alucard0822
For great Justice
Alucard,
Fantastic review and comparison of both!
I own an XD(m)9. I did own an M&P in the past but the appearance of the frame "sagging" in the front drove me bananas! Does not effect functionality but sure is distracting! In the end I could not get over it so I sold it. Great pistol with very minimal muzzle flip. Great gun, just wish it looked better! See below (not my gun but typical of the frame "sag")...
I do see that yours seems to be fine now. That is how mine started out. Got more pronounced over time.
Phil
So far as I can tell, the "real" frame sag issue has been mostly limited to the full size 45s, where shooting a lot in each session especially with a light on the rail seems to make it worse. I hope it doesn't happen to the pro (it hasn't happened to my compact over several thousand rounds), but if it does, I'll see if I can come up with a fix, probably heating and bending it back, or if S&W comes up with a design mod, worst case, S&W customer service tends to be very good, and most likely they would fix it. It is a shame though that a pistol that is otherwise great would have such a flaw in design in some models, but the majority of frame sag cases are not sag at all, but normal play in the rails(recoil spring pushes the slide forward and up at rest) and the normal taper of the slide where both the frame and slide are straight, but taper very slightly out from each other as you get near the front as the dust cover narrows giving the illusion of a "sag", it is purely cosmetic though, and mostly functional as the clearance keeps the slide from rubbing the dust cover over a wide range of temperatures and doesn't affect function. There are some cases of honest to goodness heat warping and frame sag, but they are somewhat rare. GLOCK had a similar problem with the first couple generations( warped up instead of down though), but it seems to have been cured in the newer models, and even then it wasn't a "problem" per se.
for example, my frame and slide are perfectly straight, but change the angle a little, and frame sag "appears", these two pics show it pretty well. Although being the rail is not reinforced it can heat warp, but more often than not, this "widespread phenominon" is not real.
now you see it:
now you don't
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