Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Machines That Work

No, she's not a machine that works; she's the lovely Shirley Steffin from Harris Publications, who publish COMBAT HANDGUNS and GUNS AND WEAPONS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT. I know you guys, and you're thinking, "What's that she's holding?"

Okay, it's an S&W M&P 15A rifle fitted with an Aimpoint Comp M3 with 3X Magnifier, SureFire combat light and, even though you can't see it, a SureFire suppressor...a really sophisticated poodle shooter, so to speak. Seriously, we spent all day on the M&P 15, which is indeed a superior AR platform gun.

To sum it up, it's a machine that works...no quirks, no weirdness, nothing that breaks or falls off. Damn, not much more you can ask for! Like the M&P pistol, I'll be pulling together a more comprehensive report for the SG website.

In the meantime, a couple of happy tidbits of information:

S&W corporate attorneys have cleared the way for the company to begin manufacturer of Series 70-style 1911, sans that annoying firing pin safety system that never added an iota of safety, amde the gun quantums harder to disassemble and in general screwed up the trigger pull and grip safety. It was a stupid idea to begin with, and I hope other manufacturers follow suit and make us all happy.

SureFire suppressors for the AR platform guns, which we featured in an early episode of SHOOTING GALLERY, are now available for sale to civilians in states that allow silencer ownership. I've always thought the SureFire was a superior system because of the excellent way the suppressor attached to the barrel, which yielded a shorter overall package without a great big fat sausage hanging off the end of the gun. Check them out here and see what I mean.

Tomorrow, transitions!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike

I got to shoot one of the S and W ARs back last summer. I liked it as well. I only got to shoot a box of shells through it, but it seemed a well made, accurate gun. This was at a range in Idaho and many gun company reps was there and you could shoot the guns they had if you bought ammo there. (I also got to meet Rob Leatham!)

Anonymous said...

Stop teasing us with those podcast links!!! Oh well at least I have Burkett's top tide me over. Looking forward to yours.
Eric

Anonymous said...

Ask the Las Vegas Metro PD about the S&W AR.

They'll tell you they're pieces of crap!

I'll be damned if I'd trust my life to that POS rifle!

Anonymous said...

I've handled a dozen of the M&P AR's; they seem the exact equal of any dozen other "name brand" manufacturers AR's.
Expecially surprising (considering that S&W is THE standard for excellence in revolver SA triggers)
was the consistently crappy, rough, uneven, typical-of-Mil-spec trigger pulls.

Michael Bane said...

I can only base my opinions on my own experiences with the gun and what I observed in watching other very knowledgeable people — civilian, police and military — run the gun. I'll readily agree that the S&W version is on par with similarly priced guns from DPMS, Bushmaster, ArmaLite, Fill in the Blank.

I'm not a huge fan of the parts gun because I see a lot of uneven quality out there. My parts gun is great, but it was vetted by an AR armorer after it was put together.

I hope that it goes without saying that usually AR problems are AR MAGAZINE PROBLEMS!!! Just like everyboyd else, I've got stacks of "current military production" green follower AR magazines lying around, and some are much better than others.

I'd also like to note that SOCOM is now buying magazines from BROWNELLS! I had a long, eye-opening talk with Pete Brownell about EXACTLY what the special ops guys are buying and, more importantly, WHY!

I'll post that conversation later this weekend, because it's pretty important.

mb

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