Used

Of the four M&P's that have come into my life, three have been used guns.

Marv's is the only one that was new.

Not that it's made one whit of difference because the three used guns weren't very used at all.

The Lovely Harvey's M&P 357 was a 2013 made gun and had some brass traces on the slide showing that it'd been shot.  May the thief burn in Hell.

The 2008 made M&P 9 we replaced it with doesn't even have the bluing worn off the barrel hood.  If fifty rounds had gone through it before I test fired it that was all that it'd fired.

My recent acquisition of a 2011 made M&P 9 is also nearly unfired.

Doesn't anyone go shooting anymore?

I can't find the exact quote but Tam once said something to the effect that you could make a gun that turns to dust immediately after firing the 100th round and 95% of gun owners would never know.

Someone paid full tare on three of these guns, took them to the range once and decided, "not for me thanks."  Their short ownership didn't keep them from losing parts though.  The now stolen gun was missing the small backstrap.  Mine is missing everything from the box but the spare magazine (yet they still had the box) and the small strap was on the gun.

As an aside, because Harvey prefers the small strap I had to buy one separately and losing that part along with the gun actually hurt us worse than the loss of the gun.  I got it special for HER and now it's gone.

It's got me wondering.  When I was looking to own a Glock 17 again, most of the guns I looked at were rode hard and put away wet.  I accepted a fair amount of wear to have a Gen2 gun that wasn't priced like a new Gen4.

Is the M&P one of those guns you either love or hate instantly?  I know I was pretty ambivalent about them until I took Harvey's for it's function check.

Another aside:  To Ravenclaw Eric, this is the most ambidextrous pistol I've ever had, you can even swap the magazine release for sinister purposes.