New Gun

For many years, West Virginia had one of those "one gun a month" laws. It was just repealed in 2014, but I've tried to honor the spirit of it to this day, doing my absolute best to comply even though it's not current law any more. And it's been hard--and I admit that I have failed some months for lack of funds--but I've really tried hard to buy one gun a month since moving here.

Well it's been a bit since I've picked one up, but when Aim Surplus offered some Law-Enforcement trade-in Smith and Wesson M&P .45s for just $349.00...well I had to get me one of those. So I did, and it came this morning.

Like most LE guns, it's got some holster wear to it, but the bore's good and the action's tight. Seeing no defects, I gave it a basic oiling and took it out to the range with Bruce and Proud Hillbilly. And I think that I really love this new pistol. At fifteen yards, it shot a huge ragged hole in the target, just about two inches right of center and an inch or so low. I'd like to blame the sights, but they're almost perfectly centered, so I'll have to accept that it's my lackluster trigger control and work on it from there. I'll also likely put another Apex Tactical DCAEK and Reset Assist Mechanism into this one and see if I can't give it a nice tactile reset and a cleaner break as I did with my other M&P.

And what's really neat about this pistol is that it's almost exactly the same size as the M&P 40 or M&P 9.

When you look at the Glocks, the Glock .45 is a larger pistol all around than their .40/9mm pistols but the M&Ps are the same size. This is a bonus for me as it means that I don't have to buy another holster--the holster that I have for the M&P 40 fits the M&P 45 perfectly.

It came with two 10-round magazines, which means that I'll have to buy a few more. It also came with a nifty little zippered carrying bag from American Tactical that would make a great "Go bag" because of it's size and external pouches.

Folks, this is a good deal here--and I get nothing from AIM or anyone else for pushing it--and as I work to cull my arms room of excess guns and calibers, I'm thinking that this is a great addition and a good replacement for some .40's that could use a good home. (Sig P229, anyone?)

Oh--and rumor is that someone else might have gotten one of these, too. Hopefully a new blog post confirming (and evaluating) or denying it will come about.