I’m pretty sure I stumbled upon a bad batch of Silver Bear today at the range, but the first FTE was actually a round of Brown Bear I had loose in the bottom of my ammo container. Hope to go out and test with some some normal brass ammo in a few days to confirm it was just the Russian ammo.
That last one made me think it was the ammo. After pulling out the magazine, the slide locked forward on the round. The case was stuck really hard in the chamber. I tried slamming the front of the slide against the table several times, but no go. Had to take it home and get a dowel to knock it out.
Was the case split because it was overcharged or just bad metal?
12-30 Update: Problem Solved
Looks like it was just a bad box of ammo
I was lucky enough to go out again today and go through another 400 rounds. A couple magazines of hollow points, a few boxes of re-manufactured brass ammo, and some more Silver Bear without any more malfunctions.
The only thing I did to the gun was give it a quick lubing with some SLIP 2000 last night.
I don’t use any Russian ammo in any of my guns, even the hated ones. To me, it is a last resort ammo because half of the failures I see or hear and read about involve it.
I don’t mean to sound negative; it is just my personal preference.
My CZ82 9x18 Makarov eats Silver Bear with no issues. Put Federal or Winchester 9x18 in it and the damn thing malfunctions. Commie ammo for commie guns maybe?
I’m tempted to stop after the split case, but I’ve fired over 2,000 rounds of 9mm brown & silver bear before this without any issues. I fired 500 rounds of mostly brown bear through the M&P9 before this happened.
I’ve fired a few thousand rounds of the Russian stuff through my M&P’s and generally it’s displayed pretty poor quality control. I encountered so many dud rounds I stopped keeping track of them after 3 dozen. I wouldn’t get too worked up if your otherwise reliable M&P starts seeing some issues when you feed it ammo made to traditional Russian vodka-swilling standards.
I ran a class last year with brown bear and an M&P. If memory serves me right I had 2 duds in approximately 550-600 rounds. No problems with feeding or ejection just a couple FTF’s. Later when doing some shooting at the house, I shot about a 100 rounds of silver bear and it was much worse than the brown bear. In my limited experience, if you’re going to run brown or silver bear through an M&P, the brown bear is the way to go.
How old is your M&P9? You may have the old extractor that S&W used in both 9 and .40 models, it’s been known to sometimes have extraction/ejection issues with cheaper ammo.
I’ve had some issues with Brown Bear 9mm ammo in my M&Ps with an occasional dud primer. It happened twice in a class, but a tap rack solved it. It did surprise me since I’ve never had an issue with the .223 ammo. Maybe it’s a bad lot or run. Or maybe the QC is slipping.
As long as it runs 100% on your go-to stuff, having an anti-communist M&P isn’t that bad. At least you know you can get really cheap malfunction clearance/shooting training in.
Was lucky enough to go out again today and go through another 400 rounds. A couple magazines of hollow points, a few boxes of re-manufactured brass ammo, and some more Silver Bear without any more malfunctions.
The only thing I did to the gun was give it a quick lubing with some SLIP 2000 last night.
