I purchased my third S&W M&P15T this morning. The first had Troy rails,Troy buis and chrome lined 1/9 twist barrel. The second had the new S&W patent pending rail, plastic mbuis and the S&W 1/8 twist 5R melonite barrel. The 15T that I picked up this morning has the new patent pending S&W rail, Troy M&P marked buis and the old 1/9 chrome lined barrel. The price was more in line with the newer 15T with the mbuis, S&W rail and 5R barrel.
I thought that the melonite 5R barrel was very good and I'm wondering why they are mixing the previous chrome lined 1/9 twist barrel, Troy sights with the S&W rail. Is this S&W attempt to admit that they overpriced the previous version of the 15T at $1700 msrp when they introduced the newer 15T (less than $1k) with melonite barrel or are they just mixing and matching to get rid of old stock?
Either way it's a solid rifle and I'll keep buying the M&P line.