I'm relatively new to handguns; my dad took me and my sister out and introduced us about 10 months ago and I've been hooked ever since. I cut my teeth with a Beretta 92FS and a Llama IIIa, which is basically a .380 3/4 scale 1911. (fun little pistol!) So, considering that:
I bought an M&P 9 full size in February for myself and a Glock G26 for my now ex-girlfriend. I picked the M&P over several other options primarily because it fit best in my hand; some of the advice I had gotten was to select a weapon that "felt good". She picked the Glock for similar reasons; she has tiny little hands that fit around the handle perfectly.
About 750 rounds have been fired through the M&P since with 8 failures, all from the first time out, two from the very first magazine, which I think was more an issue with the magazine (or me) than the weapon itself, and the other 6 from my ex, who I believe was limp-wristing it or some other oddity. I don't have the experience to tell what was going on. It failed all 6 times through 2 magazines. She gave up half way through the second, I emptied it with no problems. One of the failures resulted in an unexpended round being wedged in the ejection port on the slide, which I have no idea how that happened. Another time sparks flew as an unexpended round was caught at an angle between the slide and the barrel (the breach? not sure about all the part names). She never had a problem with her G26, so I'm really not sure why she couldn't fire mine.
Overall I have no issues or complaints, other than perhaps the trigger isn't the smoothest that I've pulled. But I love this pistol and I've never had a failure since day one. It eats up American Eagle, WWB, and Remington FMJs, but I have only put about 30 JHPs through it because I can't find rounds to replace what little I've got, so I'm not sure about that. I shot 249 on my CHL test with it (still waiting to get my plastic,
), so I guess that can speak a bit for the accuracy.