Here’s a rundown of the general specs:

Length: 27.8 inches
Barrel Length: 19 inches
Width: 3.7 inches
Height: 8.7 inches
Weight: 8.3 pounds
Capacity: 14+1 2.75-inch shells, 12+1 with 3-inch shells
Trigger Pull: 6.34 pounds
Picatinny Rail: 11 inches
Choke Threads: Remington

Despite its short overall length of just 27.8 inches, the bullpup design allows the M&P 12 to host a 19-inch barrel, which is threaded for Remington-pattern chokes. This isn’t an upland birding gun by any means, but there are plenty of tactical chokes/breaks you might want to add to it.
 

Normally, bullpups are notorious for having “bad” triggers. When it comes to bullpup shotguns, the M&P 12 is better than most I’ve shot. It has very little take-up to the wall, and the break is a bit creepy and springy. The reset isn’t very aggressive, but keep in mind this is a pump-action shotgun, so there’s a lot of hand action between shots anyway. At 6.34 pounds, it was more than good enough for my testing.
 

The gun is strong enough to take 3-inch magnum shells, but it’s refined enough to chamber mini shells if you really want to go for maximum capacity and bump your shell count to 20+1. 
 

The pump slide has scalloped serrations and can host a foregrip underneath. I’ve found that it’s important to rack any bullpup shotgun with authority to avoid causing a feeding malfunction in the action. That didn’t prove to be an issue with the M&P 12.

In fact, a feeding issue with a bullpup design is a pain to clear, because the action is all the way in the back of the gun and under your armpit. Smith & Wesson provided a solution for that. There’s a reciprocating cover on the rear of the stock with a release lever to open the action to clear jams and damaged shells much more easily than other bullpup shotguns I’ve tested.
 

Built-in sights are about the only thing that S&W left out of the M&P 12 design. But the company clearly did that on purpose, offering 11 inches of Picatinny rail on top for red dots and accessories instead. Even the barrel shroud is covered with M-LOK slots for additional lights or lasers, and the slots double as ventilation holes for cooling the barrel.
 

The M&P 12 also has features to make loading and unloading the gun easier than other bullpup shotguns like the KelTec KSG. Both tubes host bright orange followers to indicate when they are empty, and there’s a tactile loaded chamber indicator above the rear of the barrel. But the real cherry is the dual loading/unloading assist buttons that make loading and clearing the seven-round magazine tubes easier and quicker than other bullpup designs.
 

Shooting & Function

My test M&P 12 arrived at my local FFL just before my next range trip, so I took it straight into the field for shooting before I had a chance to play around with the various controls. As a testament to the design, it was very easy to figure out how to operate the various features on the gun with no prior experience.

I put 150 rounds through it on my first range visit with no malfunctions. Most of that was Federal 2.75-inch Vital-Shok 00 buckshot and rifled slugs mixed in with some nine-pellet Sellier & Bellot 00 buckshot and a variety of birdshot and target loads. The M&P 12 chewed through all of it without issues. However, I will stress again that you need to be aggressive when you rack the slide on bullpups.
 

Since the gun was clearly designed for a red dot, I popped on a spare Crimson Trace dot and was pleased to discover the recoil on the M&P 12 was light enough for that old dot to survive without any issues. At 25 yards, the 19-inch barrel peppered nearly all my 00 pellets from eight rapid-fire shots within a 28-inch circle target. The recoil was plenty controllable for the tactical/self-defense ammo I tested. 
 

The gun is just enjoyable to shoot, and S&W got it right when it put the tube selector on the slide instead of behind the pistol grip like the KelTec KSG. I really liked the KSG shotgun overall, but the placement of the tube selector is superior on the M&P 12 from my personal experience. 

Related: KelTec KSG Shotgun Review – Double the Pump-Action Firepower

I loved the aggressive texturing on the pistol grip. You can easily control the gun in rain or hot, sweaty conditions. Rubber texture on the back of the buttstock also helped keep the gun in my shoulder while shooting from various positions. 
 

There were a few things I didn’t like. The slide has a bit of wobble to it. That kind of slop often serves a purpose on guns to help them run more reliably, and the M&P 12 did run without issue. I didn’t find the gun to be overly fatiguing, but it is rather heavy for a 27.8-inch shotgun at 8.3 pounds. That’s nearly 1.5 pounds more than the KelTec KSG, with the same 14+1 capacity.
 

Finally, I think it’s fair to say the gun is technically slow to reload. It’s just the nature of the bullpup design when it comes to shotguns. You can either invert the gun to load it quicker with the ejection/loading port pointing to the sky or manually load one shell at a time while maintaining your grip. 

I don’t want to over-stress this point. Since the M&P 12 comes ready to rock ‘n’ roll with 14+1 2.75-inch shells, it already comes with more shotgun ammo in the gun than most people would ever carry in a real home defense situation. Combat-reloading the M&P 12 is more a matter of hitting a button to access another tube of shells than slowly thumbing new rounds into the tube like most shotguns.
 

Pros & Cons