I was blasted for supposedly not taking up my M&P slide peening issue up with the manufacturer. Well, I did. If you read my post fully, I did say that I had sent it to S&W for warranty work and that they did replace the entire slide assembly for me. Yes, they had great customer service and stood behind their product but that does not change the fact that the issue occurred. I did sell the gun right after but I have also been inspecting other peoples guns and the issue still exists in a good number of them. Now true, mine was an early model but I think the metallurgy has not changed much. I decided to sound off as I read about the entire slide cracking in the earlier thread and wanted to make people aware of a possible issue. It was not meant to condemn the gun but to give every owner a caveat and a point of inspection for their M&P handguns. I love the M&P ergonomics but have decided to go with other platforms due to the reason I stated earlier. I have owned and shot all the major platforms out there and have NEVER experienced a similar issue with any of them.
Just wanted to clear the air as I have been accused of being an ignoramus who is being unfair to the platform. My observation was fair and objective. I experienced a problem and reported it. Your experiences may vary and S&W may have taken corrective steps in the past year and a half plus since I owned my gun.
You say you’ve seen this on “a good number of” M&Ps. Can you provide photos?
Have any of these guns, including the one you returned, exhibited any measurable decrease in accuracy or reliability?
You say that you “think the metallurgy has not changed much.” Based upon what?
When Smith replaced the slide, did they indicate the original slide was actually faulty in a specific way? Is it possible (and I’m assuming here that you didn’t have malfunctions occurring, so this may not apply) that they replaced the slide solely for aesthetic reasons?
The slide crack issue was not a metallurgy fault, it was a manufacturing issue n which certain slides which were cut with freshly hone tools had such sharp angles on the rails that it created a stress riser. It happened to less than one in ten thousand guns, but Smith addressed the issue with a design change to the slide rail dimensions. I mention this primarily because if Smith was willing to spend the time and money to address the cracking issue (and they did, I was involved with the process) even though it was so rare, it’s curious that they would continue to produce guns with what you say is an obvious and common metallurgical deficiency.