November 2011 Archives

Last week I installed Apex Tactical's DCAEK and RAM on my new M&P 40. Since I've done this once before on my 40 Pro the install was quick and easy, and I'm happy to report that the sear spring plunger did not exit the universe this time.

The trigger pull is sweet now. Smith and Wesson should buy or license these parts from Apex and make them the OEM parts. I wouldn't say the stock parts are bad, but the Apex setup is just a shitload better.

At the same time I did that I also installed the old striker spring from my M&P pro hoping that would fix my light primer strikes (it only has a couple hundred rounds on it). It did make an improvement, I went from 4 light primer strikes in a session to 1, but it's still not fixed.

So I came home from the range and ordered a new striker and extra power spring from Speed Shooter Specialties. (A brief side note: SSS doesn't know me from Adam, and I get no benefit from them for touting them here, but they have the quickest shipping hands down of any gun place I have ordered from.)

I was able to compare the two strikers and the original striker was a hair shorter than the new one I received from SSS. It looked like someone had rounded off the nub on the original striker. Given the low round count, I don't know how that happens. I'm hoping it was just an out of spec striker from the factory. (I opted not to install the extra power spring, after comparing the two strikers.)

I'm going to try and get up to the range this weekend to give it what I hope to be the final test before making it my carry gun, but I feel confident it's fixed now.

Normally I take a lot of pics of my new gun, but if you've seen one M&P 40, you've pretty much seen all of them so I won't bother.

I've been carrying my M&P 40 Pro for a while now, but I thought it would probably be better not to carry my competition gun, so I decided to get a plain ol' M&P 40.

Went up to the range this morning and shot about 150 rounds to break it in. I had 4 light primer strikes, not what I expected at all. It's a little snappier than the Pro, the pull is not as smooth (the Pro has an APEX competition kit installed) and the trigger reset is different, but other than that it shoots about the same. I know, it sounds vastly different, but it's really not.

I was hoping I could just leave it alone, but 4 light primer strikes out of 150 rounds is not going to cut it for a carry gun. Hell, it doesn't cut it for any kind of gun, but especially not for self defense purposes. In addition I short stroked the trigger rest a couple of times, so because of that APEX's duty kit will be installed.

I've probably done a 360 here, but I really liked the 3-dot sights. After a large number of IPSC matches, and a fair amount of night matches, I've found I really don't care for fiber optic sights, night sights, Big Dot sights, etc. anymore. Sometimes simple is best.

I'm about to order some parts, and will report back after they are installed.

If you are the size of a grown man, uttering words like "f", "mf", and "n", then you are too old to be out trick-or-treating.

It only takes a few people like that to ruin Halloween for those with small kids. We left after encountering that group.