This is truly going to be a “quick review”, as I only got to shoot a few dozen rounds through my friend’s M&P. First, the overview:
The particular model was the “Viking Tactical” — which fits my friend’s Teutonic beginnings quite well. The VTAC has nice fiber optic green sights that work very well. They’re visible, quick to come to bear. The rest of the gun is the standard M&P striker-fired 17 round 9mm full size in the reprehensible desert brown. It has the replaceable backstraps that Walther made so popular with the P99, and it’s a simple weapon with just a slide release and mag release. no safety. The slide is easy to operate, the trigger is stiff and a bit heavy when compared to the wonderful Walther PPQ and H&K VP9, but the weapon shoots lightly and the accuracy seems decent for a service weapon. We put some 115 gr. lead and 124 copper jackets through the pistol and there were no issues with function.
This is a popular gun for police (or I should say the standard M&P is) due to the backstrap and cheap deals for law enforcement. It’s a decent full size choice for females with smallish hands, and I was not blown away by the pistol, but I certainly wouldn’t have minded having it as an issue gun; it’s light years better than the Beretta M9, but I think my metal frame CZ-85 is still a superior shooter.
The Black Campbell 
22 July, 2015 at 20:25
Your thoughts are similar to mine on the pistol, though somewhat more generous. When I handled one a year or two back, I wasn’t impressed and an instructor friend who was with me made the comment, “It’s just a poor S&W lawyerproof Glock knockoff that they’re selling at minimal to almost no margin to try and build popularity.”
I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t warm up to it. Especially the trigger; I can understand Glock’s design – you could remove the little trigger safety completely and the gun would still fire. But the M&P has that two piece articulating trigger that has a major single point of failure. I guess I look for obvious things that my mind tells me could fail…
What did you think of the fiber optic sights? I’m planning on putting some tritium/fiber optic sights on my G-17 and G-19 since their Mepros are pushing 14 and 12 years respectively. (I wish I could get those for my Five-seveN…I dropped $300 for custom tritium sights for it and am very pleased with them…but I think the fiber optics will bring things up a notch).
22 July, 2015 at 20:37
The sights were easily the best part of the gun and probably the cause the the extra $200 or so MSRP. I have Mepros on my CZ85 and they’ve been great.
As to the trigger, I agree the hinged thing is awful,but there is a Glpck style replacement out. My friend came away from our outting, having fired the CZ85 and the Rock Island double-stack 1911 in 9mm and .22 TCM, liking the trigger of the CZ and the TCM much more. He was talking about looking into getting a CZ. (Another friend just picked up a CZ75 today…)
The best out of the box triggers I’ve pulled on stock pistols, by far, ate the PPQ and this 1911 TCM.
22 July, 2015 at 20:40
On another note, that .22 TCM is exactly what we were promised with the 5.7mm before they whimped it out. Easier to reload, heavy round at the promised 2000ish FPS, and great penetration.
Now if they’d only get a good AR upper or other carbine out for it.
23 July, 2015 at 19:52
You may be able to have a barrel custom made for a Just Right carbine. The .22TCM does look impressive and I’ve seen a lot of good reviews on it, but my concern from a self defense perspective is that no one has adopted it and there is minimal forensic data available for it should I ever have to use it whereas there is for the 5.7.
In the end, it’s about shot placement and with my 5.7 I know I can shoot very fast and very accurately.