I’ve recently bought a Smith and Wesson SW9VE for my first handgun. And I have to say that it’s a great gun with no problems. I use the SW9VE mostly for self-defense and home safety but I do target shoot to get my skills up with it.
The accuracy of the SW9VE isn’t the best for distance like I said its mostly for close range shooting the farthest I would attempt to shoot anything and thing to hit would be between 15-25 yards. The S&W Sigma has proven to me to be a reliable, yet inaccurate firearm with several mechanical design failures that make it less than ideal. The trigger is a slingshot design and unlike the Glock the Sigma has a hefty 8-10 pound trigger pull that at best can hinder accuracy. The weight of the Pistol is super light because it has a polymer frame even fully loaded with the 16+1 bullets. The ammo capacity of the SW9VE is amazing with the 16+1 mags and accuracy doesn’t even matter at all you could keep shooting until you hit what you aiming at. And new it comes with 2 magazines that’s 34 rounds. On the plus side, this gun will fire every POS ammunition brand and then some; I've never seen mine jam. I had my girlfriend shoot this gun with me one day and now I have to buy one. The gun was around $300, so the price is great. I haven't treated this gun in any way other than abuse, and still no jams. Something must be said for that. I've gone out of my way to perform "tests" heard about in urban legends (covered in mud, buried in the sand, etc..). The gun still performs solid, but as I said, not accurately. I haven't smacked it with any hammers yet, just because parts for this thing are not easy to find, and aftermarket parts are even more scarce. The rail system is not standard so forget adding contemporary lasers and lights, which is a real negative for me as I think any weapon to be grabbed when the shit hits the fan should have a good flashlight attachment, or at least the ability to take one. The SW9VE is super easy to take apart. First off, make sure it’s UNLOADED. One quirk of this gun is that you have to pull the trigger to disassemble it. After you're sure it’s unloaded, you can go to the next step. You should see a little pull down lever right above the trigger that goes all the way through the frame. Pull the slide back then pull down on both sides of the lever and let the slide go back forward. It may not look like anything happened, but it should be released at this point. Now pull the trigger (like I said - UNLOADED is important). The slide should move forward a little bit and you can take it the rest of the way off by hand. If it doesn’t come off, you probably didn’t get it released all the way. Pull the slide back and try again. The barrel and spring assembly will drop right out and you're done with disassembly. To put it back together, put the barrel and spring assembly back in the slide, line up the grooves on the frame and slide and push the slide back. It will click into place and you're ready to shoot. This is what I’m rating my Smith and Wesson SW9VE:
8/10 overall
4/10 accuracy
2/10 weight (10 being heavy)
8/10 ammo capacity
10/10 fires cheap ammo
9/10 simple take down
