To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. The ’Tweens S ome popular Smith & Wessons are conceptualized in the Performance Center, and then put into mainstream production. Paul Pluff, the company’s marketing and public relations guru, calls these guns the ’tweens, because they’re “in between” standard and custom. You can order them the way you’d order any Smith & Wesson firearm. A classic example is a pistol that’s as close to a guaranteed seller as you’ll get — the M&P 9 Pro. Recently featured in GUNS Magazine (September 2008), this is the Military & Police polymer-frame 9mm with a different trigger mechanism that delivers lighter pull and shorter reset; a 5" barrel with proportional-length slide and fiber-optic front sight. The price is only negligibly more than the “standard” M&P9L, whose “L” designates the longer barrel. There’s a reason they call it the Performance Center, not the Fancy Center. I have been shooting M&Ps since the first .40-caliber service models were introduced. I liked them well enough, but I just didn’t bond with them. However, when assigned by GUNS editor Jeff John to write up the M&P 9 Pro, I shot an IDPA classifier course with it. I not only shot Master, but also ended up with a personal best over that particular course, which I’d been shooting for a decade or more. Intrigued, I bought the test sample and took it to an IDPA match after the article was done. To make a long story short, I won, against a pretty tough field of competitors. It reminded me that while the engraving operation may be about “show,” the Smith & Wesson Performance Center is definitely about “go”! Economic Relief is closer than you think. Wherever you are, the NEW online digital edition of Shooting Industry magazine is just a click away. Use the industry news and business ideas to rescue enthusiasm, jump-start co-workers and stimulate sales anytime you want. Now you can share it. lives guns they are best known for, to their superb and affordable refinishing jobs, the Performance Center can become a profit center for the gun dealer who caters to a discriminating clientele. Let the customer know you can get it for them. Smith & Wesson Performance Center will do the rest. Dealers should contact the Performance Center at (413) 781-3549. 9 The author tested the Performance Center M&P 9 Pro and reported the results in the September 2008 issue of GUNS Magazine. The S&W Performance Center has become famous for their work — and your customers know it. My gun safes now contain at least four Performance Center handguns, all autoloaders, and a ’tween, that neat little M&P Pro. I’ve also been a satisfied customer of their refinishing service. I used to have a Smith & Wesson Highway Patrolman Model 28 barrel with its blah gray matte finish. It was turned into the equal of the finest Bright Blue that Smith & Wesson ever put on an early Registered Magnum. From engraving to the race guns and spare-no-expense-to-save-my-family’s- Bottom Line www.shootingindustry.c o m hen Joe Bergeron and his team brought forth the Military & Police pistol, it looked as if the third time was the charm. Since its introduction, the all-new M&P has made significant inroads into law enforcement, with several major departments adopting it. It has been a hit among the private sector gun enthusiasts as well, with some gun dealers telling me it’s their single hottest-selling handgun. Their first polymer-frame gun, the Sigma of the early ’90s, never really caught on with police or serious shooters, though after some redesign it became a profitable high volume seller as a low-priced entry-level handgun. Their second, the Walther-cloned SW99, has not lived up to expectation. One corner of the gun-owning private citizen sector where the M&P has really taken off is “combat match shooting.” I’m seeing a lot of these pistols at IDPA matches in the hands of shooters from Novice all the way up through Master class. By International Defensive Pistol Association rules, the M&P is ideal for Stock Service Pistol category, can also be used in Enhanced Service Pistol and, in .45 ACP, can be entered in Custom Defense Pistol. It has done well there. I’ve seen Chris Christian win CDP at a local match with an M&P 45. I’ve watched Julie Goloski win the 2006 National IDPA Champion female title with an M&P 9mm. I watched Scott Warren kick butt with an W M&P 40 at another major IDPA shoot last year. (Ain’t seen anyone shoot a match with the .357 Sig version yet, but you never know …) Suffice to say the M&P proved it could win. A bunch of shooters went in that direction and the Performance Center at Smith & Wesson, being dedicated to the first word in its title, listened to the customers and started work on a special competition version of this Promising Polymer Pistol. The result is the new Pro Series. It took me over a year to get my hands on the darn thing, but it turns out to have been worth the wait. The first 5" barrel 9mm M&P from the Performance Center was on display at Smith & Wesson’s booth at the 2007 SHOT Show in Orlando. I ordered one immediately. It took a while. The PC is a busy place, and not until after the 2008 SHOT Show in Las Vegas did a test sample of this neat new pistol, marked “Pro Series,” find its way to my eager hands. The longer snout is the first thing you spot. You then notice it still has the light/laser mounting rails, integral with the dust cover portion of the frame, on the M&P from the beginning. An M&P this length is about the same in overall dimension as the classic 5" barrel 1911, maybe even a wee bit shorter. That makes it the right size for home defense, police duty carry, and even concealed carry. The night-fighting attachments fit right in with today’s thinking on home defense and police work. There are no slide grasping grooves up front. They’re strictly at the rear, where traditionalists like me think they belong. Intended for matches where optical sights won’t be used, the Pro Series has ThE S&W PERFORMANCE CENTER dIShES UP A SPECIAl M&P 9MM jUST FOR WWW.GUNSMAGAZINE.COM • SEPTEMBER 2008 COMPETITIvE ShOOTERS. WWW.GUNSMAGAZINE.COM SEC2 0908-jj-hm-JJ.indd 57 56 57 6/23/08 11:46:53 AM SEC2 0908-jj-hm-JJ.indd 56 6/23/08 11:46:48 AM SHOT SHOW SUPER ISSUE 2009 • www.shootingindustry.com 33