S&W Spec Series V: The Compensated Competitive Edge

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When the muzzle doesn’t rise as high, it is easier and faster for the gun to level back out and realign your sights on target. This can also lessen the time it takes for you to fire follow-up shots, decreasing your split times.

The grip itself has an 18-degree angle, which improves your natural point of aim. If the grip is designed with an unnatural angle, it can be more challenging to acquire and align your sights on the target. The grip angle on a pistol is also crucial for comfort. When the angle doesn’t fit your hand, this can cause discomfort to the wrist and even result in injury.

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Smith & Wesson also ships the Spec Series V with four interchangeable palm swell grip inserts in sizes S, M, ML, and L. With a full-size gun, these interchangeable grips are necessary to accommodate various hand sizes. If the wrong grip is installed for your hand size, it can be a challenge to reach the trigger.

Set the gun up for you before taking it to the range. If you shoot with a palm swell that is too big, you will adjust your grip to reach the trigger. This, in turn, can cause you to develop bad habits.

Strike Industries Compensator

The most significant improvement you can make to a striker-fired handgun is to port the barrel or add a compensator. It makes any pistol easier to manage and, therefore, more fun to shoot.

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The S&W Spec Series V M&P Metal HD comes from the factory with a threaded 4.875-inch fluted barrel. At the end of the barrel is the Strike Industries Compensator. It is designed with a single port on top to reduce muzzle rise and felt recoil.

This compensator is lightweight, doesn’t add a ton of overall length to the gun, and performs well. You can easily clean this compensator using a sonic cleaner for 15-20 minutes. It’s also easy to time and then torque back down.

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Running an Optic on the Spec Series V

A factory gun built for competition needs to come optic-ready. There’s a growing popularity of red dot optics and an emergence of new divisions in shooting sports that utilize them. So, it’s pretty much an unspoken non-negotiable for competitive shooters to have an optic-ready pistol from the factory.

Smith & Wesson utilizes the C.O.R.E. system plates and ships plastic plates with the gun for various footprints. While these will work, I highly recommend purchasing an aftermarket optic plate made of aluminum or steel for competition shooting.

I think the accuracy of this gun was affected by the plastic plate. Even the slightest difference in torque between the set screws can cause the optic to be off balance. I would also be more concerned about cracking or distorting the plastic.

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I mounted the EOTECH EFLX Mini Red Dot Sight, which uses the Delta Point Pro footprint. What I like most about the optic is that the front glass is clear, and the window is fairly large. It is also designed with simple up and down arrow buttons on the side to make brightness adjustments.

It utilizes the popular CR2032 battery and loads from the top of the optic. So, you don’t have to remove the optic once it’s mounted to the gun. The EFLX comes in your choice of a 3 MOA or 6 MOA dot. Either one of these is great for competition. So, it’s more a matter of personal preference in choosing which size.

Flat Trigger

The Spec Series V pistol features an enhanced Performance Center-tuned flat M2.0 trigger. The break on the trigger is significantly better than that of comparable factory-built striker-fired competition handguns. You don’t need to install an aftermarket trigger or make any modifications to the current trigger to be competitive in whatever shooting sport you want to compete in.

As always, the trigger is outfitted with a built-in trigger safety. So, unless the middle portion of the trigger is depressed, it will not fire.

Feeding the S&W Spec Series V

The Blue PVD flared magwell adds style to the Spec Series V handgun and serves a practical purpose. In 3-Gun or 2-Gun shooting sports, you’ll find that most people use a flared magwell. However, in sports like USPSA and IDPA, it must be legal for whatever division you plan to compete in.

The flared magwell helps guide magazines in while participating in any shooting sport that requires reloading under pressure. Especially while running or performing any sort of movement. I can’t tell you how many times a flared magwell has helped me in competition.

One thing to note when it comes to magwells is that they must be compatible with magazine base pads. In the competitive shooting world, many shooters look to aftermarket base pad extensions to increase the capacity of their handguns. There are some cases where factory (or aftermarket) magwells won’t allow a magazine to insert correctly, simply due to design.

Occasionally, this can be solved with a Dremel. However, I would rather find a magwell and magazine base pad that work without requiring modifications. Thankfully, Smith & Wesson ships this gun with three 23-round magazines that have compatible base pads that do not interfere with the flared magwell.

Adding Accessories

Smith & Wesson knows the M&P customer base well. So, it’s no surprise that they kept the Picatinny rail design on the Spec Series V gun. Many shooters prefer to add a light to increase the overall weight of a handgun or for improved balance. Others compete with a weapon-mounted light because their concealed carry pistol is equipped with a light. This allows them more practice shooting with a similar setup.

I opted for the Streamlight TLR-1 HL-X Gun Light. I found it balances the pistol perfectly, especially considering its overall length with the compensated barrel.

One of the unique features of this light is that you can use the “high” rear paddle switch or the “extended high” switch, depending on your preferences. For people with smaller hands or shorter fingers, the high switch is easier to reach.

The TLR-1 HL-X can be powered by Streamlight SL-B9 batteries or CR123A batteries. The SL-B9 batteries are rechargeable and emit 1,500 lumens, compared to the 1,000 lumens emitted by CR123A. A feature I appreciate most about this light is that the battery compartment is front-loading. So, you can change batteries without removing the light from the gun.

Shooting the Spec Series V

As the Spec Series V pistol was bred for competition, I wanted to test competition ammunition through it. I also wanted to test the distance capabilities of this handgun to see how it would perform at 20 yards. This is because almost every style of shooting sport will test your accuracy at 25 yards and further. Some shots are out to 40 or 50 yards for multigun shooting sports.

I selected 124-grain and 147-grain match-quality ammunition as well as practice-quality ammo. I opted for two types of ammunition from Federal: one from the Syntech line and the other from the Gold Medal Action line.

The Syntech jacket flat nose rounds were the least accurate. My hypothesis is that it was due to the coating through the compensator, and possibly the barrel as well.

The Gold Medal Action pistol ammunition, on the other hand, proved to be the most accurate of all. It also had the slowest velocity, which decreased the muzzle rise even further, ultimately contributing to better accuracy.

The next most accurate was the Super Vel factory-new 124-grain full metal jackets. Out of the three 124-grain loads I tested, it had the slowest velocity, once again, contributing to better accuracy.

As I mentioned earlier, I think the plastic optic plates could be a contributing factor to the accuracy testing. I believe an aftermarket steel or aluminum optic plate would improve the reliability of the red dot optic, and therefore the accuracy of the gun.

I didn’t experience any malfunctions from any of the ammo. So, performance-wise, the Spec Series V is as reliable as it gets.

The Cost of a Competition Handgun

I wanted to leave you, readers, with a bit of insight I’ve learned over the past decade of my experience in competitive shooting. I started out with a stock Glock 17 and factory M&P handgun when I first got into competitive shooting. These guns are extremely budget-friendly. However, I rarely ever see one used today by a competitive shooter that is bone stock from the factory.

To get a handgun “race-ready,” shooters will install a competition trigger, a different recoil spring weight, port their barrel or get a threaded barrel and compensator, change the factory iron sights to fiber optic ones, change the backstrap to a heavier aftermarket brass one, get the grip stippled, and more. Then they purchase a flared magwell and base pad extensions for the magazines.

The upgrades, modifications, and accessories typically cost three times the price of the initial handgun. When you look at the total investment of all of this, the $1,699.00 price tag of the Spec Series V suddenly seems not just reasonable, but more affordable. Not to mention, it saves you time in sourcing all the parts. Let alone the time spent installing them, or the investment in hiring someone to do it for you.

Smith & Wesson priced this gun just right for the total package value—race-ready from the factory to the range.

S&W Spec Series V M&P 2.0 Metal HD Specifications

Performance