Smith & Wesson M&P15TS - First Look - Updated 5/7/11

AR/M4 AR Technical Discussion
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Hey there guys and gals. This is my first post on M4Carbine.net. I’ve been a registered user for a while, but have up till now been an AK shooter. My only prior ownership of an AR was a Rock River 9mm AR-15 that was a complete piece of crap. So anyways, that was sold and I stuck with AKs until the last group I was teaching… I shots a few of the other guys 5.56 ARs and liked them so I was on a quest for what the best bang for the buck was in the AR platform. After quite some time looking I decided on the new M&P15TS from Smith & Wesson.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find one ANYWHERE. I get LEO pricing on the S&W products so I got one back ordered from an LE dealer and was told that I would get one from the first production run that occurred during the last week of July. Unfortunately… again, the dealer didn’t get their whole order so I was left empty handed for the time being. So I started looking again and decided to settle for a M&P15 MOE for the time being and attempted to order from Grant at G&R Tactical. He was totally sold out of the M&P15 MOE at the time but after emailing him, I was surprised to find out that he had two of the M&P15TS models in stock and ready to ship. I jumped at the opportunity and harassed Grant for most of two days to take my credit card info and ship me one of them.

I’m sure I drove Grant nuts with all my emails and phone calls… Fortunately he hadn’t posted them on his website yet and I was able to get one. Grant shipped on the next business day after we were able to connect by phone and the rifle arrived at my FFL three days after that. I immediately went to work switching out parts that I had ordered several weeks earlier to make the rifle more left hand friendly and mounted my optic. I got the rifle on Thursday night and had it all setup on Friday. I haven’t had time to properly sight it in before today, so I jumped right in a shot it today in an IDPA Multi-Gun Match that I had planned to just shoot pistol in. The rifle did great. It took a little bit before the match to get it sighted in, but there were no malfunctions in the first 100 rounds. Everything went smooth… We’ll see how I did after the match results get posted. This was my first day shooting this gun, with only a little bit of AR experience prior.

So on the my intention of this post… Offer up a little bit of info about this new model from Smith & Wesson. For the money I think this is about as sweet as it gets. The rifle cost me $1195 shipped and transferred to me from Grant with my FFL as the middle man. But then with the $100 S&W rebate… I’m down to a total of $1095 for the rifle. The Rifle arrived in the standard cheapo plastic case, included a PMAG that has the M&P logo on it, MagPul sights, MagPul MOE grip and stock that are of pretty good quality and a Troy Extreme Battle Rail with two of the 2" rail segments and a full length rail on the top.

According to S&W’s site this is has a 14.5" barrel with a permeant flash hider attached for a total 16.1" in barrel length. This is what initially attracted me to the weapon, as I wanted a short rifle without going into SBR land and dealing with the ATF. This was the ticket for the price. Also in the photo on the S&W site, you can clearly see that it’s a mid-length gas system and it’s stated as a 1/7 Twist as a bonus. All great stuff and even more bang for the buck. The sticker from S&W is $1770, so the price I paid was clearly much better. Which is great because I like to get a deal on stuff and because it’s not quite what was posted on the S&W website. The barrel length is actually 16.25" in length from bolt face to the tip of the flash hider, which is no big deal… But it looks to be a Carbine Length gas system, unlike the photo on the site. I will most likely never be able to tell the difference, but it would have been nice to have a mid length. It is marked as stated, as a 1/7 twist barrel which is nice.

The fit and finish is pretty good. The upper to lower fit is MUCH tighter than my dad’s two M&P15 rifles that he got a couple of years ago. The MagPul stuff is very nice and it shoots very well. I shot about a 0.5" group with the attached AimPoint during a few sight-in rounds prior to the match at 50 yards. I did however swap out the FCG for a Wilson Combat Tactical Trigger Unit, which is very nice, tight and light. The install on that item took about 5 mins, including the ambi safety and function testing. Very nice unit with a crisp break and reset.

The gun is very light, thanks to the Troy rail. The only issue I have with the rail is that it does not mount up perfectly straight. This may be normal for rails of this length, but I need to have the rear sight cranked almost all the way over to the left to make up for the rail being slightly off center at it’s end as compared to the barrel. There is enough adjustment in the rear sight to make this happen and it can be seen if you closely inspect the barrel for being centered in the rail at the end of the rail.

All in all, this is quite the bang for the buck. It’s light, relatively cheap, shoots well and looks wicked! I know I have not tested it out much, but due to my trust in other S&W products (several M&P9 pistols), I’m expecting it to be quite reliable. If not, I’ll be taking advantage of the life time warrantee from Smith & Wesson. And for those that might want to know, the gas key is properly staked and there are M4 cuts in the barrel extension. If there are any questions, please post up and I’ll try to answer them…

Okay, enough of me typing. Here’s some photos…

CHECK OUT THAT FRONT MOUNT FOR THE MAGPUL MS2 SLING… THANKS TO LMarshell73 HERE ON THE M4Carbine.net FOURM. Sweet setup and THANKS to Marshell!!!

Continuing on the next post…

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I don’t know if you already knew this, but S&W has a promotion for a $100 rebate or 5 magazines. You should see if you qualify or not (the gun should, but I don’t know your exact date of purchase).

http://www.smith-wesson.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Category4_750001_750051_757993_-1_757992_757992_image

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I did know that and I forgot to mention it in the post. That was part of the decision. I mailed it in the day I got the rifle in hand. So that really puts my total at $1095 when the rebate comes back!!!

I chose the $100 rebate because I got a truck load of PMAGs for $11 each from Brownell’s… Not sure what math S&W is using to only give five PMAGs in place of $100… If you’re paying $20 each for your PMAGs, you’re likely over paying.

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While I’m at it, does anyone know how I can get ahold of a SEI Suppressor? It appears as though my permeant flash hider is able to accept their QD suppressor but they restrict sales to the government. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a Class 3 dealer selling them to the public. I already have an NRA Trust, so this should be an easy one… If I can find one available. Is there any other brand suppressor that will attach to this flash hider?

Thanks!

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I like it! I have been waiting for this since, oh, when they said it would be released in January 8 months ago. Better late than never. Keep us updated and hopefully S&W will get the rail fixed. I know they had some problems with a loose rail for the 15T early on…

KC

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I removed the rail and reseated it. That allowed me to take about half the adjustment out of the rear sight. I think there is a trade off in weight. They made it as light as they could, but it’s just not as stout as the heaver models. I don’t think there is a fix. I think I would end up sending it back to have it returned without any real change as this is more of a Troy design issue that was a compromise for the weight savings. I compared it to the much heaver and more stout Troy rail on the M&P15T model and there is no comparison in how much stronger the regular T’s rail appears over this one

Since I have another one on order, it will be interesting to see if there is any design change on the next production run. I’m the first in line at the dealer to get the next shipment they receive. I would be surprised and pleased if the next run ended up with the mid-length gas system, but they may have just abandoned that idea to keep all the tooling the same.

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That is a fantastic deal you got. I am still interested on the similar Vtac version that comes with a 16" 1/8 twist, fluted Middy. Those were also supposed to be released this month according to the LE S&W rep I spoke with at the NPRC in June.

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If you have the exact model number, you can call S&W and they will give you the production and ship dates. Once it ships they can also tell you which distributer got them and how many they got. The problem is tracking down a dealer that has them, but if you have a friendly dealer at least you can tell them what distributer has them and they can check. Since last year’s VTAC is still around it might be hard to distinguish between old stock and the new model… The new VTAC is pretty sweet, I find it interesting that it doesn’t have any MagPul stuff on it except the mag… Is that due to Kyle Lamb being a competitor of MagPul Dynamics in the training arena?

FYI, you can get last year’s VTAC for $1400 delivered on the LE Discount if the price would help float your boat on the old model. I can give you a link if you’re interested.

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Sooooo, have we shot the thing yet. Waiting on thoughts and all that. Ya jumped on here telling us all about it and gone! Nick, is the VTAC version of this beast out?

Kentucky Cop

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I have not seen the new VTAC version anywhere yet. Several places still have the older version of the VTAC available.

I shot it in a IDPA Multi-Gun Match last weekend. I got about 20 rounds prior to the match to try to sight in the optic in heavy wind. I didn’t bother with the irons since I was just sighting in for the match. The rifle portion of the match was only about 60 rounds. No failures out of the box, thank goodness. I got second place in optic. There was only a total of 7 optic guns. I’m doing a bunch of loading of ammo right now on my off days, after I get through a few thousand more rounds of reloading I’ll start hitting the range more. I’m also schedule to attend a rifle class with it next month.

So far I’m impress. Since I’m coming from shooting an AK, this has very little recoil, seems very accurate and light. So far I like.

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I like this rifle and am looking to get one in the next year. I’m curious… did you follow up with S&W about the gas system? Did they change to mid-length after the first run of guns? The pics you posted it does indeed appear to be a carbine gas system.

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I think they had plans to make it a mid-length in the development stages and took photos of the prototype. But then when it came to making the product they decided to stick with the parts they had on hand to keep the cost down. The cost on these is VERY fair, so I’m not complaining. What you see in the photo is from the first production run of these guns.

The one that I had on backorder for quite a while with Express Police Supply just got to my FFL today. It’s from the second production run they did of these. I’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. I’ll be interested to see if there is any difference between the two rifles. If the second one pops up with a mid-length gas system, I will call and try to get them to change the first one. You can also see that the barrel and/or the Troy rail is a different length in the S&W website photos than what actually arrived on the gun. Other than that, they appear to be what the website lists.

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I’m sure that the rifle will be a big seller.

I assembled mine a few months before S&W came out with theirs. I preferred the 16" Daniel Defense lightweight profile barrel. 16" to avoid having to permanently attach the muzzle device.

I find mounting the light at 12 o’clock (as recommended by Larry Vickers and Ken Hackathorn) more versatile than any other position. I can access it from the left or right and don’t have to worry about blinding myself when maneuvering around right or left hand corners.

Have fun with your rifle.

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The M&P is a pretty good gun. I bought my M&P 15X last year for $850 with my LE discount. I have 3000+ rounds through it without a single problem.

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Great write-up and great news as I think I am about to pull the trigger on a 15 OR for $799/$699 only thing I am hesitant or unsure about is the 1/9 twist but it will be my first and I think I will be all right with it as a learner.

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Really interested in the newer S&W Vtac (mid-length).
I really like the thought process of putting the Daniels Pencil barrel on that rifle. I put my TLR -1 at 12:00 o’clock and it’s perfect to bump the rocker switch with my thumb. Great set up Sam.
And to jasonh, seems like you skipped the learning curve that most of us had to take and got a smoking deal in the process. Good on YOU!

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Is that the TLR 3 on that stick? I have one on my M&P, thinking about putting one on my rifle in that position. How are you liking it?

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“While I’m at it, does anyone know how I can get ahold of a SEI Suppressor? It appears as though my permeant flash hider is able to accept their QD suppressor but they restrict sales to the government. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a Class 3 dealer selling them to the public. I already have an NRA Trust, so this should be an easy one… If I can find one available. Is there any other brand suppressor that will attach to this flash hider?”

Call SEI and they can probably give you a contact number for Fisher who makes the same suppressor.