I’m a fan of the M&P series of pistols, so when the VTAC came along I snatched up the first one my dealer had available. Here’s a review of the features of the VTAC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KIP-yTFD3Y
Questions and comments are welcome.
Those sights will compliment my rail-mounted pistol bayonet nicely. 
There is a point to those sights, they are not a gimmick. Personally I don’t care for them, but some very qualified people do.
I am sure you are joking about the bayonet thing, right?
They actually work quite well. I’d prefer the front sight was a tad wider but I’m just so used to shooting Trijicons, it’s my personal preference.
Yes, I’m kidding. JMHO, but those are pretty much as gimmicky as gimmicky gets.
Different strokes for different folks.
Excellent reviews/YouTube channel though in all seriousness.
Nice review:)
I’m still waiting for a local shop to get one in to check out the sights. I wonder if S&W will release a VTAC in .45?
This VTAC pistol looks very different on the slide than the one I saw at my local fun shop. The finish of the slide in the video looks like a flat FDE color. When I saw the VTAC in real life it looked shiny and more gold like than in the video. It almost looked like a pimped out pt1911 with a gold plated slide. Has s&w changed the finish on these?
There is a finish difference, from the first ones released to the new ones, I saw a comparison on another forum, new ones look crappy IMO.
I have a VTAC from the first run. Smarter people than me tell me that the slide on these was PVD coated, a process akin to anodizing (a simplistic comparison). How the second series are coated I do not know.
10-3, not sure how I posted twice.
Thanks for posting, your review was good. Great editing, angles, close ups and clear concise audio. Keep up the good work. :tup:
As far as the slide/finish issue. What was the manufacture date of the pistol?
For what its worth, S&W has changed the finish of their pistols. Earlier models carried a flat finish on the slides. Recent models have a shinier finish which is harder and protects/wears better. You will be able to tell the difference between finish types on the slides with quick inspection.
i agree. i think it would look nice with a black slide and black grips though.
i’ve been trying to trade my m&p .40 for one but local gun shops low ball me on mine.
Those sights look like they have a different hold depending if it were night or day.
Nice review / video.
That’s what I was wondering about, too.
Gimmicky like “it doesn’t look cool even though it may work really well?”
And VTAC is known for putting out gimmicky stuff? As much as my initial reaction was “hmmmmm…”, considering their reputation i feel very strongly about giving this a whirl - the more I look at it the more I see it and like it - as in “now why didn’t i think of this…”
re: Hold - when the situation arises where these are NEEDED, I don’t think “hold” will be much contemplated…
I have a VTac M&P 9mm that I am sending back to S&W for some issues with light primer strikes, but I will post some observations I have had so far.
I have shot about 600 rounds through the gun. The gun is accurate enough for a service pistol for the most part. As bad a shot as I am, I have been able to get 2-3" groups at 25 yds offhand relatively consistently. These are 10 round groups too, not 5 round groups. There’d often be a flier, but I know that it was definitely operator error rather than the gun.
I like the sights. They do shoot POA/POI…at least with the Fiber Optics in daylight.
The finish…there definitely leaves something to be desired. While mine was a dull FDE color, it felt very chalky and rough. It’s very “frictioney” (that’s not a word) to say the least. It also wears very fast. A 600 round gun that hasn’t even been holstered should not have a bunch of shiny parts where the finish has worn off in a couple of weeks.
Overall though, if S&W can fix my light primer strike problem, I will still have been satisfied with the gun. Nonetheless, I am sticking to my Glocks. As much as I want to love the M&P, there are just the bugs that still exist, whereas the early 3rd Gen Glocks are just about perfect.
I’ve shot a few mags through a VTAC and the sights work very well. I think the Trijicon HD sets - avail a few years ago might have pre-empted the invention of the VTAC variant - they are THAT bright in sunlight; but be that as I think it may, the VTACs work well.
FWIW, I remember looking in to colored meloniting/nitrocarburizing and I distinctly remember that the ‘tan’ melonite had a lower Rockwell hardness rating.
On my drive home from Ft. Benning a few days ago, I stopped at one of my local gun shops in my home town. Much to my surprise, they had a M&P9 VTAC in the display case. As usual, they listed a price well over MSRP ($999) but I was able to haggle them down to $720. The SN is in the range of DWU14XX and it was supplied with 2 mags which seemed to drop free without problems. I was sensitive to this issue as another shop in my area had a similar VTAC a few months ago but the supplied mags did not drop free. I only wish that I had paid a little closer attention to the mags in the store - more on that in a minute.
I paid for the gun and ordered the APEX DCAEK and RAM when I got home. I spent a day playing with the trigger which had the usual factory uptake grit with about a 6 lb break near the rear, and zero tactical reset. Today, I took the weapon out to the range along with some other weapons that I had upgraded just prior to leaving for deployment. I typically fire about 100 rounds to function check my M&Ps prior to installing the APEX kits since Smith does not like after market parts if you have to send it back for warrant repairs. Thus, I brought 6 boxes of 124 gain Federal AE, 3 boxes of 115 grain Speer Lawman, and some 147 grain Gold Dots to burn thru my Smith and a Gen4 G17 that I was testing.
While loading the supplied mags, I immediately realized something was wrong as the rounds were very loose and would barely stay in the mag. When I looked closer, I realized that the supplied mags were actually for a .40/.357 and suddenly realized that Smith shipped the wrong caliber mags with the pistol. Luckily, I brought a couple of my wife’s M&P9 mags and proceeded with my test fire.
On my first 3 mags of Federal AE, every round flew back in my face striking me just above my eye pro on the right. It was virtually the same spot on my forehead with each round. I then loaded a mag with 115 grain Lawman and got the same result - just a little lower on the eye pro lens. By now, I was starting to feel like Bin Laden with a small red area on my right brow and flinching with every shot due to the fear of getting hot brass under my eye pro. I reluctantly loaded 5 rounds of 147 grain Gold Dot and again got hot bass on my forehead on each shot.
Feeling that I gave a fair chance at break-in, I abandoned further attempts at firing the weapon. I’ve already submitted the online request for warranty repair. I know that this can probably be fixed with a simple tune of the extractor, but I’m not familiar with that process on a M&P. Not to mention the fact that I will probably need to ship the supplied 40/357 mags back to get the correct 9mm mags.
I’ll post more updates when I get the weapon back and get a chance to make it home again from this deployment.
I’m surprised to hear that the finish of these VTAC pistols is not holding up.
Not like anodizing, PVD finishes simply impart a very hard surface layer to the substrate metal. It does not penetrate like anodizing does.
A PVD applicator some of you may have already heard of is IonBond. I can attest to the durability of the black IonBond PVD finish as I’ve had a number of guns and parts coated through IonBond. The black finish I received back on my guns/parts, stood up to my Gerber pocket knife, a Quarter, and my Strider BT scraping against it…hard. Hell, I even wiped my sweaty hands all over a PVD’d flash hider after going for a jog…then left it out on my porch for 2 months…No rust…but I can’t even figure that one out.
Anyhow…Maybe the colored PVD coatings are for some reason not nearly as hard as the black…though I guess PVD is just the application process…not a description of the imparted finish.
I’ll add that many times I thought my IonBonded finish had been scratched, only to find out that whatever scraped against it deposited its own material…which easily wiped off. The finish had not be scratched…the scraper had simply lost some material.