Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 10mm Auto Striker-Fired Pistol

The Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 10mm Auto polymer-framed striker-fired pistol not only is one of the most natural-pointing handguns, but it comes with four backstrap grip modules for a perfect fit.

June 09, 2023 By Joseph Von Benedikt

Long considered one of THE most comfortable, natural-pointing handguns on the market, Smith & Wesson’s M&P 2.0 polymer-frame striker-fired pistol line finally includes the 10mm Auto as a caliber choice. The M&P 2.0 10mm has a full-size grip, a 4.6-inch barrel, and a 15-round magazine capacity.

Because it houses the bigger, longer 10mm Auto cartridge, the grip is a trace bigger than that on its 9mm stablemate. Still, it feels right. Plus, each pistol comes with four backstrap grip modules, allowing owners to pick the one that best fits their hand.

Grips and grip modules are surfaced with an excellent stippled-type texture, making for a sure grip that’s easy to hang onto even with wet hands. The trigger guard is undercut, making for a nice high recoil-controlling grasp on the grip. A modest but effective beavertail shape protects the web at the base of the thumb from slide cuts. Up front, the frame has an integral 1913-spec rail with three cross-slots.

Stippling is applied atop the reversible magazine release, too. It’s just high enough to make dropping the magazine easy, without making it prone to inadvertent ejection.

The steel-bodied double-stack magazines provide center-feed cartridge presentation to the chamber. Dual, numbered rows of holes down the backs of the magazines expose how many rounds are inside.

Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 10mm Auto Pistol Accuracy and Velocity Chart

The stainless-steel slide is finished in Armornite, which is a super-tough patented corrosion- and abrasion-resistant surface treatment. Slide grasping grooves fore and aft feature a wavy serpentine or scale-type appearance and provide a good non-slip grip without being abrasive.

The tall three-dot sights are compatible with an optic, and the slide is optic-ready, meaning it has been machined for a red-dot sight’s mounting plate. The pistol comes with S&W’s screw-and-plate kit, making it very simple to install most popular red-dot sights.

The fire controls are typical but feature well-thought-out dimensions. The slide lock lever is grooved and discreet, protruding just far enough to be manipulated with gloved hands. The M&P 2.0 10mm is available with and without an ambidextrous manual thumb safety, so I opted for the thumb safety because for use in heavy winter clothing and hunting gear (I fully intend to carry this pistol as my backup when hunting in bear country), I prefer more than just a trigger safety.

My pistol’s trigger pull weight is 4 pounds, 14 ounces, which is just about right for defensive use and for high-stress winter use with cold hands potentially made insensitive by exposure. The release is nice and crisp, and the reset is clear and can be felt and heard.

Putting the new M&P 2.0 10mm Auto through its paces on a very cold and windy winter day revealed that point of impact varied depending on the load, but that accuracy was very good. As you can see from the accompanying chart, all six loads I test-fired averaged between 1.73 inches and 4.21 inches at 25 yards. That’s for three, five-shot groups with each load.

I had one malfunction, and it was with Buffalo Bore’s 220-grain Hard Cast load. A fresh cartridge in the magazine nosed down and caught on the lower edge of the feed-

ramp. This stout load often requires an extra-heavy recoil spring to function at its best, and I suspect the slide speed may have been a bit too fast due to a bit of bounce off the rear of its range of motion, which can occur when a medium-weight spring doesn’t slow the slide’s rearward travel quite enough before it bottoms out and reverses. When this occurs, the returning slide can outrun the fresh cartridge rising up to the magazine’s feed lips. It can be resolved by simply installing a stouter recoil spring.

I expected the pistol to point well, balance well, and feel good through recoil. I did not anticipate how good the trigger pull would feel during actual firing. Take-up is smooth, the second-stage wall is nice and firm, and the break is crisp. This powerful but relatively lightweight 10mm pistol is going to be my regular dangerous-game-hunting companion.