag into the gun causes a failure stop creating the failure.

Most of the time people who slam the mag home have to take a longer than necessary pause at the mag well to do the slam, adding time to their reload. so not only does it cause the gun to fail occasionally it always adds time on the reload even when it does work.

I had a good friend and practice partner that did the same thing and he continued to not listen until the failures became the norm not the fluke. That forced him to start to smooth things out, and what do you know his reload times started to drop.

Be smooth as silk and use the slide stop. :cheers:

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You and others aren't going to like my answer but here it is; Stop doing that! if slamming a mag into the gun causes a failure stop creating the failure.

Dan, you are right, on both accounts. :-)

I should try, and I am learning to try to finesse my reloads, but I suppose it's also nice for a little insurance knowing should adrenaline get a hold of me that very second, that I have a safety net, so I'm still looking for a fix. I had two of those early in the match, after that, I began finessing my reloads. As with anything else that becomes as bad habit, you aren't going to fix it on the field. So the rest of the day I was concentrating on things that should have been auto pilot for me.

Another shooter suggested he heard of a fix that involved an over tensioned spring on the slide stop. I was just wondering if others may have experienced this as well.

Ari B

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Since the slide stop spring pulls the slide stop down, I am pretty sure it would make it worse not better. You could try to replace the slide stop or true up the area that contacts the slide so it engages evenly. I would avoid doing anything to the slide, the melonite make it very hard to remove only a little bit of material.

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A shooter I know is having the same problem. He was thinking about trying 10 round mags. His thinking was that the standard capacity mags were letting the top round bounce when loaded to only 10 rounds.

I have come to the same conclussion. If I drive the reload hard like you see many Glock shooters do, my M&P will often fail to strip the first round. A meduim force reload does just fine. I shoot IDPA with standard mags loaded to 10. I decided the bullets must be bouncing slightly in the magazine causing this to happen. I just reduced the force I use and everything works fine.

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I've seen a couple of 5" pro do it. Same thing,mag seats,but does not strip a round. I watch the guy reload,and in my opinion,he was not slamming it any harder than I do with my MP. I think it might be the extra mass of the slide that might be causing the problem

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A shooter I know is having the same problem. He was thinking about trying 10 round mags. His thinking was that the standard capacity mags were letting the top round bounce when loaded to only 10 rounds.

I have come to the same conclussion. If I drive the reload hard like you see many Glock shooters do, my M&P will often fail to strip the first round. A meduim force reload does just fine. I shoot IDPA with standard mags loaded to 10. I decided the bullets must be bouncing slightly in the magazine causing this to happen. I just reduced the force I use and everything works fine.

If that is the case would replacing the mag springs help?

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Dan,

What failure will this cause? Will something in the gun or mag become damaged?

I have an M&P that you've tuned up and it runs real nice, thank you very much!

Fully seating the mag and the slide chambering a round seems like a great time saver to me.

Steve

StL. MO.

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Steve, the failure I was refering to is the gun failing to strip a round, no damage to anything other than your stage time.

The funny thing with this whole thing is, I cannot force my gun to do this, but my wife can pick up my gun and get it to go forward easily. So there is more to it than shear force of the insertion, I beilieve it to have something to do with grip pressure as well.

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Ext power mag springs will sometimes allow a gun thats "slam" loading, but not picking up a round, to reliably strip the round. But Dan's Right, the way an invididual person seats the mag has everything to do with if it strips a round or not. Dont do it unless you decide it happens reliably enough to run it that way. Then its just a matter of time before it bites you on your butt.

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I have stock out of the box 9L with about 1500 rds thru it. Have had no malfunctions. It will however drop the slide when a mag is slammed in. But it has always stripped a round.

My wife has a standard 9. I will have to try it with that gun.

Was the gun designed to drop the slide and chamber a round when a mag is "slammed" in?

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No it was definitely not.

So if it was not designed to do this, is it a defect? Should S&W responsible for making it good? I am not a mag "slammer" but this has happened on occasion when attempting to go "FASTER,FASTER" A round has always chambered. Someone mentioned that Glocks will do this....were Glocks designed for that?

I understand Dan's view that slamming the mag in is not faster....makes perfect sense. Having the slide fall has cost me time.....even though it has always stripped a round. Not realizing it had fallen I have cycled the slide manually ejecting a loaded round.

Both of our M&P's have functioned without a flaw......other than this.

Edited by tracker
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I had a 1911 that used to do this. I stopped this as I felt it was a bad habit to get into.

I just bought a M&P Pro so I'm waiting to see if I begin to run into this as an issue.

Dan, I'll probably be sending my new gun to you soon. :D

By the way, Good shooting at the winters Nationals!!!

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Try to get in the habbit of not running any of the magazines dry. I always try to reload before the slide locks open on an empty magazine. Also I agree that you shouldn't be slamming anything into the magwell at any time. The smoother you are the faster you will be. I see "slamming" as being a nervous issue more than anything.

Get comfortable with your gun and find a system that always works for you.

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That works for USPSA but not IDPA

I agree, wouldn't think of running the gun dry for USPSA but being a "gamer" I do it in IDPA. I have a 4" M&P9 and have noticed that it too will go slide forward with a hard mag insertion, and this has worked well for me as the stock mag release was almost impossible to use to drop the slide. I've since very lightly honed the slide release notch in the slide and it works much easier but it would be much better with a slighty larger release. Well yesterday in a local match I had my first failure to strip a round off the mag (high cap)and indeed it really bites you in the butt. I can't trust it anymore so I guess I'll have to treat it with a little more respect when doing reloads. ;)

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I would be sad if mine didn't do this every time. Heck, yesterday at a USPSA match I locked the slide back first at LAMR because the 23 round mags are hard to seat and just inserting it all the way caused the slide to fall and strip a round.

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