S&W M&P 9C Compact 9mm Pistol Review

oh yeah the Smith & Wesson M&P line has been very popular and is gaining in popularity is a really great choice for striker fire pistol that's reliable and accurate they have come out with a number of models which makes it even more popular and this is the Smith & Wesson M&P 9 C which stands for compact it is a polymer frame steel slide pistol very compact but it holds 12 plus one first thing I'm going to do is safety check the pistol and it is clear it does come with two 12 round magazines like I've stated it does have the flush fit this is a little better for concealed carry this area right in here is critical for concealed carry this is what sticks out and prints more than any other part of your firearm but it does come with the larger framed magazine or the with the finger groove at the bottom and this gives you a full grip on the pistol really with the flat base plate you can actually get a pretty decent grip your pinkie will hang off about half unless you have large hands and then of course that extra little bump right there is going to really make it nice with this area that comes down here it does give a nice grip now one of the things about the Smith & Wesson M&P line altogether is that it is very ergonomic I've always found that the Smith & Wesson's the mep series have been very ergonomic over what the glock has one of the big things about that is the thinness right here in the grip it really allows your finger to kind of pinch in and it gives it a really nice grip one of the things i find though about this pistol is that for me it has a very natural point of aim i can pick a place on the wall bring up the pistol put it back down at my side close my eyes bring the pistol back up and typically i'm really close to where that point is there are some pistols though that don't allow me to do that and it will be the same for you certain pistols just happen to fit your hand better and it gives you more of a natural point of aim and that's one of the things the Smith & Wesson M&P has always done for me now I have the full-size MP and I really loved that pistol and I was really I've been looking for one of the compacts I guess for probably about a year now now speaking of mags one of the great things about this pistol is is that it shoots the mags out definitely I mean they come flying out what I really like though is the magazine release as far as being able to grip it when I grip a gun typically I have to adjust my grip to get that matte release with the MMP I can and it's a little bit of a stretch but not bad I can get the tip of my thumb in there and hit that mag release and dump it without changing my firing grip now one of the great things about this mag release is that you can take it and switch it from the right side to the left side and it's fairly simple to do there's in the owner's manual but it is very quick but it's also ambidextrous with your slide release bring back the slide and right here it locks and then on the other side you have a release as well so it's going to be very ambidextrous friendly the slide is stainless steel it's a really nice matte subdued finish that really matches well with the real matte finish of the polymer frame with the back strap here and I'm going to show you there are three different back straps that come with this this is the small but has a really nice texturing I mean it's it's not super aggressive to the touch but yet it feels good in the hand up here at the front it's also very aggressive nice good feel to it but you're really going to need that because the frame itself is fairly smooth just a little bit of resistance but not much you can see that the mag release has that same kind of texturing to me this pistol is a very attractive looking pistol I mean it just looks great it looks better than the Glock to me just some of the styling I think part of it is the serrations right here on the slide and as you can see they are kind of scalloped and you know if you really look at first they don't look as aggressive as they are they're kind of hidden back man they are easy to grab I mean this really is a very positive gripping you know I would like to see maybe some serrations on the front for press checks because I do personally like to do press checks and to check to see but one of the great things about this pistol is right here is a loaded chamber indicator which is really great because a lot of guys despise one that protrudes out of the pistol and there are a different number of pistols that do that but with this one there's no tactile indication you have to visually see it here I'm gonna take a dummy round right here you can see the snap cap coming through you can see it better visually with the naked eye but it does come through and you can't tell that the round is in the chamber there is an option for frame safety right here and you know if you like that I personally do not like outside frame safeties with a safe action type pistol like the Smith & Wesson with the trigger right here and of course you can see that little bar it's gonna butt up against the receiver now one of the things you'll notice though is this little pivot area and it looks almost crooked because of this little pivot but it is a really nice trigger and we're going to talk about the trigger right now of course double check the gun is unloaded one of the things about the Smith & Wesson is originally with the MMP the trigger was not all that great and the reset was almost non-existent they incorporated a really good trigger system with the shield and this new MP has been upgraded to the shield type trigger and so one of the things about this trigger pool is that it is really smooth right here I mean it is a really nice smooth take-up and then it's actually a little heavier than your Glock I checked with my Lyman trigger gauge and it's running about 7 pounds which typically your Glock runs between five and a half and five pounds so you're going to get a little more of a trigger pull but one of the things about the Glock is it stages a little bit before you hit it gets a little spongy now after shooting hundreds and thousands of rounds they definitely work their way out but so will the Smith & Wesson one of the features on the trigger that I really like is right here you see this little protrusion at the back of the frame when you're bringing your trigger to down together get it right here you have your break it's a trigger stop and this helps from over travel so once you hit that you hit a wall it's done and of course with the reset I mean how quick is that audible and tactile and then you're back at your trigger stop I think the trigger system in the MEP 9c is excellent the slide has been cut down you can see the grooves right here and then it's been bullnose somewhat just to make it easy to put in and out of holsters the sites themselves they're three dot sights really show up well the three dots brights clear easy to see even though it has a shorter sight radius that white just really pops got a little bit of a shelf here that's going to help you to be able to do one-handed reloads if you need to now a couple of unique features of the Smith & Wesson M&P C is that it does come in the compact version but yet it has interchangeable backstraps there are a number of different pistols that have that but not all of them another thing is the small accessory rail on the front the one of the things you've got to be careful of though is with the accessory rail especially with compact pistols is that it's going to fit compact lights a lot of the larger standard lights are not going to fit they're not going to actually get out there you need that third Picatinny rail but it is Picatinny it's not proprietary which makes it nice now I like the rounded trigger guard on the M&P on the Glock it has the square it off which actually adds a little bit to the silhouette of the pistol but one of the things about this pistol that really surprised me is in comparison with the Glock it's not quite as small as the Glock 26 now it handles fields shoots like a smaller pistol of that same size but really it's actually an in-between between the 19 and the 26 and I'm going to do a whole separate comparison video showing the 19 and 26 and how it compares with this model to me it goes more toward the line of the subcompact even though it is called a compact but for Smith & Wesson one of their compact versions is the shield this is the single stack version and it's really thin and that's one of the big things about this pistol is that the shield is much thinner but the shield is a single stack magazine whereas the 9si is a double stack magazine so you're getting a more higher round capacity and really the silhouette of the two pistols is almost identical so you know you're not only thing you're gaining really with the shield is that it's a lot thinner now that has a lot to do with comfort believe me for someone who carries a gun everyday then this does translate to more comfort but to me having the extra rounds also translates to comfort so you know you just have to weigh out your options and what you're really looking for and a paraphrase kind of an old saying is it's better to carry the gun with less rounds than to leave the gun with more rounds at home now here at the range this gun honestly shot very close to what the full-size even pea fires I mean it's got the same ergonomics the way it feels in your hand it feels your hand the thinness there's nothing going on on the sides which makes it really nice really small slide stop you know that's one of the things that I really love about the Glock is not its ergonomics not necessarily the way it shoots but just that it's so thin there's nothing going on and I think Smith & Wesson has definitely and put that together with the MMP and to me it's just more ergonomic I mean you guys know I'm a huge Glock fan but I'll tell you the M&P has really been winning me over just the way that it has this swell right here and of course you can change out the back straps and I mean look at this fde frame with this black I mean this really accents it's a beautiful gun in fact I put a number of pictures of this on Instagram and people just went nuts you know really truly guns are an art form and it's also a sport so the more ergonomic and the more fluid the lines not only the more fun analogy you have but the better it looks and I mean this gun just looks fantastic the barrel length is three and a half inches the weight on the 9c is twenty four point five ounces that is in-between the Glock 19 and the twenty six one of the great things about this though is the ergonomics to me Balai the weight of the pistol and I think it will give you a lot more confidence this pistol just it grips very well it fires very well and at the range it shoots like the full-sized MMP first group seven yards really good just solid hits here we went out to about 15 yards I kind of doubled the space a little bit more flying but still keeping it really together in there and that was 115 grain HPR full-metal-jacket I'll tell you this is just exceptional feeling shooting handgun I mean it belies the sighs it seems like it would be a lot more snappy but it's just right on target of course these are easy to see targets excellent target system now here we have the full-size MP and then of course the 9 see one of the great things is the MP does carry 17 plus one compared to 12 plus one with the 9 see but what I really like is that you can use the standard 17 round magazines in your 9 seat and so obviously it will hang out one of the things they do make though there's a number of companies that make some adapters that will fill in that spot but really to be honest with you I carry a lot of times a large frame magazine is my backup for whatever pistol I'm carrying if I have that option typically with the Glocks with my P 30s k HK I do carry the regular P 30 magazine so it just makes it nice to be able to have something with a little more capacity you know as a backup and then you can go ahead and carry your you know the smaller magazine in the pistol now it does come with two extra back straps and I'm going to show you how to install those it's really simple release your magazine right here just turn this little bottom part about a quarter of a turn and then just pull out when you first get it it's going to be a little tough to do but no big deal now just remove the back strap one of the things that I like is that they are marked and you know here's that you see the ass right here that's for small obviously and then you have medium of course this definitely is the large and that way you can place whichever one you want to put on here I did when the pistol came in it did have the medium-size back strap on it and I installed the small and I'm going to install it again because it you know it is a compact pistol and I have medium hands and I like it small and then you just take your tool and put it back in and then it locks into place now one of the things I'm going to do I'm going to show you this is also a tool for a couple of other things for your pistol and that is concerning disassembling so let's go ahead and it'ss assemble the pistol we have released the magazine and the gun is unloaded first thing you want to do is bring your slide back and engage your slide stop right here is your takedown lever just pull it down now you can go two ways here you can either pull the slide back and pull the trigger and it disengages the safety and the slide goes forward a lot of people don't like pulling the trigger to disassemble the firearm which is understandable and if you want to do that which I don't mind I'd do it all the time but pull out your tool again right here beside your ejector there's a little lever and it's actually a yellow color and you just take your tool and you bring that lever down just like so and that disengages the striker then all you have to do is release your slide stop and the slide will just go forward okay we have a recoil spring and I do want to make note of this specifically because it is one of the flat-wound recoil springs this definitely helps with filt recoil it's a stronger spring and you know there's a number of different pistols that employ this for recoil management and it does work very well it is captive of course then you have your barrel just lift out and of course it's inspired by Browning linkless design as most of our modern pistols the slide itself is very reminiscent of the Glock one of the things about the frame though is that there are a few more different moving parts a little more than the Glock but you know pretty much very similar in design obviously with that really classic pistol and that's pretty much all you need to do to field-strip the pistol take your barrel put it back into your slide recoil spring put the slide back on the frame pull back now you'll notice that the takedown lever went ahead and went back into place here and we're going to take a look at it the sear disconnect lever though is still sticking out but one of the great things is and this is the way it was designed is you just take your magazine if you insert it it goes right into place so the gun cannot fire with that lever down and it does add a good safety feature to the pistol so that is one thing to consider just come in a nice blue box and just opens up the typical Smith & Wesson of wax paper like this does protect the gun it just shows that they care about their firearms of course you know it's a fitted case with your back straps as we've seen ended magazines of course the wonderful lock owners manual registration card and a spent case from the factory very nice and typical for a lot of gun companies the box though to me is a little bit more exceptional of course this goes in my junk drawer now I'll talk about a couple of things that are really like a couple of things that I don't like first off is the ergonomics on this pistol is just again exceptional I am so used to carrying a Glock 26 or a Glock 19 and I've been doing that for years and years and one of the things about the MEP is it just fits the hand better just hands down and so that's one of the things another thing about the MP is that it just is a very great looking pistol even without the FD frame it just has a really beautiful feel to it in the 12 rounds over ten rounds in the subcompact I really like that because to me this is more in the class of the Glock 26 than it is in the Glock 19 and again we're going to be looking at that pretty close coming up but a couple of things that I don't like one of the things is the disassembly it is a little it cumbersome with the disconnect er lever and taking out this little piece of course you can bypass that just by pulling the trigger and if you do it's actually a little easier to disassemble but that is one thing just some of the complications work that are involved in that the second thing is is that it is just a touch larger than the Glock 26 or the Glock 27 of course this is nine-millimeter so it is just a little bit larger but you are getting the two extra rounds so I really count that as a big wash now to me one of the great advantages of the Smith & Wesson M&P is its price on the retail price side it's about five hundred and sixty dollars but I saw them in a number of places online for around the 420 dollar range that is fantastic guys for the quality because this the M&P matches quality with any of your polymer-framed pistols and most of them and let's take the Glock for instance the gin three runs around five hundred dollars street price and around 544 the gin four so you're getting a really high-quality matched to me match the same as the quality of the Glock for about a hundred dollars less and that is really an exceptional value so I think that the MMP line is really a great pistol in itself even if it was at the same price as the other pistols and yet you're getting a really good quality pistol very ergonomic and made right here in the USA and of course Smith & Wesson those guys have been around for a long time making really great quality firearms so Smith & Wesson I have to give you a big thumbs way up on the MP series and specifically the mmp-9 C just excellent be strong be of good courage god bless america long live the Republic the I really wanted to go with try it out and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah whereas the M&P compact shield whereas the M&P here we have our magazine we have a recoil spring it does come in a really nice blue box of course open up close foam padding that was not close good gosh man they start that round I hit this

Channel: sootch00

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Keywords: Sootch00, Sootch, Gun, Firearm, shooting, review, Self defense, Smith & Wesson M&P, Smith & Wesson (Business Operation), Shooting Sport (Sport), S&W, M&P, 9mm, compact, subcompact, Glock, Shield, handgun, CCW, concealed, carry, FDE, 9×19mm Parabellum, Pistol (Product Category), Range

Id: WFv3W8TOw1A

Length: 22min 35sec (1355 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2015