S &W revolvers had ruled U.S. police handgun sales until the sea-change to semiautos pistols began in earnest in the 1980s. S&W took a while to recognize polymer police pistols were here to stay, and they were not particularly quick to catch up. In 1993, S&W introduced Kevin Foley’s design, the Sigma. Some departments adopted it, but it never really caught on in LE, instead finding its niche as a low-price, entry-level consumer pistol. A few years later, the company Americanized the Walther P99 into the SW99. A few cops liked them and still carry them today, but the SW99 didn’t really catch on, either.

In-house, Joe Bergeron — a brilliant engineer who had begun his career in Gun Valley “down the road” at Colt’s — was put in charge of a design team tasked with creating an all-new S&W handgun for this market. The result was the first semiauto pistol in decades to bear a name instead of a model number. That name was a hallowed one in the halls of S&W: “Military & Police.”

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