S&W M&P.22 Magnum extensive testing.

[D V US]

My wife and I put another 250 rounds through the M&P 22 mag last night. This was her first time shooting it and really liked it. She fired off 29 rounds and finally asked the question I was waiting for, "How many does this thing hold?!?" It now has her full approval, so next step is to put a reddot on it. This thing has close to 1K rounds through it now without a single cleaning and without a single bobble. An amazing feat for any rimfire pistol, but for a .22 mag it's unheard of. I'm getting sub 2" groups offhand at 15 yards with it now, so something with it, or me (likely me,) is starting to click. A red dot should shrink that considerably.

 

[D V US]

So I have reached the 2K rd. mile mark with this little M&P .22 mag and thought I would give those interested an update. I had decided after my last post to see just how far I could push this pistol without cleaning or oiling it, only wiping it off after each range session. I also added a cheap ebay red dot on the slide, just as another experiment. At the start of this range session we were at 1700 trouble free, 100% reliable rounds. I brought 100 rds. each of the Bitterroot, PMC and Armscor ammos pictured at the start of this thread. Starting with the Bitterroot, with only a few rounds left in the mag I had a failure to feed. The round entered the chamber about halfway and stopped. I reached for the slide to clear it and as soon as I touched it, it snapped forward. I finished the mag but had three more occasions over the 100 rds. of the Bitterroot. The 100 PMC and 100 Armscor rounds fired afterwards all functioned flawlessly, even as nasty as the Armscor ammo was. I'm going to chalk up the failure to feeds to the Bitterroot ammo because it is the only failures in this first 2K rounds. We'll see if we can make it to 2.5K.

On a side note, the little cheapie ebay red dot has worked like a champ over the last few months and 1K rounds. For a shake awake red dot for $39, I'm pretty impressed so far.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Question, is there a huge gap between the forward part of the frame and the slide, or has S&W resolved that issue? So far it sounds like it may be my next firearm.

 

[GnometownHero]

I helped take care of a guy in the ER that had been shot 3 times at 5ft with a 22 mag North American mini by a woman who had it stashed in her bra when he tried to assault her in a bar parking lot. CCI HP ammo. Purple hydrostatic tissue damage his entire chest. One bullet splintered his sternem and gave him cardiac tamponade, one followed the rib cartledge and shredded the top of his right kidney, 3rd shot hit a rib and fragmented lots of pieces into his right lung.
He coded in the ER and it took 3+ hrs of surgery to stabilize him. Day 3 they removed the damaged kidney.
.22 mag is better for self defense than people think.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I helped take care of a guy in the ER that had been shot 3 times at 5ft with a 22 mag North American mini by a woman who had it stashed in her bra when he tried to assault her in a bar parking lot. CCI HP ammo. Purple hydrostatic tissue damage his entire chest. One bullet splintered his sternem and gave him cardiac tamponade, one followed the rib cartledge and shredded the top of his right kidney, 3rd shot hit a rib and fragmented lots of pieces into his right lung.
He coded in the ER and it took 3+ hrs of surgery to stabilize him. Day 3 they removed the damaged kidney.
.22 mag is better for self defense than people think.

That is also a short barrel. The barrel length on this is 5" so a stout round when fired from this pistol. Would still prefer 5.7 X 28, but would feel comfortable with .22 wmr for self defense.