Hello everybody, I’m David Reed with Reed & Ward, the makers of CCW Guardian, the premier smartphone app for CCW permit holders.
This is a review of the Smith & Wesson M&P Compact and this one’s in 40 Smith & Wesson caliber. Let’s go ahead and clear lock and show safe. Visually and physically inspect the chamber. No one behind the camera, so we have a safe training area.
Let’s take a look at the left side of that weapon. Now, this weapon is 6.7 Inches long it is 4.3 Inches high and as you flip around here you can see the external extractor right there which is kind of a Smith & Wesson staple. Both on their 1911 and on their M&P series weapons. The weapon has a 3.5 Inch barrel length. It also weighs about 21.9 Ounces, so it’s pretty light the hand. It has a picatinny rail up front unlike the shield, so you can mount flashlights, lasers, things of that nature right there on the front. It has a very ample trigger guard. Just enough take-up on the trigger so that if you have a gloved hand in the wintertime and you shove it in there, you’re not going to have an accidental discharge.
All right, i’m going to roll the weapon over on top. The sites are drift adjustable so you can change them easily for aftermarket sites or even tritium sights made by Smith & Wesson. It also enables you to drift adjust the sites for your eyes and the ammo.
You’ll also notice the loaded chamber indicator which is just a whole right here in the barrel hood. For the last decade every Smith & Wesson I’ve seen has had that on there. It presumes that there is great amount of sunlight and I can look right there I can see a piece of brass in the chamber and thus know the chamber’s loaded. Just press check your weapon and don’t worry about it. I don’t ever depend on loaded chamber indicators.
The weapon has a 10+ one capacity, more about that later, and it also has a interchangeable backstrap system. It comes with small, medium, and large backstraps right in the box and I’ll talk about that in just a second.
This particular weapon has a 1911 style thumb safety which means that you wipe it off with your thumb and you can put it on. Now I happen to be a fan of manual thumb safeties on weapons. I’m a 1911 shooter so I am used to it. What I like about the M&P series and the Shield series is even with the safety on, you can lock the weapon up, you can load it, you can chamber around, the whole function can be completed with the safety on. I think it’s a great feature. It’s also great if you’re carrying the weapon, you get into a combative situation, somebody takes the weapon away from you, it’s going to take them maybe a half second to realize there’s a safety and start looking for it. Hopefully then I can retake the initiative and instruct them in its use. Okay so I like that safety system. One word though, I did talk to Smith & Wesson customer service about . If you get an M&P with out the safety they will not add one. Also if you have one like this one with the safety they will not take it off. That’s very important to know and their logic is they don’t want to add a safety to someone who used to a slick slide weapon and have the liability of them not being able to use it. They also don’t want to take a safety off so that maybe someone’s depending on it and then they have an accidental or negligent discharge. So they will not modify the safety system either on or off of any M&P. So however you want it, make sure you buy it that way.
Comes with three magazines. The one that you’ve probably seen the most is the one of the little finger grip right here. This and I’m right at 6 foot about 190 pounds so I’ve got medium-sized to large hands and this fits very well in the hand. It also feels a lot better than say a Glock in my hand only in that Glock has a certain grip to it, a certain grip angle and then there’s every other gun on the planet. So the Smith & Wesson with his tailorable, how should I say that? With its easily tailored, there you go, easily tailored backstraps system which I’ll show you here in just a second, means that you can make it feel like a 1911, you can make it a little thicker, you can have a lot of options there, but that’s a great magazine.
Now, the one you probably wind up using the most though, in a concealment arena, is this one. It’s still 10 rounds, but you can see I have to curl my little finger under there to get that magazine in there to get a good grip on it and as you know concealment is an element of butt length not necessarily barrel length, but butt length more important when it comes to concealment. So this one probably conceals just a little bit better than this one. Smith & Wesson has introduced some kits that come with this magazine. Now this is a 15 round, full-sized M&P 40 caliber magazine. It has 15 rounds and also has this little adapter right here so that you insert it, as you can see now, you get a great full grip right there. That feels awesome! It’s the same size grip as a full-size M&P. It also gives you 15+1 firepower in a pretty compact package. That said, this one’s not nearly as easy to conceal, of course, as this one. So that’s something to consider. I think that probably when I carry it I usually carry it with the flat and if this was my everyday carry then I would use this as my backup probably, right.
Let’s take a look at that backstrap system. Now you’ve got this on the rear right here. It’s not just like a mag funnel or a mag shoot, although it does kind function as that. You twist it 90° either way and then just kind of wiggle it. And when they’re new, it takes a little bit to get out, but right there it comes. Now this is a pin which you can also use during field stripping. I’ll talk about that later, but now the backstrap system just comes right off. You see that? Comes right off. So small, medium, large. The medium one is a little thicker. The smallest one is almost straight and it feels more like a 1911. The large one even has a little bit of a beaver tail right here. So small, medium, or large, either one you just put it right back on there, you insert this pin right there and stick it right back on. You see how long that took me to do? That’s why I think this is the industry’s best interchangeable backstrap system. Better than HK, better than Glock, better than any of them. It is small, convenient, easy, quick to do, and you get both thickness and linkable changed out. The HK VP 9 has like about, also the P 30 has about 19 million different ways you can configure it, but you have to drift pins out in order to do it. This one you’ve got the pin right here, you just pull out.
Okay the weapon is very smooth and it’s very slick. It comes with 3 dot sites you can see right there. Very generous opening right here on the rear. The rear aperture enables me to find that front sight really easy. The trigger feels like about 3.5 – 4 pounds, you know, without putting it on a scale. Reset is short. There’s no over travel. It breaks cleanly. It doesn’t have that great on off reset like maybe a Glock or an XDM has, but in a combative situation you spot weld your finger, the trigger, and press it. And this weapon, if it’s anything like any of the other M&Ps I’ve fired, yeah, it’s not going to disappoint. Very short reset.
Let’s take a look at it on the Reed Ergo Power Ratio Tool, the REPR scale. It’s a four part scale. Five points a piece. Total of 20 points possible. In section A were looking at caliber, this is a 40 Smith & Wesson, so it gets four out of five points right there. In section B, capacity designed to kind of offset the caliber argument. I’m not going to count this magazine. We’re going to talk about the one that you probably use. So this is 10+1 gives you 11 rounds total defensive capacity. That means you four out of five right there.
So this very excellent ergonomic weapon which feels good in the hand, its smooth, there are no sharp edges, everything feels good. It has eight points before we even shoot the weapon so i’m looking forward to that. This is the M&P Compact in 40 caliber. Now let’s go outside and see how it shoots. Okay it’s been a while. We’re outside here on the T.A.G. range. As you can see, it’s been a while since I shot the first part of this video. We had terrific amounts of snow and ice here. It’s just now calm enough, it’s a beautiful 70° day here at the T.A.G. range near Richland, Missouri. So, we’re outside here with the Smith & Wesson M&P 40 Compact. We’re going to shoot the Reed Ergo Power Ratio Tool or REPR scale, section C and D.
As you know, we scored A and B on the inside, now we’re outside here for section C and D. Section C measures recoil management and that’s my ability to put two shots on a 3.5 X 5 index card at 7 yards within two seconds. You can fire as many rounds as you want, but if you get 2 and 2 then you get max points, 5. If it takes you 3 shots or 3 seconds, 4 and so on and so forth. Then I’m going to reload, reset the timer and shoot section D. Section D is practical accuracy, slow aimed fire. Same 3.5 X 5 index card target at 7 yards, I’ve got to fire 5 shots within 15 seconds and not more than 3 seconds between shots. That gives you an idea of the general accuracy in my hands with the ammo that I’m going to be using. So, eyes and ears, let’s get ready the line is hot. Okay we’re going to use the timer right here. The safety, the manual safety, is on exactly as I would carry this weapon. So, let’s go ahead and reset the timer.
On the beat. Yeah, those are easily there.
Okay, good. 1.49 second, I got my first shot off in 1.2 seconds, so again, bringing the weapon up a little slow my split times was about a quarter of a second there between shots. So well within the two second time and the shots I can easily see on these orange index cards are right there together, it’s pretty good group. So hopefully that foretells things to come here with section D. All right, reloaded the weapon. We’re going to go from the ready, set the timer and we’ll do our slow aimed fire practical accuracy. Now, they all look there. Okay let’s go ahead and take a look at the targets. Okay let’s take a look at our targets. Section C 2 within 2 seconds, I give myself 5 points. There, look at that group, pow, pow, right there. Fired it in, I forget what it was, 1.2 seconds or less. Yeah, did a great job. So, I give myself 5 points out of 5 for the M&P Compact 40 right there. Then we come over here to section D and I what you to look at this group. My first shot was a little high right there, I think I rushed it maybe a little bit, but it’s well within the index card and it was well on shot and then look at this 4 shot group right there, excellent. I think if I’d really focused instead of maybe rushing that first shot just a little bit, I would have had a great group, but obviously that’s good enough to give myself 5 out of 5 points right there in section C and D. So, walking outside right here with the gun add 10 points the total from inside. Let’s take a look at our time in section D right there, 8.37 seconds with my average split time being 2.1 seconds. So that’s well under 15 seconds and well within the 3 second per shot time limit.
The Smith & Wesson M&P did its job, it actually feels a little better in my hand than a shield. I like the M&P shield because it’s very thin and very concealable. This gun’s just different. The backstrap’s wider. This is more like a Glock 27 size weapon, although it has a little bit longer barrel as you’ll recall. The gun dispersed the recoil very good in my hand. I felt more like I was shooting an old 9 mm than I was shooting a 40. I was shooting defensive ammo, by the way. I like the manual safety on it as I mentioned inside, but that’s really up to you. But definitely what the REPR scale right here shows us is that I’m capable with this weapon and I’m probably good with some more training in familiarization to use this as my everyday carry weapon.
So the next thing I’m going to do is take out my smart phone and turn on the CCW Guardian app. I’m going to document this training as a hedge against allegations of recklessness or negligence to show society at any point that I am a responsible type ccw permit holder. I trained and I document that training using CCW Guardian. Well again, I’m David Reed with Reed & Ward, that’s a wrap.
