Been having issues with my M&P that are probably user induced, but I am wondering if they may be partly mechanically induced.
I have been noticing that at longer ranges(15-20 yards) I am hitting WAY high from what I am aiming at which is making me completely miss my targets. I honestly dont usually shoot at more than 7-10 yards during practice, but I have been doing a shooting league that has most shots out from 15-20 yards. I know I am aiming and pulling the trigger in the COM A zone of an IDPA target and either grazing the top corners(shoulders) or hitting the head(which is ok, but NOT what I am aiming at). I am not shooting drastically left or right, at least not that I can tell. At closer ranges(3-5-7 yards) I seem to be just fine and on target, hitting exactly what and where I want. It just seems odd to me that I would have that much bullet rise at longer distances to throw rounds off the top of the target. I feel that my grip is fairly good and I am not causing the gun to go crazy off target, but I may be.
Here is how my M&P is setup:
M&P9FS with medium backstrap
APEX FSS and trigger
stock 3 dot, non night sights
TLR1
My load is 124g JHP from MG, 4.4g TG, loaded to 1.170(or somewhere there abouts, its matched to my chamber). This was the best load I worked up on my gun out of the 10 or so loads I tried.
Any clues on what I should look for or practice on to get my shots lower? I am guessing it is me and how I am taking a sight picture, but could it be something mechanical with the gun?
Should I swap to the small backstrap(the large is way to large and I cant hardly even grip the gun).
The stock sights are VERY hard to see so I blacked out the rear and painted the front blade red, which helped a little. I have Dawson FO front and wide notch rear’s I need to put on the gun, I am thinking I should put these on first before I try to do anything more with the gun and go from there. If its a sight picture issue I dont want to practice a ton with the factory sights and then swap to the Dawson’s and have to re-learn everything.
I know nobody will be able to diagnose shooting problems on the internet, just hoping for some clues or some suggestions on what to work on/look for to see where the problem lies.
Interesting that you brought this up. I also shoot high with my M&P 9mm at 25 yds. I haven’t shot my M&P for awhile but after getting a VTAC M&P. I shot both the VTac with the standard. The VTAC shot very well accuracy-wise and pretty much shot point of aim-point of impact at 25 yds. However, with the regular M&P, I was shooting about 3 inches high at 25 yds.
This issue is not unheard of with the M&P in 9mm. I had one that displayed the same issues along with less then stellar accuracy.
Hotter ammo is supposed to help alleviate the problem but the only real fix I see is a gunsmith fit barrel. Apex is reportedly working on that. Of course you may very well still need to install new sights to zero your gun after the barrel install.
Im loaded about to the max of the recommended loadings(4.5g is the max recommended charge) so I think I am plenty hot. It groups well at short ranges, just seems to be long ranges it really sucks.
I am wondering if this is the barrel unlock issue that Randy talks about where the barrel is physically tilting up before the bullet leaves the barrel(which is why a hotter round which leaves the barrel quicker helps out). I REALLY dont want to spend 350-400 on a new barrel on a gun that I already have a ton of money into and only cost $400 brand new. Kinda ridiculous.
The sights are getting changed no matter what, I have them, just need to get to the gun smith on Friday.
I am hoping this is a me sucking ass at shooting issue that can be corrected for via a technique change because, like I said, I dont want to spend $400 more on this gun. I would probably sell it and move to a different platform completely.
Shoot from a bench with a solid rest at 20-25 yards and see where the rounds impact. If it is a good group, and high, you may just need a taller front sight. If the group is all over, then you are part of the problem and need to work on technique.
The caveat is a taller front sight will cause you to hit lower at 5-10 yards.
I’d buy some different brands/grains of ammo and do some testing.
My Glock 17 shoots high left with Speer 147 grain and high middle with 115 grain Ruag. It shoots dead on with Speer 124 grain.
Find someone that shoots M&P’s well from 15-25 yards and see how it works for them, try some 124gr +P HST, GD or Ranger-T which shoot well thru M&P’s. IME with Glocks and M&P’s that are sighted in for 20-25 yards shoot lower at closer ranges where I’d “Drive the dot” 10 yards in.
Yes, the high impact on some of the M&Ps is very likely due to the barrel lock-up.
As I said I dealt with this myself. Had a barrel that went from about 4" @ 25 yards to 6-8" over the course of 15K rounds. Sent it back to Smith, they quickly replaced it and sent it back. New barrel printed the 4" groups again but 6" high. The gun got sold. Some M&P 9s seem to be fine. Others not so much.
I’m with you on the cost. Putting $400-500 into a polymer gun seems a bit excessive.
My M&P has the same issue with a very similar load.
124 gr Montana Gold JHP or CMJ, 4.2 grains TG, 1.142" OAL WSP primer at 1,100-1,115 fps (69 ft above sea level ~90 degrees F) shoots 6" high and ~2" right at 25 yards. Groups are about 4-5" strung vertically, with little to no horizontal dispersion.
It shoots a little low for me close in <=30 ft., and about 2-3" high at 15 yards.
I haven’t found a solution, however some people online have tried very heavy for caliber recoil springs and that seems to have helped according to them.
With my gun, shooting 115 gr bullets helps with POI/POA at 25 yards. They shoot a flatter trajectory anyway and get out of the barrel sooner, before it can unlock, is my less-than-educated guess.
Good advice thus far, especially having someone else shoot your pistol and trying different ammo.
Here’s my $.02, in order of probability:
It could be you. It’s impossible to know your true POI if you’re shooting patterns instead of groups. If your 10m slow-fire groups are much bigger than a nickel, then chances are that you’re the problem. Also, do you have this problem with other pistols, especially 22s? How about with other M&P pistols, especially those with different (non-factory) sights? If so, then it’s definitely you.
It could be your load. Burn rates are the most likely culprit: Titegroup is faster than Bullseye, which is to say that it’s VERY fast. Slower powders like Unique, Clays, WAP, or HS6 might hit closer to the sights. Search the manuals for a load that’s described as being a duplicate for factory ball or a duplicate for the military/NATO load. Older Lyman manuals are very handy for this. Also, as people have noted, lighter bullets tend to hit lower, but a hot 124 is the 9mm NATO standard, and I’d hesitate to keep a gun that only shot well with 115s.
It could be the gun. Have you tried a new recoil spring? A stiffer spring could slow slide movement enough to fix the problem. I won’t deny that you MIGHT need a new barrel—but Smith should be on the hook for that, not you.
How does it shoot without the light? Having a light shouldn’t change the POI, but your gun may not know that.
Louis Awerbuck, in the last course I took from him, made a point of noting that with many 3-dot sight systems there is a difference between aligning the tops of the two sights vs aligning the three dots. My M&P 9L with stock sights is like that. If I align the top of the front sight with the top of the rear sight blade, the POI is higher than if I align the three dots.
Thanks for all the responses. I dropped the slide off today to get the Dawson sights put on and will start fresh once I can get to the range on Monday. I have a ton of 115g stuff I am going to try and I ran probably 5-6k rounds of it through the gun before switching to the, supposedly more accurate, 124g JHP stuff. Maybe my gun likes the 115g hot loads better.
I will report back, hopefully on monday with what I find out. I am also going to try to bench rest the gun and see what it does as well as have somebody else shoot the gun and see if it is just me.
Edit: Forgot to add. The gun has ALWAYS been scary accurate with 124g HST +p rounds, but I have not shot them out to 25 yards so I will test a magazine of those as well. I think I have some Gold Dots I can try as well.
Smith and Wesson stated to me that they zero check the M&Ps at the factory with 115 gr Federal American Eagle (red box) rounds.
That round (best as I can tell) is loaded with a 115 gr. FMJ, 4.55 grains of some non-canister grade burn rate of Bullseye, 1.150" OAL, .376" crimp, Federal SPP primer, and a Federal case at .748" OAL.
That round shoots very close to POA/POI for my gun @ 25 yards, and accuracy is decent.
You may want to try that factory round and/or load. Shoot the Federal American Eagle up against the Speer GD and save the test targets to send to S&W.
When people ask the question “is it me, or is it the gun?”, the tendency is for respondents to reply with a bunch of esoteric ammo suggestions and sight replacement recommendations. Personally, I’d be far more inclined to just answer “it’s probably you”. I think that chasing a POI/POA problem with hardware solutions may not be the most fruitful initial approach.
I completely agree. I already had the Dawson sight to put on it and before I went and started chasing a bunch of stuff and then swap the sights I figured I would swap them first and then figure it out. The biggest thing is that I think this is a new development with this pistol. I probably have around 7k rounds through this gun and I cant remember it doing this in the past, or at least not this bad. Once I get the slide back from the gun smith this week I am going to clean everything really good, run copper cleaner through the barrel, etc… so that I am starting with, what I think, should be a known good gun and go from there.
I was thinking of grabbing a new recoil spring(factory 16lbs) and was going to go with Wolff, but their page states you have to use their guide rod and I have not heard good things about most aftermarket guide rods.
So about the lockup issues with the M&P, I was out shooting this weekend and noticed that at least some of the brass coming from my M&P9 had a “burn mark” on the side of the ejected case. The only thing I could think of was that it was unlocking so fast that powder residue was being shot back into the chamber, creating the “burn mark” on the cases. Does this sound feasible? I’ve never noticed the cases being burned…although I usually shoot steel cased ammo. I also can’t speak to the accuracy since I was shooting steel. Plan on doing some testing on paper in a couple days for that…