NC State Troopers Looking to Replace 1,600+ .357 Sig Smith and Wesson Guns Due to Issues [Video]
It seems at least one agency is looking to replace over 1,600 Smith and Wesson M&P pistols chambered in .357 Sig they purchased just a few years ago due to mechanical issues.
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According to one report, the department is having failures to extract spent casings on some of their rounds.
According to WSOCTV, the agency is shopping around for a replacement, but doesn’t feel the issues are severe enough to pull the guns off the street immediately,
Eyewitness News spoke to NCHP spokesman First Sgt. Jeff Gordon via Facetime. He said 1,649 uniformed members carry the pistols, but the agency did not feel the need to do a mass withdrawal since not all of the guns have the issue, and all troopers are trained on how to handle jams.
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“It has not posted a safety risk for the troopers,” Gordon said. “One of the things we teach our troopers to do when we go through annual firearms training is that we use the ‘Tap, Rack, Ready’ method. This allows troopers to safely and quickly clear their weapons so another bullet can be fed into the chamber.”
Smith and Wesson will trade in the guns for newer models at no cost to the agency as they recently did with one Colorado agency. However, the department is also testing guns from other vendors as well.
It would be interesting to see some analysis on the guns in question to determine if the high pressure nature of the .357 Sig round is causing excess stress on some parts of the guns, decreasing their service life.
It is unclear if the agency is planning on staying with the .357 Sig round or if they will switch to a more popular caliber such as 9mm, .40SW or .45ACP.
Smith and Wesson’s M&P line of handguns have generally been proven to be reliable, accurate and have been a great selling line for the gun maker.
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