that sucks!
If that happens very easily just cause the slide is locked back, then i’d say the m&p has got some issues. You could take a hammer to an HK and it’d be fine.
I’m a little surprised at how readily some jump to conclusions on here.
From the very little info we have, it could just as easily been damage caused by the owner or someone along the way as it is to have been a manufacturing issue.
The only way to tell would be a close look at the fracture surfaces, as a manufacturing defect will be readily apparent, as will the fracture initiation site if it were caused by damage to the frame. The most likely scenario is that the frame was damaged by someone after manufacture. Striking the dust cover against a surface with the slide locked back could very easily have initiated a crack in the frame. The addition of a light on the rail, as described above, could very easily have magnified the load if it were struck against something. And let’s not forget that the initial crack could have been caused long before it was noticed by the owner.
Either way, with S&Ws reputation for customer service, they will likely take care of it regardless of the cause.
Ok, here we go…
Between the M&P’s overall outstanding reliability, everyone making a fluke now and again, Smith’s reputation for C.S., and us not knowing exactly how the break came about I don’t see this as an ‘issue’.
-Jax
my comment was not ment as a hit towards the M&P. I actually own a full size M&P 9mm and it’s my 2nd favorite plastic gun.
I quoted that other guys comment cause it didn’t really make sense to me. He said that “it would easily happen” if the slide was locked back. Polymer guns have been around for decades and i don’t think the problem the OP posted is common at all. If this type of issue occured easily, i’m sure there would be a lot more reported cases of this on the web.
I think your dope is good on that. If it was a systemic problem on M&P’s we’d have seen a lot more of it. I’m still inclined to blame an error in the injection molding process of the polymer frame. Occasionally irregularities (like a bubble) can happen in the process which will lead to a failure down the road.
After reading the op’s post and focusing on a few statements, there could be another answer.
He was shooting and it broke. Was he?
OP goes on to say it “happened out of the range”, which I take to mean it happened somewhere other than the range. So, was he shooting somewhere else?
This could be a case where the guy was f***king around with the pistol, and broke it. Maybe he couldn’t get it back together and forced it. Was he trying to force a light on? Who knows, but if that is the case, of course it happened when he was shooting to get it replaced under warranty.
I am not as sure it was a manufacturing defect as I was in the beginning.
Everybody puts out a lemon now and then. I suspect that as the M&P’s popularity grows, we’ll see more such stories floating around the net. The same thing has happened to Glock. Many people see a few of these failures and don’t fully appreciate how many pistols Glock and Smith manufacture, and come to faulty conclusions about the manufacturers. If we suppose one in every thousand, or even few thousand, guns has a problem, that would still equate to quite a few online horror stories.
Badness,
I copy bud. No problem.
-Jax
I bet I could break your HK’s frame with a hammer.
i’m sure you could.
But if we’re going to go into semantics, then i guess i should say “within reasonable common sense” or…something like that. You could technically break any gun with a hammer.
You could whip the gun into a concrete floor as hard as you can and still consider it “dropped”. But in general, dropping a gun would mean it fell out of your hands.
By taking a hammer to it, i ment that that kind of abuse would be considerably more than just dropping it. If you want to put the frame in a vice and beat the crap out of it, yeah i’m sure it will break. But then of course i’m sure most people who use that common sense part, understood what i ment. Those that pick apart a persons post on a forum like they were trying to win a courtroom case, well…i guess, don’t. I’m sure there’s a lot more semantics that can be said to contradict what i’ve said, but i’m not a lawyer and don’t really care.
The only other thing I thought of that has not been mentioned is someone propping it up from the front to angle it so they could drive a roll pin out with a hammer and punch.
Not saying that is what happened, just thinking about ways it could have happened.
No gun is perfect and this is definitely a fluke. S&W will take care of you.
I just thought it was a stupid thing to say is all. I knew you didn’t honestly think that your HK is hammer proof but I don’t understand why you even made that comment…
Anyway, that crack/break has got to be either faulty manufacturing or severe abuse far beyond what should be expected of a service pistol (along the lines of what I had in mind with the hammer). I’d just call up S&W and see what they say. I bet they fix it up for your friend without much headache.
Your tone in the first part of your statement comes across as M&P’s are inferior sidearms based solely on an unknown quantity relative to the frame failure depicted in the photo. We just don’t know what happened, but there is “more than meets the eye” in this one.
The portion of your statement in bold apparently is where the disconnect happens with some readers. Your assertion is that an HK product is infallible, which we know is untrue.
Quite possibly a knit line in the polymer. I didn’t look at both of my M&P40s, but on the MRA**** there is a sink on the inside of the frame opposite the third lug. I didn’t strip the frame down completely so I was unable to detect gate locations, which would help identify if the problem resulted from a knit line.
S&W service should be able to contact someone familiar with the molding process and determine the cause.
Of course, this assumes that the M&P9 owner didn’t do something stupid and it really did break as described.
I am also interested in what happened–I’d also wager that there may be a mfg flaw/fluke such as a void or even a crack formed during the injection process–it happens. I doubt every frame gets scrutinized more than visually. I love the M&P series as a mod here got me turned onto them a few years ago. I was also studying just how much a Glock frame flexes during recoil as shown by that gif that was posted–perhaps a future informal study (for flexing, that is) with high-speed film with my M&Ps are in order ? 