Dont know how this happened. Went by the store today to pick up something, and get a transfer set up for something my wife wants, I get home, and this thing was in my hand. Oddest thing.
WOOHOO!!!
That very thing has happened to me twice. Go figure. 
It’s weird, and the next thing after it that will follow you home looks very similar just smaller.
A lesser man would be extremely angry that Hawkeye ended up with his M&P last night while said man is STILL waiting on his weapon to show up. A lesser man would be about to tear his own face off from the unrelenting frustration of winning an auction for a pistol on 1/9 and STILL waiting for it to arrive due to the bumbling antics of a group of morons who make the Keystone Cops look like MENSA members.
A lesser man would be in his office screaming “DOES THIS MAKE YOU HAPPY, GOD? DO YOU ENJOY TORTURING ME LIKE THIS? IS IT FUN FOR YOU TO SEE ME SQUIRM? DO YOU LIKE PUTTING ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DUMBEST GROUP OF FFLS IN THE ENTIRE NATION AND THEN DERIVE PLEASURE FROM WATCHING ME GET JERKED AROUND LIKE A BALLOON TIED TO AN EPILEPTIC KID’S ARM?? AND NOW YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOMEBODY ELSE GET EXACTLY WHAT I SHOULD HAVE ALREADY HAD AND POST A THREAD RUBBING MY NOSE IN IT??” so loudly that spittle would cover his monitor while pounding the desk hard enough to actually damage the nice cherry finish.
A lesser man would be outraged that the universe is essentially puking all over him (in a figurative AND a literal sense) and is trying hard to make him climb a clock tower with a rifle.
A lesser man would do all of that, but not me.
I am above it all.
I would post more and congratulate Hawkeye on his new purchase, but the clock tower is going to close for repairs this afternoon and I have some stuff to get together…
I love you man. 
Bout that clock tower…might want to join you.
Based on what you have said that you like about 1911’s, and like/dont like about Glocks, I really think you are going to like this gun.
Some initial thoughts… I havent had a chance to fire it yet, so the following is all just from some brief dry fire and handling.
I am pitting this against my Glock 17, so thats where much of my camparison comes from.
Right off the bat I can say, I really like the “feel” of the grip. Thats nothing new as I liked it when I first held one last summer. I have always liked the grip of my Glocks, but Sigs and 1911’s always “felt” just a tad better to me. The M&P is very Sig/1911 like in that regards. When picking a target across the room, going to a low or compressed ready, closing my eyes, and then raising the gun to point at the target, I find that upon opening my eyes I am almost always on the target. With my G17 I see to be off a bit on occasion. The different grip pieces are giving me some cause to think though, as I find all 3 of them to feel really good. Guess I am going to just have to try all three at the range and find out which works the best. I was hoping that one would really stand out to me, but it doesnt.
The trigger on Glocks, especially one with a few rounds through it, has never bothered me. However, I have always liked a 1911 trigger a bit better. The M&P trigger feels to me, very, VERY, similar to a 1911. The biggest difference being a slightly longer reset.
I have always shot a 1911, accuracy wise, better than any other handgun. I can shoot my Glock 21 close enough in that regards to not really be an issue. However, having the issues with the grip safety on a 1911 that I do, all the accuracy in the world doesnt do me any good if the gun wont fire when I want it to. Thats why I switched to Glocks. I am looking forward to being able to shoot my Glock 17 and my M&P9 side by side. My initial impression is, that the M&P may just give me the best combination of a 1911 and a Glock. Range time will tell, but I am impressed, so far.
Now I just need some night sights and mags for it…
That’s the reason I chose the M&P9 over the Glock, XD or even a 1911 in 9mm. Not a lot of experience with anything other than .45ACP 1911, but now that the M&P is available, it offers everything the polymers can provide, yet keeps me as close to “Old Slabsides” as I can get ergonomically.
The mags aren’t inexpensive and that’s a bummer. I swapped to a Dawson Precision fiber optic front post and love it. I don’t feel the need for night sights on mine and I’ve left the white dot stock sights on the rear contrary to most who don’t prefer white dots (although I have used electrical tape to blacken them out for a range session for comparison sake). I also went with the small backstrap and used the Hogue Hand-All grip sleeve to replicate how I have my Sig 220 set up and that seems to work nicely for my medium size hands. See my pics on the “Everything Else Handgun pic” thread if interested.
-Boris
Join the club.
I really like 3 dot tritium night sights. However, I am thinking of getting a 10-8 rear and a factory tritium front. Thoughts?
Has anyone found a good place for mags yet? I see the M&P store has them. Is there a better source?
I’m running the 10-8 rear with a tritium front on both of my M&P 9s and it works very well.
I’m going to wait for Novak or Heinie to make M&P sights. I’ve changed my mind about U-notch sights, I’m sticking to the old square notch from now on.
<------- is so far successfully resisting drinking the kool-aide.
Maybe when the .45 ACP version comes on line. 
Me too. But I have to say with the Fall of Hawkeye, the end of the world may be that much closer. I’m dreading the day I log on and happen to see Jeff aka USMC03 post “Why M&P9s? Why 9mm?”. I’ll surely know that it’s time for me to run for the hills.
That’s freaking hilarious right there!
I wasn’t sure I’d be a fan of the U notch sights either. After trying them on 4 of my guns now I’m sold. The U notch offers the same precision as a standard square notched sight as you align the top of the sights for precision shooting. The U just allows slightly faster gross alignment of the front dot into the rear notch for faster shots.
Well tomorrow it would have been a month since I tried to get my M&P. I was on my way to the clock tower…err…somewhere…when I got the call from the local FFL who caused me such pain and grief.
“We have a package for you.”
Could it be? I dared not hope. I went in expecting them to have me confused with someone else but lo and behold!
I could hardly believe my eyes. It all seemed so…so unreal. As soon as I could I got home and began to snap some pictures before I awoke from the dream I supposed myself to be in.
First I disassembled the weapon to take a look:
A pretty simple process.
Because I am a big fan of the properly executed 1911, people often think I despise polymer pistols. That’s not entirely true. I own and have owned several polymer pistols…I just don’t find them to be as good a weapon for me as my trusty 1911. As proof that I have nothing against the plastic fantastic, I decided to to a comparison of the M&P 9mm with a couple of other polymer 9mms:
Upon disassembly, one of the things that really struck me about the M&P is that the slide rides only on steel:
In the above photos the Glock disassembly tool is pointing at the rather generous chunks of steel that the slide rides on in the M&P. These steel pieces appear to be entirely removable and thus replaceable. They also appear to be considerably stronger than the steel inserts in the Glock and the Walther P99:
Now, how big a difference does this make in the long term reliability and durability of the M&P 9mm as compared to the Walther and the Glock? Beats me. The Glock/Walther arrangement seems to be more than adequate to provide reliable service over very long periods of time and very high round counts.
Next I did a dimensional comparison of the three pistols in the area I find most important in concealing a handgun…Width:
Then I took a look at the slides:
Then the barrels:
The Glock is slightly slimmer than the P99 or the M&P. I don’t have a pair of dial calipers so I can show you just how much narrower the Glock is, but when handling the different pistols the difference is readily apparent.
The M&P feels like a bigger pistol than the P99 or the Glocks. (I know a G26 is pictured, but I have full size ones to use as a basis of comparison too) It also feels a bit heavier than the Glock or the P99. Still, the M&P feels very good in the hand and will most likely be much more pleasant to shoot than the Glocks.
…Continued because of the 20 image limit.
Now a lot of people shoot Glocks just fine. Personally, I find them to be a rather painful option not just because of the stock trigger and sights, but also because of the slide bite:
You can see that the slide tends to run up over the web of my (rather large) hands when I take a business-like grip. (I am gripping lefty in the picture because unlike my pistols I can’t shoot my camera left-handed…) After about 100 rounds with a serious grip the slide bite begins to draw blood. After 250 rounds nice deep train-tracks are dug into my skin that take weeks to heal.
Still, even if the Glock chewed half my hand off, I would prefer them if I could shoot them as easily as I can my 1911.
The M&P, however, won’t have that pesky problem:
Even the slight addition of the beavertail on the M&P changes the geometry enough to protect my hand from slide bite.
Overall the M&P feels much better in my hands than the Glocks do, and it seems to point more naturally for me, probably because it comes very close to mimicking the feel of my favorite handgun:
The trigger on my M&P isn’t the greatest, but the weapon is also brand new. It is still better than the Glock trigger, in my opinion, and indications are that with time and wear this will improve considerably. Even with a loose grip pulling the trigger all the way to the rear doesn’t disturb the sights like the Glock trigger pull does, a factor that should make it easier to shoot well.
In the process of all this photography I figured out that my Galco Silhouette holster originally designed for the standard sized Glock family of pistols (9mms and .40s…) works just fine with the M&P:
So now as a bonus I have a functional holster to do some range tests with.
Things I dislike immediately:
– I don’t like the 3 dot sights.
Blacking out the 2 rear dots should help this considerably. The rear dots are
so large and so bright that the eye is drawn to them instead of the front
sight.
– The writing
Hoe-Lee-Shiite there is a lot of writing on this pistol’s slide. Purely a
cosmetic thing and it has absolutely no impact on the weapon’s
performance or suitability, but hey…I waited a long time for this thing
so I am entitled to gripe about whatever I want. No matter how
Queer-eye for the gun guy it sounds. =-p Besides, these lists always look
better when there are at least 3 items in them.
– Nothing.
There is no third thing.
All in all, not bad.
I even managed to snap a picture with the M&P and my half-finished Eagle plate carrier training/SHTF rig. I am really looking forward to getting some rounds downrange with the pistol to see how it performs in my hands. So far I am pleased I made the decision to buy the pistol, albeit severely unhappy with the way in which the pistol finally got to me.
Thusfar my best piece of advice to those of you considering a purchase of the M&P is to find a RELIABLE FFL to do business with. If I could go back in time I would have just driven the couple of hours up to Robb’s shop and bought the darn thing from him. He can count above 10 without taking off his shoes which seems to be light years ahead of what my local FFLs can do.
As I get more experience with the pistol I will certainly update everyone. This will be my sidearm for the Vickers Tactical AK class in March.
Thanks. Any issues in low light with that setup?