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Smith and Wesson M P 2.0 - Better than a Glock?
Updated
25 months ago
Good morning everyone, hope you’re all having a wonderful day today. Today we’re gonna be taking a look at the Smith and Wesson M&P 2.0 Compact .
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Full disclosure on the Smith and Wesson M&P 2.0 Compact is that we have no relationship with Smith and Wesson whatsoever. Personally, I have not contacted them or heard anything from them whatsoever. This is actually only the first or second Smith and Wesson that I’ve ever shot so I don’t really have a relationship with the company, usually for handguns, I usually shoot Glocks or the Canik behind me, is one of my favorite handguns right now. So, overall, this would be kind of first impressions of this MMP 2.0 in general as I have very little experience with the platform.
Getting into specifics on this one, this is the four and a quarter inch version, they also make a four inch version and they make models with dedicated thumb safeties. This model that we have here does not have the thumb safety and it is the four and a quarter inch version. As you can probably tell this is the optics ready model which comes with their own optics plate system, basically they have a bunch of different plastic plates that you can use to adapt the cut to a bunch of different optics, basically any optic on the market that you want will probably fit on this slide.
Also this one came very nicely stock with suppressor height night sights. These are actually metal night sights that are quite nice and usable, so if you pull these out in the dark you will see a very nice like green hue to them so they’re actually very visible.
This is not the core of performance center version so this one here actually comes with the standard hinge trigger which we will talk about, some people like it, some people dislike it. This being my first experience with it, I actually like it quite a bit, but let’s go ahead and get into the frame first.
Frame
We have a frame mounted take down lever here. You simply pull the slide back, push it down with your thumb and then it comes off just like a Glock would. Now, getting into the frame itself, this is kind of a Glock 19 size frame in terms of its length so this one comes standard with 15-round magazines, in the box you get two 15-round magazines. I wish it was three, four or five, though the magazines are fairly easy to source and unfortunately they’re like 30 or 40 bucks, not the most expensive on the market also not the cheapest on the market. Also in the box, if you want to use the full size 17-round magazines, they have a little adapter plates that would make them fit up perfectly with the grip if you wanted to use the, again, the larger 17-round magazines or other extended magazines on the market.
Grip Texturing
Getting into the texturing on the grip, the place where your hands are gonna spend the most of the time, this is something that they did very well. So, the grip is undercut a little bit on the trigger guard, not super aggressive but a little bit. Now, I have kind of like medium-sized smallish hands and for my hands they fit very nicely on the grip itself so I have enough room to get my pinky on there, but if you have bigger hands you might need more room or to use one of those longer magazines with the little plastic insert to give yourself a full grip on the gun.
Getting into the texture itself, as you can notice this is a very fat grip. That is because I have the largest insert on the back. I was just playing around with them and put that on there and actually feels quite good though they have, I believe, three or four different sizes, anything from small to very large to adjust the grip to your hands, which is nice, it’s always nice to see them include those in the box so for your hand types, big, small or what have you, there is a grip insert that will fit your hands the best.
The best part about the grip is that the texturing on it is very, very aggressive, it is a very nice, very grippy texture, almost like a very rough sandpaper-ish feeling on it which means that when you’re really locked into the grip and gripping it tightly it does not move whatsoever whether is wet, you’re sweating out. The grip texturing is very good, probably the best that I’ve ever had on like stock, you know, factory gun that doesn’t cost, you know, thousands of dollars because, again, you can pick there up for around 500 bucks especially if you find a good link on gun.deals. Now, one thing about the texturing, while it is excellent I wish they had a bit more of it, almost all these factory guns even the ones with great texturing, they put it and then they stop about 80% up the grip or 70% up the grip and I wish they would really just continue that up and maybe a little bit where you would put your thumb as well. I really would prefer that because the grip texturing is excellent, again, I just want more of it. So, well it is a very minor downside, the grip texture is, again, excellent, I do just wish they would put that in more places because, again, it is very good.
Trigger Guard
The trigger guard itself is not what I would call an enlarged trigger guard, there is plenty of room in there though, again, depending on your fingers and if you’re using like a big winter glove or something like that you might have a little bit of a harder time getting into it. There’s no texturing or anything on the trigger guard itself, I know some people like to do that thing where they wrap their trigger guard itself. I don’t shoot like that so it’s not a big deal for me, but if you’re a fan of the squared off trigger guards this is not going to have that. Now, up front we do have a standard Picatinny rail, which I prefer, just give me a standard Picatinny rail, it doesn’t have to be some sort of special proprietary block. I prefer standard Picatinny and it is going to fit basically any light on the market because, again, it is just a standard Picatinny rail section.
For my hands, with the largest insert, the magazine release is a little bit hard to reach though, again, that’s just because I’m playing around with the biggest grip insert, you, of course, should use the one that fits best with your hands. I believe the magazine release is reversible, so if you’re left-handed and you like to use left-handed magazine release that is a very nice feature for you. As far as the magazine release itself is concerned, it does use a quite good amount of pressure so you’re not gonna be accidentally depressing it. It’s also fairly low profile which, again, this is more of a lie dedicated like concealed carry or duty style of gun so I’m not necessarily concerned with having a huge oversized magazine release for the fastest 1r1 splits possible. It is definitely usable and there’s a little bit of texture on it, but it’s gonna be a little bit more low profile than some others on the market whether that’s a good or bad thing for you.
Slide Stop and Slide Release
Getting into the slide stop and slide release, they are ambidextrous and it’s actually quite enlarged which is nice for hitting them after reloads. I thought it might be a bit of an issue if I was having issues with my normal fairly high grip of accidentally holding it up and locking the slide back accidentally, but it has not been an issue and on top of that I have not had an issue with it being oversized and not locking back the slide because I was accidentally putting downward pressure on him. Sometimes with the Glock, depending on the Glock, how I’m gripping it, so on and so forth, I can have a bit of issues of accidentally riding the slide stop and therefore keeping it from locking back the last round, however, with this just right of the box, with no prior experience with the M&P series of guns, it worked very well and it does give you quite a good amount of surface area to press down on it and get that slide back into action when you need it.
Hinge Trigger
The last thing to talk about on the frame is actually going to be a hinge trigger. The hinge trigger is a little bit divisive online. You have people who like the hinge triggers and you have people who absolutely hate them and think that an Apex kit is absolutely required to get the most out of the gun and while I don’t deny that. The Apex trigger kit is probably very nice, but I actually think that this hinge trigger in the 2.0 is actually very good and a little bit better to a lot better than what you would find in like a stock Glock. Now, this is my Glock 17 Gen 3, this is by no means a stock Glock whatsoever. This has a solid brass trigger shoe which is very nicely machined by a kind gentleman, a kind viewer of my channel, however, it uses the stock disconnector and stock sear spring, so while the trigger pull and trigger shoe is quite nice. The overall weight is still at about 6 to 7 pounds with a rolling brake, whereas the hinge trigger on the M&P 2.0 has the same amount of take up, you have a very defined wall and there’s a tiny bit of rolling brake and then instead of like 7 pounds let’s say, this is about six pounds or so.
The weight is very similar on the two triggers but the brake is much nicer at least, again, on this specific gun. So, while the trigger is still heavy and definitely what I would consider a duty or a self-defense style of trigger, it’s not gonna be winning any, you know, matches for accuracy or speed or anything like that. The trigger-pull itself with a crisp, clean enough brake for a striker-fired handgun is definitely a little bit more accurate for my hands personally than like a stock Glock trigger even though this one here is not a stock Glock trigger, but, overall, I actually found that this gun just with the trigger, combined with the very good ergonomics of the grip itself, was very, very accurate, right out of the box, I was able to hit, you know, standing shots at 100 yards, no problem, and I was able to break the shot exactly when want it to. Yes, it’s still a fairly heavy trigger, you know, duty or concealed carry style of trigger, but the way that is brakes seems to be a little bit more intuitive and repeatable than what I have gotten out of stock blocks and that’s some coming from somebody who’s fired, you know, 10 000 plus rounds on this specific handgun right here and only a couple hundred on the Smith and Wesson M&P 2.0 Compact.
I don’t want to get too much into comparison because I do believe we will actually do a dedicated comparison video between the M&P 2.0, Glock 17 and the Canik behind me as well and we will get much deeper into the weeds about all the differences between the guns, but suffice it to say that the hinge trigger on the M&P 2.0 is what I would consider adequate or even good for a duty style of trigger.
Getting into the slide itself, we, of course, have Smith and Wesson’s kind of scalloped receiver cuts or slide cuts, which are quite usable, they look very nice, they feel very good, they’re very grippy, it’s very easy to get enough leverage on the slide with or without gloves, they feel very good. The machining on the slide itself is done quite well. The accuracy on the gun, again, I was able to hit reduce-size targets out to 100 yards or 120 yards no problem, so while I might be able to get two or three inch groups at 10 yards, better shooters are gonna be able to do much better than I can.
One thing that I will absolutely knock the M&P 2.0 for is that it has a witness port on the top of the barrel so when you have a round in the chamber you can very easily see it. It’s nice to have that visual cue, however, this little witness port, as you can probably tell sits right in front of the glass on your optic. Since I’ve had this I put a couple hundred rounds through it and it absolutely smoked the lens of the Holosun 506C that I have mounted currently. What that means is that you get a very dirty glass, very quickly, just a couple hundred rounds is going to smoke it pretty bad, it’s still going to be usable, but you’re definitely gonna want to clean that up and if you were doing like a long range session or a class or something like that where you’re shooting 5, 6, 7 hundred yards at a time you’re definitely gonna be cleaning that several time throughout the day and that is mostly because of that witness hole on top.
Comparing it very quickly, this is a ported Glock 17 without that witness hole on top, this you can shoot for thousands of rounds without cleaning the glass whereas this one here you’re gonna want to clean it every couple hundred rounds or so. So, it’s a minor, obnoxious thing, it’s the trade-off of, yes, you get that very easy visual representation that the gun is loaded, however, you could, of course, just check to see if the gun is loaded and therefore verify it that way and instead you have a witness hole that gunks up the front of your lens, not a big deal but it is something to note.
Sights
Getting into the standard sights on this M&P 2.0, they are, as I mentioned earlier, suppressor heights and night sights. As far as the actual sight picture goes, it’s a very simple 3-dot system so you have a white dot up front, two white dots in the back, of course, and you have a square notch in the rear. Now, the sight picture within the optic window is definitely a lower one-third, they do co-witness nicely, but it’s definitely in the lower third of the glass or lower quarter of the glass. Honestly, the sight picture itself is fine. There’s a little bit of windage left and right in there so you can kind of refine your aim if you wanted to. Personally, I prefer a hi-vis front and then blacked out rears, but, again, for a standard sights that come with the gun, being suppressor height which means they will co-witness with the optics ready platform and the fact that the front sight is a night sight means that I am very happy with it.
Optics Mounting System
Getting into the optics mounting system, it’s nice in the fact that you can mount just about any optic that you want to it and it comes with basically every screw combo under the sun in the actual box itself which is, again, very nice. The problem of that is that nine of the sights fit particularly well. Currently I have this mounted up with a Holosun 507C on the, I forget the, the RMR plate, I believe, and while it does meet up very nicely here in the rear it kind of has a gap in the front so instead of nestling it perfect within the cut itself it’s really only perfect at the back and then it has a bit of gap up front, so, again, it’s gonna depend on what optic you choose and certain optics are gonna fit a lot better with their plate system, within the actual optic cut itself and since most people are gonna be throwing on a Holosun optic, since at this point they’re pretty much agreed upon as the best value pistol red dots on the market, they provide an exceptional amount of performance at a good price, so as far as an optic plate goes it’s fine, it is nice that it is compatible, again, with every optic that you can find out there. I do wish it was a little bit more secure and an alleviation to this problem is probably the aftermarket. You can probably find a specific adapter plate for a specific optic for this slide so that it will fit perfectly and be very, very secure.
We can actually talk about how it performed. As I mention a little bit earlier, it shot very, very nicely. When I was shooting this good I really didn’t have any complaints about the recoil impulse, the point ability, the shootability, it was very natural to get behind and I was able to shoot very quickly, very accurately, transitioned well with it, I felt that the balance of recoil was very nice. It’s nothing special in that regard really, the performance difference between this and like a standard Glock in terms of recoil control is going to be very similar, it’s really kind of gonna be a personal preference there which one you like more.
I like the trigger here a little bit more, I like the grip texturing more for sure than a stock Glock or even the Canik as well, I do think the grip texturing on here is quite well. The only thing for me personally that holds back the shooting dynamics on this is gonna be the reset on the trigger, so while I think the trigger-pull is slightly better, the brake is slightly better than like a stock Glock trigger.
The reset is actually kind of bad, so you have much longer, it’s like twice as long as a Glock reset trigger, so while the brake is a little better a little crisper which is the more important part of the trigger, to be honest. There were some times where, again, because I have a lot more experience with Glock style triggers and short resets, where I would have a bit of trigger freeze and so I would not fully reset the trigger and I would be sitting there, staring at the target like pulling the trigger like ’Why isn’t it going off?’, and it’s because I did not fully reset the trigger.
That’s just going to be a time and training issue, the more time that I get with this gun the more hopefully that problem just disappears over time with enough training.
‘Failure to reset, not the gun’s fault that was me’
‘I just felt bad. On one of those I didn’t quite reset it far enough’
‘Once again that was a failure to reset on my part. I’m thinking it’s a Glock trigger with a super short reset, so that’s just a training thing’
‘Man, it’s like laser beam, like accurate, super easy to brake the shots exactly when I want it but, again, I have that trigger freeze issue, not the gun’s fault’
Well, I bobbled the reload, but the accuracy on the gun combined with the red dot is very, very good.
As far as reliability goes on the M&P 2.0, again, I only have a couple hundred rounds through it right now so I can’t talk about it long-term durability or long-term reliability but so far it has been perfect, we used a couple hundred rounds in total and I believe most of that was Tula 115 grain as well as some Norma 124 grain and then some 115 grain Scorpio as well I believe, and, again, it performed flawlessly, there were absolutely no issues whatsoever. We pretty much just took it out of the box and shot it quite a bit and it performed very, very well.
As I mentioned earlier, we are gonna be doing some comparison videos between the M&P 2.0, the Glock 17 and the Canik behind me as well and kind of do a little bit of compare and contrast and kind of give you guys the pros and cons of each model and which ones you should buy depending on what you’re looking for, so we will be shooting this quite a bit more hopefully and, of course, giving you feedback and updating its performance as we go.
The first impressions on the gun are that it is an exceptionally good value, I believe these could be found for the low 500 dollar marks which for the gun that comes with suppressor height night sights and an optics cut from the factory with excellent texturing and ergonomics, overall, that is a very, very good deal, not quite as good of a deal as the Canik, though those are, again, about 100 bucks cheaper, but, of course, you are getting an American-made handgun with a very good track record so as far as my first impressions go on the M&P 2.o Compact they are very good and I’m excited to continue to shoot this.
