Uncle Malice
New member
Many of you have seen me sing the praises of the M&P 22. I really like the pistol. Ergonomics match the M&P 9 perfectly (after removing the thumb safety). The trigger isn't exactly the same, but it's certainly not bad. It fits the same holsters as the M&P 9 and 45. It's well-made, despite the detractors who would have you believe otherwise due to it being produced by Umarex. I've handled and shot Walther P22's and some of their other cheap models. That's not what the M&P version is. It's an aluminum slide with steel inserts for the important parts, even at the slide stop point.
I've always said that I had never had a single malfunction in well over 2000 rounds. That was another reason why I really liked the pistol. I don't expect that kind of reliability from a 22lr. My 22 conversion kit for my P226 certainly doesn't come anywhere close to that which is fine. It teaches malfunction drills... and I'm not using a 22 for self defense.
Well, I finally had the first malfunctions in the M&P 22 today. My wife had some friends in town from Canada and Denmark and they wanted to go shoot so we took them out to the desert this morning and let them run through a bunch of rounds. It was 4 women and one young boy, one of their sons. We only did 22lr and 9mm. Everyone started on the M&P 22. The best shooter out of the bunch was the 10 year-old boy. He and his mom are from Denmark. It was his first time ever holding a gun and he was ringing my 8" octagon target from about 7 yards pretty reliably once he got the hang of it. I mean, at least 50% of the time, which I consider very good for someone just starting out.
Everyone had an excellent time. After some basic safety instructions before getting started, everyone handled the guns very safely and properly. The 10 year old was even ringing steel with the 9mm guns. Everyone got better by the end, but I was very impressed with that young man. We spent a little under 2 hours out there, going through about 300 rounds of 22lr and 200 rounds of 9mm. They all gave me hugs when we were finished and told me what a great time they had.
Back on topic, the M&P did finally have a few malfunctions today. I think some of them may have been shooter induced, but they were malfunctions just the same. Now, it hadn't been cleaned in nearly 1000 rounds and it was pretty dry. We were shooting Federal 525rd bulk pack ammo. We didn't get through the whole thing but there were 2 or 3 dud rounds, 2 stove pipes after the first round, and 1 or 2 failures to extract the spent casing. That's a lot of malfunctions for a gun that has never failed before. So, I'm assuming that some of it has to be shooter induced. I think at least one of them was the shooter riding their support thumb along the side of the slide,causing a failure to cycle. At any rate, I can no longer say that the gun has never failed. However, it it getting very close to 3000 rounds through it at this point and I'm still thrilled with it.
Just finished hosing it down and lubing it all up. It was pretty filthy and some dust and sand that I'm sure didn't help its cycling. I absolutely love the gun. I want to pic up the newer M&P 22 compact as well just because of how much I like this one, even though it won't fit the normal M&P holsters.
TL;DR: I love this gun and highly recommend it. So did every new shooter I handed it to.
I've always said that I had never had a single malfunction in well over 2000 rounds. That was another reason why I really liked the pistol. I don't expect that kind of reliability from a 22lr. My 22 conversion kit for my P226 certainly doesn't come anywhere close to that which is fine. It teaches malfunction drills... and I'm not using a 22 for self defense.
Well, I finally had the first malfunctions in the M&P 22 today. My wife had some friends in town from Canada and Denmark and they wanted to go shoot so we took them out to the desert this morning and let them run through a bunch of rounds. It was 4 women and one young boy, one of their sons. We only did 22lr and 9mm. Everyone started on the M&P 22. The best shooter out of the bunch was the 10 year-old boy. He and his mom are from Denmark. It was his first time ever holding a gun and he was ringing my 8" octagon target from about 7 yards pretty reliably once he got the hang of it. I mean, at least 50% of the time, which I consider very good for someone just starting out.
Everyone had an excellent time. After some basic safety instructions before getting started, everyone handled the guns very safely and properly. The 10 year old was even ringing steel with the 9mm guns. Everyone got better by the end, but I was very impressed with that young man. We spent a little under 2 hours out there, going through about 300 rounds of 22lr and 200 rounds of 9mm. They all gave me hugs when we were finished and told me what a great time they had.
Back on topic, the M&P did finally have a few malfunctions today. I think some of them may have been shooter induced, but they were malfunctions just the same. Now, it hadn't been cleaned in nearly 1000 rounds and it was pretty dry. We were shooting Federal 525rd bulk pack ammo. We didn't get through the whole thing but there were 2 or 3 dud rounds, 2 stove pipes after the first round, and 1 or 2 failures to extract the spent casing. That's a lot of malfunctions for a gun that has never failed before. So, I'm assuming that some of it has to be shooter induced. I think at least one of them was the shooter riding their support thumb along the side of the slide,causing a failure to cycle. At any rate, I can no longer say that the gun has never failed. However, it it getting very close to 3000 rounds through it at this point and I'm still thrilled with it.
Just finished hosing it down and lubing it all up. It was pretty filthy and some dust and sand that I'm sure didn't help its cycling. I absolutely love the gun. I want to pic up the newer M&P 22 compact as well just because of how much I like this one, even though it won't fit the normal M&P holsters.
TL;DR: I love this gun and highly recommend it. So did every new shooter I handed it to.
