Post by HeadHunter on May 20, 2021 19:15:02 GMT
What a year !
2016 was certainly a glorious year for CO2 replicas, at the annual Shot Show event in Las Vegas ASG announced the release of the Dan Wesson 715 range of replica revolvers and Umarex surprised everyone with the S&W M&P40 as well as announcing that their incredibly popular range of the Colt SAA was getting a pellet firing option c/w a rifled barrel, what a year that was ! You don’t get many like that, that’s for damn sure.
The sad backstory
Unfortunately for me the S&W M&P40 was ‘overshadowed’ by the gloriously superb DW715 revolver which distracted me with it's sublime beauty just enough to miss the opportunity to own one of these wonderful autos. By the time I’d watched enough reviews to realise how good they actually were Umarex had decided to cease production ( FFS ! why ?) and they became very hard to track down. Wild Bill was lucky and managed to get a tan one from SWS in Germany and posted a little review on the AGF, so I scoured SWS for another one but Andy had bought the last one ! (oh Bugger !). Then another AGF member managed to track one down in an Aladdin’s cave type of RFD near Manchester and they didn’t have any more in stock either (double bugger !). So I was forced to scour the secondhand market in the ever decreasing hope of ever getting one, nearly nailed one in the last few months of 2020 but it turned out to be a very ‘rough’ one, so after careful deliberation and much umming and arring I decided not to go ahead, opting to wait for a better condition version to hopefully come on the market. So fast forward 6-7 months and I found one, in black (the only colour you’d ever seriously want), in great condition, boxed with everything apart from the medium back grip strap (more on this later). Turned out that it was being sold on GunTrader by one of our newest members Chris (aka SnesMonkey). I got it at a good price, paid on Monday, delivered on Tuesday, you can’t wish for better than that !
The S&W M&P40
I should really state that I’m first and foremost a revolver type of guy, I don’t hate autos per se but I do have such deep love for a revolver that there’s not much room left in my heart for anything else, I could easily and eloquently list the reasons why, by using some over the top superlative descriptive terms that would make you think that I was describing my idea of the perfect feminine form. But a good auto can be, as I’ve come to realise over the years, a thing of beauty too.
The first thing that I noticed was it’s size, it’s small, quite a bit smaller than most standard autos are anyway. Compared to the likes of my Beretta, 1911s and Taurus it looks like it’s been shrunk slightly in the wash and when compared to the behemoth of the H&K USP it looks so diminutive that you’d be easily mistaken into thinking that it’s a CC (concealed carry) gun, lol.
But all that changes as soon as you pick it up and put it into your hand, it’s solid, very solid in fact, way too solid for a gun that has a polymer frame. It’s smaller size belies the truth of its weight, you’d be very mistaken if you thought that it was going to be proportionately lighter than any of the standard sized autos. The fit to the hand is one of the best that I’ve ever come across in an auto, which brings me neatly to the interchangeable back straps; if you're lucky enough to have bought one of these new then your be blessed with three differently sized interchangeable back straps (small, medium & large), mine came with two small and one large (?), apparently when Chris purchased it this is how it came and he didn’t want to return it to Germany, so he decided to just stick with it. Now I don’t have small hands and they’re not what I would call large either, so I was expecting to have to use the medium backstrap to get it to fit my hand properly. The gun had one of the small ones fitted when it arrived and the fit was absolutely perfect for me, if I’m being honest I cannot imagine it being any better with the medium version at all, I did try the large and it was far too big and plus in my opinion, it actually ruined the look of the gun by changing the balance of the proportions between the grip and slide. It’s a nice touch that Umarex did supply the gun with the interchangeable grips that came as standard with the real steel version. It’s those little attention to details that set certain replicas above others, so kudos to Umarex for doing that.
The gun itself is a striker fire gun (externally it’s hammerless) and this is the very first SF in my collection, I’ve not got anything against a SF auto it’s just that none of the autos I’ve ever fancied owning have been SF before now. I do like how Umarex even copied the loaded indicator hole that sits on top of the frame behind the breech opening, another realistic replica touch from Umarex.
As stated the frame is polymer, a good quality material is used here, whether it is ‘ballistic’ grade polymer ? I don’t know, but I can tell you that it is good quality, as good as I’ve seen on any other replica gun (eg. the H&K USP). The magazine is a full sized, drop free, mostly metal magazine that houses both the bbs and CO2. The magazine holds 15 bbs which is exactly the same shot count as the real steel and I actually couldn’t get even one more in it, so in a replica sense it’s perfect. Loading the bbs is done by pulling the magazine follower down as far as you can which allows you to drop the bbs in an opening just above the follower very easily. The CO2 housing is completely enclosed so that you cannot see the CO2 through the side of the magazine, so once removed from the gun it does look very much like the real thing, apart from the obvious lack of the ‘witness holes’ in the side of the magazine. The unloaded magazine is quite heavy on it’s own and is one of the main contributing factors to the gun’s overall weight, balance and feel as is normal with any polymer framed gun, plus once loaded, it gives even more of that overall weighty feel to the gun.
The metal slide fits snugly to the metal guides that are moulded into the frame and it has no nasty rattles that are so common with many other replica autos. It has a working stripdown/takedown lever, ambidextrous safety and slide releases too, the safety switch is solid with a nice audible click when toggled on or off. The trade markings are very good, with the full S&W logo painted on the slide along with the ‘SMITH & WESSON’ trades and ‘M&P40’ designation. The grips on both sides have the special S&W Military & Police insignia moulded into them, which is again a really nice touch, they could’ve gotten away with just using the standard S&W logo but instead they went the whole hog and used the proper M&P insignia, again kudos to Umarex for doing this.
The gun is very easy to field strip and should present no problem to anyone familiar with an auto, although you do need to make sure that you rack the slide prior to taking it off otherwise refitting can be troublesome as the take down lever won’t reset properly if you don’t.
Picture - The S&W M&P insignia that's moulded into the lower part of the grips.
Shooting
The first thing I do with any new gun, or even a secondhand one for that matter, is a good strip down, clean and grease, after that it’s a full CO2’s worth of test firing, then a new CO2 and a run through the old chronograph. I recommend chronographing any new gun to everyone as it gives you a baseline to work from if ever you’re wanting to make improvements or also if anything should go wrong, then at least you’ve then got something to judge it's performance to.
The gun itself only fires in single action (just like a 1911 and unlike a Beretta 92, Taurus PT92 and the H&K USP) and is very snappy, the low bore axis on this gun makes for a good feel to the gas operated blowback and is very pleasant to shoot. The trigger has a built in safety system (similar to the Glock) that functions as it should and has a light take up, a nice crisp break point with quite a short reset, the trigger makes the gun very easy to use and feels very good. The sights are easy to find (the standard three white dots) and the grip helps keep it on target despite it’s incredibly solid blowback action. I tested it at 5m and it was shooting fractionally low which I adjusted for and soon found the sweet spot for some quite accurate paper punching fun. The groups were small, tight and well centred on the target once I had adjusted my point of aim.
Whether it was because I spent so long looking for one and I was just so pleased that I’d finally managed to track down a good example or whether it was just the simple joy of plinking, but I did find myself grinning profusely whilst shooting. It feels great in the hand, weighty yet comfortable, snappy yet controllable and very easy to get on target too.
The fore sight looks to be adjustable for windage by using a small allen key which luckily I didn’t need to do as it was very centrally positioned on the target. But once I've checked it's performance at 10m I might get around to moving or modifying it, but at 5m meters it was shooting centrally enough that it didn't need adjusting.
Chronograph results
The M&P40 managed 80 amount of shots before failing to fire, unusually though this gun didn’t do the normal auto thing where it loses recoil power and fails to load at a certain shot count whilst still having gas remaining, it actually just stopped completely dead after the final shot, no gassing off (as I call it) from the CO2 valve, it just fell silently empty. I should take this opportunity to mention that the CO2 piercing pin leaves, without doubt, the largest hole in any CO2 caplet that I’ve ever seen and that may play a major part in the snappy blowback and it’s dead-stop-abilty by the end of the CO2 capsule, just conjecture on my part but it may well have some bearing on it’s performance.
(Testing procedure was quite simple: Load a CO2, load bbs, fire a shot, record the fps result, repeat shooting and recording till the magazine was empty, then reload magazine and repeat again. I was generally trying to be as quick as possible to simulate actual shooting rather than succumbing to the elongated pauses of repetitive testing.)
1 CO2 gave 80 shots using Umarex 5.3 grn bbs at an ambient temperature of 18C
The FPS started to slowly drop after shot 70.
Averages over the course of 70 shots were 269.9 fps / 1.16 Joules / 0.85 fpe
Highest recorded FPS during the 70 shot string was 291 fps.
Lowest recorded FPS during the 70 shot string was 250 fps.
So roughly, it was shooting the maximum of +/-20 fps either side of the average but at the very most it was deviating by about 10fps between shots but most of the time it commonly seemed to be nearer a 3fps deviation from shot to shot than anything else. So I'd say that was pretty consistent across the 41fps spread from highest to lowest recorded shots.
Combining the results with the magazine capacity has led me to conclude that 4no. Magazines (60 shots) will be just fine, even if I decide to offload a magazine or two in quick rapid fire fashion, plus when slow firing on warmer days I should get an extra magazine's worth of fun out of it.
Power wise, it’s not too bad, falling squarely in between both of my 1911s which only really ever give me a maximum of 56 (8x7 shot magazines worth) good shots before the power drops off. Obviously it doesn’t compare favourably with the H&K USP with it’s average 329.9 fps over the course of a 60 shot string but that if anything shows the hard hitting performance of the USP in a more favourable light rather than to condemn the M&P40 for being weaker.
Personally, I’m happy with the results both in the chronograph test and in the shooting accuracy, it gives 60 fairly consistent powered shots which are more than adequate for some good backyard plinking.
Review summary
No review summary would be complete without a mention of the real steel M&P40 manufacturers; Smith & Wesson, their Military & Police range has always been a firm favourite with Peace Officers and the general shooter alike and when you have this gun in your hand you can really see why ! It’s operation (the real steel M&P40 has an exceptional reputation for unfailing reliability), it’s comfortable design, it’s overall size, the fact that it has 15 rounds (either 9mm or the .40S&W calibre) of hard hitting, hole punching, man stopping rounds inside the grip go to make this an exceptional gun. It's dependable, it's reliable, it's rugged and best of all, it's a Smith & Wesson, a name that you can truly rely on.
Umarex have clearly gone 'above & beyond' when they designed this replica, they've copied as much as they possibly could from the real steel version, not one detail, no matter how small, has been omitted. The fit and finish of the gun places it well above good, if not firmly in the category of ‘superb’. The feel and the heft are refreshingly good, it’s one of those guns that a picture will definitely hide it’s true nature, it really has to be held in the hand to be fully appreciated. With all of that being said, you do get a very real sense of the real steel M&P40 when you’ve got this replica in your hand, I’ve seen many pictures with the real steel and the replica alongside each other and you simply cannot tell the difference, I’ve also seen videos where people have weighed them both only to find the slightest degree of actual difference in weight between them, which in a blind test would be too difficult for anyone to tell which one is which. The shooting side of this replica is better than good, it's snappy and precise blowback operation combined with the low bore axis make this a fun gun to experience and a rewarding one too with it's plinking quality accuracy, the consistency of power through the four magazines that I chronographed show a less than average 'shot to shot' deviation, which will only add to the repeatability of shot placement on any target. This truly is one of the best replicas, irrespective of whether that be revolver or auto, that’s been marketed and that’s very high adulation indeed from this confirmed revolver lover !
Would I recommend this gun to anyone ? Hell YES ! And not just to anyone, I would very easily recommend this to everyone, it’s simply a great replica gun in terms of replica realism, working action, shooting and above everything else (the single most important factor of all), the ‘smile’ factor ! If you’re looking for something very different, a replica that’s as near to the real steel as you could get without actually being one, then your search is over, well unfortunately it’s not, as you’ve now got to start searching for the Umarex S&W M&P40, but I’ll tell you this, it’ll be so worth it when you find it, just trust me on this one.
2016 was certainly a glorious year for CO2 replicas, at the annual Shot Show event in Las Vegas ASG announced the release of the Dan Wesson 715 range of replica revolvers and Umarex surprised everyone with the S&W M&P40 as well as announcing that their incredibly popular range of the Colt SAA was getting a pellet firing option c/w a rifled barrel, what a year that was ! You don’t get many like that, that’s for damn sure.
The sad backstory
Unfortunately for me the S&W M&P40 was ‘overshadowed’ by the gloriously superb DW715 revolver which distracted me with it's sublime beauty just enough to miss the opportunity to own one of these wonderful autos. By the time I’d watched enough reviews to realise how good they actually were Umarex had decided to cease production ( FFS ! why ?) and they became very hard to track down. Wild Bill was lucky and managed to get a tan one from SWS in Germany and posted a little review on the AGF, so I scoured SWS for another one but Andy had bought the last one ! (oh Bugger !). Then another AGF member managed to track one down in an Aladdin’s cave type of RFD near Manchester and they didn’t have any more in stock either (double bugger !). So I was forced to scour the secondhand market in the ever decreasing hope of ever getting one, nearly nailed one in the last few months of 2020 but it turned out to be a very ‘rough’ one, so after careful deliberation and much umming and arring I decided not to go ahead, opting to wait for a better condition version to hopefully come on the market. So fast forward 6-7 months and I found one, in black (the only colour you’d ever seriously want), in great condition, boxed with everything apart from the medium back grip strap (more on this later). Turned out that it was being sold on GunTrader by one of our newest members Chris (aka SnesMonkey). I got it at a good price, paid on Monday, delivered on Tuesday, you can’t wish for better than that !
The S&W M&P40
I should really state that I’m first and foremost a revolver type of guy, I don’t hate autos per se but I do have such deep love for a revolver that there’s not much room left in my heart for anything else, I could easily and eloquently list the reasons why, by using some over the top superlative descriptive terms that would make you think that I was describing my idea of the perfect feminine form. But a good auto can be, as I’ve come to realise over the years, a thing of beauty too.
The first thing that I noticed was it’s size, it’s small, quite a bit smaller than most standard autos are anyway. Compared to the likes of my Beretta, 1911s and Taurus it looks like it’s been shrunk slightly in the wash and when compared to the behemoth of the H&K USP it looks so diminutive that you’d be easily mistaken into thinking that it’s a CC (concealed carry) gun, lol.
But all that changes as soon as you pick it up and put it into your hand, it’s solid, very solid in fact, way too solid for a gun that has a polymer frame. It’s smaller size belies the truth of its weight, you’d be very mistaken if you thought that it was going to be proportionately lighter than any of the standard sized autos. The fit to the hand is one of the best that I’ve ever come across in an auto, which brings me neatly to the interchangeable back straps; if you're lucky enough to have bought one of these new then your be blessed with three differently sized interchangeable back straps (small, medium & large), mine came with two small and one large (?), apparently when Chris purchased it this is how it came and he didn’t want to return it to Germany, so he decided to just stick with it. Now I don’t have small hands and they’re not what I would call large either, so I was expecting to have to use the medium backstrap to get it to fit my hand properly. The gun had one of the small ones fitted when it arrived and the fit was absolutely perfect for me, if I’m being honest I cannot imagine it being any better with the medium version at all, I did try the large and it was far too big and plus in my opinion, it actually ruined the look of the gun by changing the balance of the proportions between the grip and slide. It’s a nice touch that Umarex did supply the gun with the interchangeable grips that came as standard with the real steel version. It’s those little attention to details that set certain replicas above others, so kudos to Umarex for doing that.
The gun itself is a striker fire gun (externally it’s hammerless) and this is the very first SF in my collection, I’ve not got anything against a SF auto it’s just that none of the autos I’ve ever fancied owning have been SF before now. I do like how Umarex even copied the loaded indicator hole that sits on top of the frame behind the breech opening, another realistic replica touch from Umarex.
As stated the frame is polymer, a good quality material is used here, whether it is ‘ballistic’ grade polymer ? I don’t know, but I can tell you that it is good quality, as good as I’ve seen on any other replica gun (eg. the H&K USP). The magazine is a full sized, drop free, mostly metal magazine that houses both the bbs and CO2. The magazine holds 15 bbs which is exactly the same shot count as the real steel and I actually couldn’t get even one more in it, so in a replica sense it’s perfect. Loading the bbs is done by pulling the magazine follower down as far as you can which allows you to drop the bbs in an opening just above the follower very easily. The CO2 housing is completely enclosed so that you cannot see the CO2 through the side of the magazine, so once removed from the gun it does look very much like the real thing, apart from the obvious lack of the ‘witness holes’ in the side of the magazine. The unloaded magazine is quite heavy on it’s own and is one of the main contributing factors to the gun’s overall weight, balance and feel as is normal with any polymer framed gun, plus once loaded, it gives even more of that overall weighty feel to the gun.
The metal slide fits snugly to the metal guides that are moulded into the frame and it has no nasty rattles that are so common with many other replica autos. It has a working stripdown/takedown lever, ambidextrous safety and slide releases too, the safety switch is solid with a nice audible click when toggled on or off. The trade markings are very good, with the full S&W logo painted on the slide along with the ‘SMITH & WESSON’ trades and ‘M&P40’ designation. The grips on both sides have the special S&W Military & Police insignia moulded into them, which is again a really nice touch, they could’ve gotten away with just using the standard S&W logo but instead they went the whole hog and used the proper M&P insignia, again kudos to Umarex for doing this.
The gun is very easy to field strip and should present no problem to anyone familiar with an auto, although you do need to make sure that you rack the slide prior to taking it off otherwise refitting can be troublesome as the take down lever won’t reset properly if you don’t.
Picture - The S&W M&P insignia that's moulded into the lower part of the grips.
Shooting
The first thing I do with any new gun, or even a secondhand one for that matter, is a good strip down, clean and grease, after that it’s a full CO2’s worth of test firing, then a new CO2 and a run through the old chronograph. I recommend chronographing any new gun to everyone as it gives you a baseline to work from if ever you’re wanting to make improvements or also if anything should go wrong, then at least you’ve then got something to judge it's performance to.
The gun itself only fires in single action (just like a 1911 and unlike a Beretta 92, Taurus PT92 and the H&K USP) and is very snappy, the low bore axis on this gun makes for a good feel to the gas operated blowback and is very pleasant to shoot. The trigger has a built in safety system (similar to the Glock) that functions as it should and has a light take up, a nice crisp break point with quite a short reset, the trigger makes the gun very easy to use and feels very good. The sights are easy to find (the standard three white dots) and the grip helps keep it on target despite it’s incredibly solid blowback action. I tested it at 5m and it was shooting fractionally low which I adjusted for and soon found the sweet spot for some quite accurate paper punching fun. The groups were small, tight and well centred on the target once I had adjusted my point of aim.
Whether it was because I spent so long looking for one and I was just so pleased that I’d finally managed to track down a good example or whether it was just the simple joy of plinking, but I did find myself grinning profusely whilst shooting. It feels great in the hand, weighty yet comfortable, snappy yet controllable and very easy to get on target too.
The fore sight looks to be adjustable for windage by using a small allen key which luckily I didn’t need to do as it was very centrally positioned on the target. But once I've checked it's performance at 10m I might get around to moving or modifying it, but at 5m meters it was shooting centrally enough that it didn't need adjusting.
Chronograph results
The M&P40 managed 80 amount of shots before failing to fire, unusually though this gun didn’t do the normal auto thing where it loses recoil power and fails to load at a certain shot count whilst still having gas remaining, it actually just stopped completely dead after the final shot, no gassing off (as I call it) from the CO2 valve, it just fell silently empty. I should take this opportunity to mention that the CO2 piercing pin leaves, without doubt, the largest hole in any CO2 caplet that I’ve ever seen and that may play a major part in the snappy blowback and it’s dead-stop-abilty by the end of the CO2 capsule, just conjecture on my part but it may well have some bearing on it’s performance.
(Testing procedure was quite simple: Load a CO2, load bbs, fire a shot, record the fps result, repeat shooting and recording till the magazine was empty, then reload magazine and repeat again. I was generally trying to be as quick as possible to simulate actual shooting rather than succumbing to the elongated pauses of repetitive testing.)
1 CO2 gave 80 shots using Umarex 5.3 grn bbs at an ambient temperature of 18C
The FPS started to slowly drop after shot 70.
Averages over the course of 70 shots were 269.9 fps / 1.16 Joules / 0.85 fpe
Highest recorded FPS during the 70 shot string was 291 fps.
Lowest recorded FPS during the 70 shot string was 250 fps.
So roughly, it was shooting the maximum of +/-20 fps either side of the average but at the very most it was deviating by about 10fps between shots but most of the time it commonly seemed to be nearer a 3fps deviation from shot to shot than anything else. So I'd say that was pretty consistent across the 41fps spread from highest to lowest recorded shots.
Combining the results with the magazine capacity has led me to conclude that 4no. Magazines (60 shots) will be just fine, even if I decide to offload a magazine or two in quick rapid fire fashion, plus when slow firing on warmer days I should get an extra magazine's worth of fun out of it.
Power wise, it’s not too bad, falling squarely in between both of my 1911s which only really ever give me a maximum of 56 (8x7 shot magazines worth) good shots before the power drops off. Obviously it doesn’t compare favourably with the H&K USP with it’s average 329.9 fps over the course of a 60 shot string but that if anything shows the hard hitting performance of the USP in a more favourable light rather than to condemn the M&P40 for being weaker.
Personally, I’m happy with the results both in the chronograph test and in the shooting accuracy, it gives 60 fairly consistent powered shots which are more than adequate for some good backyard plinking.
Review summary
No review summary would be complete without a mention of the real steel M&P40 manufacturers; Smith & Wesson, their Military & Police range has always been a firm favourite with Peace Officers and the general shooter alike and when you have this gun in your hand you can really see why ! It’s operation (the real steel M&P40 has an exceptional reputation for unfailing reliability), it’s comfortable design, it’s overall size, the fact that it has 15 rounds (either 9mm or the .40S&W calibre) of hard hitting, hole punching, man stopping rounds inside the grip go to make this an exceptional gun. It's dependable, it's reliable, it's rugged and best of all, it's a Smith & Wesson, a name that you can truly rely on.
Umarex have clearly gone 'above & beyond' when they designed this replica, they've copied as much as they possibly could from the real steel version, not one detail, no matter how small, has been omitted. The fit and finish of the gun places it well above good, if not firmly in the category of ‘superb’. The feel and the heft are refreshingly good, it’s one of those guns that a picture will definitely hide it’s true nature, it really has to be held in the hand to be fully appreciated. With all of that being said, you do get a very real sense of the real steel M&P40 when you’ve got this replica in your hand, I’ve seen many pictures with the real steel and the replica alongside each other and you simply cannot tell the difference, I’ve also seen videos where people have weighed them both only to find the slightest degree of actual difference in weight between them, which in a blind test would be too difficult for anyone to tell which one is which. The shooting side of this replica is better than good, it's snappy and precise blowback operation combined with the low bore axis make this a fun gun to experience and a rewarding one too with it's plinking quality accuracy, the consistency of power through the four magazines that I chronographed show a less than average 'shot to shot' deviation, which will only add to the repeatability of shot placement on any target. This truly is one of the best replicas, irrespective of whether that be revolver or auto, that’s been marketed and that’s very high adulation indeed from this confirmed revolver lover !
Would I recommend this gun to anyone ? Hell YES ! And not just to anyone, I would very easily recommend this to everyone, it’s simply a great replica gun in terms of replica realism, working action, shooting and above everything else (the single most important factor of all), the ‘smile’ factor ! If you’re looking for something very different, a replica that’s as near to the real steel as you could get without actually being one, then your search is over, well unfortunately it’s not, as you’ve now got to start searching for the Umarex S&W M&P40, but I’ll tell you this, it’ll be so worth it when you find it, just trust me on this one.
