M&P 9 Pro- slide releases after reload

[Lobonca]

My mentor (who is a Glock affecionado) has a fit when I take advantage of the autoforward of my M&P Pro. He insists that it wears out parts in the gun and the gun will become dangerous in time. Any truth to this??

[retarmyaviator]

My mentor (who is a Glock affecionado) has a fit when I take advantage of the autoforward of my M&P Pro. He insists that it wears out parts in the gun and the gun will become dangerous in time. Any truth to this??

No

[mjoy64]

Auto-forwarding is not a faster way to reload from slide lock. I used to reload almost exclusively with the auto-forward. I started having problems with the no strip click outcome so I asked a well known M&P gunsmith if there was some way to fix this problem. He said he knew how to fix it but I wouldn't like the answer. He told me to quit seating the mags so hard so the gun would not auto-forward and use the slide stop. The real eye opener was the assertion that auto-forwarding was actually slower. Your support hand violently stops and then must reinitiate the motion up into the support position as opposed to the fluid smooth motion of a reload that is only firm enough to seat the mag.

I know plenty of y'all will think this is BS but no one believes more than a convert. My reloads are smoother and faster and I'm also avoiding two possible negative outcomes... a) Not stripping a round and Losing time as I sit there looking at my gun out of battery because in this 1% case my brain so expected my gun to be in battery and it wasnt

[Jhp147]

He told me to quit seating the mags so hard so the gun would not auto-forward and use the slide stop. The real eye opener was the assertion that auto-forwarding was actually slower. Your support hand violently stops and then must reinitiate the motion up into the support position as opposed to the fluid smooth motion of a reload that is only firm enough to seat the mag.

I am not anybody's expert but it makes sense to me. It doesn't seem like the smoothest thing to do, and I am routinely reminded by folks that shoot hell fast that smoother is faster. No jerky movements or wasted motion.

[KennyWiz]

Yes, both M&P's and Glocks will drop the slide if you insert a mag "firmly" and with a little bit of forward motion on the bottom of the mag.

Mine has done this since day one. Faster reloads.

[Sin-ster]

Mine failed to do it for the first time ever at the TN Sectional this weekend--and we're talking probably a thousand slide lock reloads.

Based on suggestions/fears on these boards, I also ride my thumb near the slide stop in these instances "just in case", and have practiced dropping it that way in the event that it didn't lock. 'lo and behold, for the first time ever... it was stuck/sticky and wouldn't drop.

I'm guessing the two instances are related; it may have gotten bumped in a funky way and locked in a different spot than usual. The stuck/sticky release is also reasonably common, from what I've heard from others and read here on the Interwebz; use and even some attention with a file/stone has solved that in most cases.

[johnmac]

I was playing around with my new M&P 45, and recently discovered this "feature". I'm more of a revolver guy, new to bottom-feeders, so I was a bit puzzled by this, wondering if it really was a "feature" or not, and was going to ask about it, but found this thread. Some observations from my tinkering this morning:

- With an empty magazine, the entire slide release assembly is pushed up by the magazine follower...if you've noticed it takes a bit more force to seat an empty magazine than a full one, this seems to be why. And as much as I bumped and bounced the gun around with an empty magazine, I could NOT get it to "auto-forward" with an empty magazine - a GOOD thing.

- With a round in the magazine, or no magazine in the gun, the only thing holding the slide back is the slide resting on the slide catch (friction between two flat pieces of flat, SMALL pieces of steel, and all that's keeping the slide catch from moving down, and releasing the slide, is the catch being under pressure from the slide. Any robust "bump" on the frame, especially from behind, is apt to momentarily relieve pressure enough to allow the slide stop to drop out of the way, and the slide to go forward. I would say the lighter the recoil spring, the more "disconnected" the frame and slide, and the more likely "auto-forward" is to occur.

- It looks like you could "tune" this feature, making it more or less apt to occur, or even removing the "slide lock on empty magazine" feature altogether with overzealous filing, by modifying the engagement angle of the slide lock "tab" with a file where it catches the slide.

- I don't like the thought of the gun working differently depending on how hard I seat the magazine. I'm planning on training on always hitting the slide release, as the "auto-forward" seems too unreliable to assume it is always going to work.

[partyboy424]

After a couple hundred rounds of break in, the autoforward should always work. I've had two 45's and currently use an M&P pro 40 in USPSA. As long as there are more than 6 rounds in the magazine, it will bump the slide up and into battery. I have never ever had an issue with it not stripping a round. I also take a file to all of my extractors though. The only way I could see it not stripping a round is if the extractor is so tight that the little gap made during the bump kicks the round back down. With a nice radius on the bottom of the extractor they slide right in, but still hold tight once in position. There's plenty of courses where I will plan to go to slide lock and reload, trusting the auto forward. Works every single time, for me at least.

[johnmac]

So, the more I look into this issue, and the more I learn, the more confusing it gets...because if you read the M&P owner's manual, it refers to a slide STOP, not a slide release, and the owner's manual appears to direct one, and only one way to get the empty gun back to firing condition after seating a fresh magazine, whether from slide lock or not...namely by racking the slide. There's NO reference in the manual to hitting the slide STOP with your thumb as a means to getting the slide to advance (although it obviously works, and appears not to harm the gun).

Makes me think the best way from me to train for slide lock reloads on the M&P so things work the same, nearly all the time, is to: 1) seat the magazine with moderate force 2) overhand or slingshot slide rack, and forget about using the slide lock as a makeshift slide release. I realize this may not be ideal, if you're strictly interested in cutting down time for competition purposes.

Edited December 26, 2012 by johnmac

[partyboy424]

So, the more I look into this issue, and the more I learn, the more confusing it gets...because if you read the M&P owner's manual, it refers to a slide STOP, not a slide release, and the owner's manual appears to direct one, and only one way to get the empty gun back to firing condition after seating a fresh magazine, whether from slide lock or not...namely by racking the slide. There's NO reference in the manual to hitting the slide STOP with your thumb as a means to getting the slide to advance (although it obviously works, and appears not to harm the gun).

Makes me think the best way from me to train for slide lock reloads on the M&P so things work the same, nearly all the time, is to: 1) seat the magazine with moderate force 2) overhand or slingshot slide rack, and forget about using the slide lock as a makeshift slide release. I realize this may not be ideal, if you're strictly interested in cutting down time for competition purposes.

I was talking about the auto forward. When you insert a full magazine with enough speed and pressure (not hard to do on these) then The slide will bump up and over the slide stop and chamber a round. I'm pretty sure this is even a "warning" in the owners manual. However, for me this has worked 100% over three M&Ps. I have never tried it on a 9mm, but 40 and 45 I completely trust it to work everytime.

Using the slide stop/lock with your thumb to release the slide isn't nearly as reliable. On the 45s it works almost everytime, but on my 40, I would need Hercules thumbs to pop it down.

Edited December 26, 2012 by partyboy424

[ProGunGuy]

I have 4 mp's and none of them do it. I have seen it happen to many others though. Its the way you reload. the force of insertion, plus the angle, all combine to get a sweet spot to make it happen.

The negative is that sometimes it does not pick up a round, and the dreaded click happens. Seen it many time also.

[BillR1]

My 9mm M&Ps do it pretty consistantly, but the M&P 45 doesn't.

[j28s]

I agree with the others whereas my M&P Pro 9 does this as well. I too think it aids on the reload times and I have never had a problem with it not picking up a round from the inserted mag. Why would you want to keep the slide back if you are loading up a new one? Just gently insert it if you don't want the slide to go forward.

[Akkid17]

I have a full size 9 that will occasionally not strip off the top round when running 10 in a mag instead of the full 17 on my normal capacity mags, and it will almost never do it while using my hicap mags when they are loaded to 10, when they're full it works great but when going in production or esp i have to be careful not to auto forward or i may get the loudest click ive ever heard. nothing like staring at a gun like its a dog turd in the middle of a stage then having to rack it and move on. had a couple of stages where this happened and i was thrown off for the rest of the stage and ruined the run. now i make an effort to seat positively but not hard enough to auto and slide release at the same time. works better for consistency and knowing it will bang every time i squeeze.

the pro 40 does it everytime even with only one in the mag, maybe bigger bullet/case diameter allowing the slide to strip properly. not sure, but just to be on the safe side, if i ever go to slide lock on the 40 i do the same thing as i do with my full size 9 so i don't get into the habit again.