The Smith & Wesson M&P 45 Threaded Kit (threaded barrel installed, standard barrel shown below)
As the “kit” part of the name implies, the Smith & Wesson M&P 45 Threaded Kit comes with some extra parts, mainly a second barrel. This model includes the standard M&P 45 barrel but also includes an extended threaded barrel for suppressor attachment.
Two 10-round magazines are included in the box along with two additional palm swell inserts, so you have a choice of configuring the grip to small, medium, or large diameter.
M&P 45 Threaded left side.
You’ll also find two magazines, each offering 10-round capacity, so if you carry one in the chamber, that’s 11 rounds of 45 ACP plus ten more in a spare magazine.
All of this comes in a Smith & Wesson blue plastic carrying case. The case has two latches and two holes for padlocks, so it’s TSA air travel compliant as checked baggage. Although the box itself can be locked, I would always put the whole thing inside another bag as it’s not intended to be theft resistant. That and the fact that it has a big Smith & Wesson logo imprinted on the side.
The Quick Tour
Like others in the M&P family, this one is a striker-fired model. It’s ambidextrous – there are slide lock / release levers on both sides. The magazine release operates on one side at a time but is reversible. The takedown lever is on the left side only. Of course, there’s no compelling reason for that to be ambidextrous as it’s not something you need to operate while shooting.
The M&P 45 ate everything I fed it, including a healthy diet of lotsa these lead hand loads.
The threaded barrel is exactly 1/2-inch longer than the standard and comes with a thread protector.
As of now, there’s not an option for a manual safety as with other M&P models. Perhaps Smith will offer that option down the road if the threaded barrel models become popular. Or, you can just pick up a threaded barrel for one already configured that way.
The pistol is also currently available in all black – no flat dark earth combinations are in the catalog yet. The frame is the full-size variant, and there’s no word yet on whether Smith & Wesson will offer a threaded kit on the compact model platform. The full-size footprint is fine with me as you’re gonna end up with a huge pistol anyway when you mount a .45 ACP caliber suppressor on it. One more thing to note. We’re covering the .45ACP model here, but Smith & Wesson also offers the M&P 9mm Threaded Kit. It’s virtually identical to the 45 ACP big brother we’ll discuss here except it’s a tad less expensive and has ¼-inch shorter barrels.
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