Anybody with experience with the Smith & Wesson M&P EZ?

[Bkraft]

I got my wife a Kimber Micro 9 Bel Air edition.  She loves it, but she's always wanted a M&P EZSlide because the Kimber sometimes gives her difficulty in racking it.

Anyway...  I got her an EZSlide in .380

Took her to the range with it for the first time today.  Her first round failed to eject/stove piped.  I fixed it for her.  She fired a couple more and it went click.  Turns out, the extractor didn't let go of the previous spent casing and brought it right back into the chamber and the next round int he mag stayed in the mag and didn't load.  Fixed that, kept going.  Next mag, same thing.

I thought maybe she was limp wristing, so I loaded a mag and shot 8 myself.  First round failed to eject/stove piped. A couple rounds later...  click.  And I think one more stove piped near end of that mag.

She put about 50 rounds through it and there wasn't a single mage that didn't have AT LEAST 1 type of failure.  (I'd say 2 failures, but I think we got through 1 mag with just 1 failure.)

If I loaded 7 rounds and not 8, that fixed the issue with the first round always stove piping.

I was shooting Norma 95gr brass cased FMJ.  Didn't have any other ammo with me.

I forgot to bring her spare mag, so I only had the one mag there.

Not my typical thing... but I didn't tear it down and clean it before going to the range.  It still had the lube and whatnot the factory applied.  The barrel was visibly coated with oil.  I'm thinking maybe the rest of teh internals were goopy as well.

I brought it home, completely stripped it and cleaned it very well.  I checked manual function of extractor and other components and reassembled.  The mag follower didn't slide easily.  It had some drag and stuck at one point.  I broke the mag down and cleaned that as well.  It seems, to me, to function much better now.

Tomorrow I'm going back to the range.  I'm taking the EZ again, now cleaned and lubed properly,  with both mags.  I'm going to bring the Norma and an assortment of Federal I have on hand.  I might even bring some JHP.  All of the FMJ I have is 95gr.  I'm not sure what my JHP is off the top of my head.

I'm hoping the thorough cleaning helps and/or maybe one mag is better than the other.

When it went bang, shot placement was accurate and my wife did very well at 7yrds. Nice tight groups.

Anyone else have any experience with this firearm?

[Bkraft]

I wouldn't have thought the thorough cleaning I did yesterday was enough based on all the trouble I had, but I went back to the range today and had no problems whatsoever. Gun functioned flawlessly rough the 50 rounds I fed it. I started with some Federal 95gr that I didn't have yesterday, later switched back to the same Norma 95gr I was shooting yesterday and ran a couple mixed mags of both through.

While I brought a second mag with me today, I didn't use it. I only used the same mag I had yesterday.

I'll give it another thorough cleaning tomorrow and run it back to the range again sometime next week just to confirm that it is now continuing to function as it should.

[Rick_Jorgenson]

The folks I have built Holsters for with the Smith EZ Guns have only good things to say about them

Some years ago I had the same thing happen with a new gun. Took it out of the box and shot it and experienced the same troubles you had.

A seasoned shooter explained to me that most "factory" guns are shipped extremely "dry" of lubrication so they don't ooze shmoo all over the box and paperwork and people that handle the gun for purchase.

So... from then on I clean and lube new guns and any I buy used before going to the range. Quite often I find some kind of fine metal shavings and/or machine shop dust in brand new guns 

[jstert]

i am a revolver guy but i enjoy the s&w shield ez 380acp.  it is the one semiauto pistol that is truly easy.  i always clean my new to me firearms before their first outing.  due to my failure to lay in a stash of 380acp ammo i haven?t shot my ez in over a year, but it ran perfectly fine.

[Terry treefish]

I have a Ruger LCP 380 MAX.  Nice pistol and weighs nothing.  My best friend has the S&W 380 EZ.  We each shot both Sat. 5 mags each, here at my homemade range .  My Ruger Max shoots very snappy.  The EZ has hardly any recoil, and is a dream to shoot.  Wish I had one.  Both pistols went bang every time. 

The trade off is my Ruger weights 10.5 oz unloaded, his EZ weigh?s 18.5 oz unloaded.  It?s a much larger gun.  The EZ is not a pocket pistol .  But wow wow, what a nice pistol.  From 12 yards, I was much more accurate with the EZ.

Bkraft, I believe your wife has got herself a mighty fine pistol.  Congratulations .