destroyed Shield

It seems to be a wee built gun, but honestly, it was a sad thing. I will tell them what I think.

Every spring seems to be wrong. It fails to cycle properly, it fails to remain open on an empty magazine, primers barely dimple and fail to fire, and at times accuracy is abysmal. I love it, but it is a cover weapon, and that failure, every ten rounds or so to fire, stovepipes, so failures of other sorts, even with varied factory rounds, simply wake this a poor cover weapon. I'm not complaining for myself, but many people would count on this with only a few test rounds dangerous. Must be addressed, even more important than being fixed .

I enjoy the place here. Don't like to see a lot of the things I see, but the gems of knowledge are better than a book.
 
You, too are wrong. We assume that his ammo is at fault, so we decide that it can't be that pistol, and that everything should just be written off as him not following the rules, doing something wrong, and being fully responsible for what happened? That's not how it works, and you bloody well know it.

Under pretty much all circumstances, there is a thing called "burden of proof" and in this case that burden will be on the maker, for the most part.

he needs to present the thing to the maker and let them prove that there were no problems with the gun, or replace it if it turns out that the thing split up because of a flaw in the receiver. plenty of guns have case failures that don't destroy the receivers.

Companies love hearing people pushing the fault off of them, onto the consumer.

Quote:
check oil levels at every fill up and change oil every 3,000 miles
What bull toast. Arbitrary boilerplate to prevent accountability. If a car's bearings go out within warranty and the owner didn't check every fill up or went 3,500 miles between changes, what then?

Companies love it when nobody challenges their products. It's plausible deniability. 10,000 toasters break because of faulty switches, and are thrown away.the company sells defective products in millions with impunity.

But, whatever your opinion is your own. If everyone followed that philosophy warranties would be meaningless. Manufacturers. Could write any sort of exclusion that they wanted.
Click to expand...

Sure they could. Or they could not offer any warranty at all. On the other hand consumers could chose not to purchase from those companies.

Just curious, if this happened to you would you or would you not tell S&W that you were using reloads?
 
probably a bad case

I read every reply and I'm glad there were very few negative.
I don't know the exact load as all my stuff is in my shed and I'm watching Law and Order with my wife. I do know that it was a light to moderate load with CFE powder and a 147 grain plated bullet.
After much thought and reflection I've come to the conclusion that it was either the gun firing out of battery or, more probable, I let a bad case slip by.
I probably will get another shield because for me, it is the perfect pistol for IWB. I shot it well and it never malfunctioned until the Kboom. I imagine I had about 1000 rounds through it and I kept it clean. I use a turret press so I don't believe it was a double charge.

I will keep reloading but will inspect my brass closer. I really thought I was being careful but maybe I let that "one bad one" slip through. I enjoy reloading almost as much as shooting.

Thanks for all the replies. If I decide to send the pistol the S&W I will let you know the outcome. At this point, I'm inclined to bite the bullet myself and attribute it to operator error. That would be me.
 
When ruger eliminated warranties, it was seen eventually as a great thing. Fewer legal risks, and just plain simple. A one year warranty is inferior to a lifetime service policy that will service it at their discretion.

What in the world ever led you to question me about whether I'd lie about using handloads? When die I say that people should lie and cheat?

Frankly, I don't have to answer that, and won't. Until I blow something up, I won't need to make that decision. I don't foresee telling some bs story, and dragging my integrity, ethics, Moralt into this is ridiculous.
 
I would suggest that you dump any brass that you have that even looks funny. I believe that new Winchester may be the strongest available. Using random range brass can be a problem.

I don't know about the possibility of oob.

Yes, let us know what happens.
 
I hand-load for all my weapons (except shotgun). That's many rifles, revolvers, semi-auto hand-guns etc.

Personally, whenever I talk with any of the manufacturers I never hesitate to tell them I load my own. The reasons are 1) that's the real world; and 2) if they use that as a reason to not communicate because I violated their warranty, then I am going to ask my questions anyway--and they better have good answers or else it's the last weapon I will ever buy from that manufacturer.

My experience has been so far that almost all the reputable manufacturers I've talked with will at least communicate technical issues and not reject anything out-of-hand just because I hand-load. That doesn't mean they will replace broken parts or weapons free of charge--though in some cases they have despite their warranties.

Maybe I have bad luck--but I often find "something wrong" with a surprisingly high percentage of manufactured weapons I purchase (one reason I love to build my own AR's). I too reject the notion of "operator error" as an automatic snap judgement, even if in fact that proves to be the case.

Send the weapon in for S&W to examine and get back to you--that's the real measure of the integrity of a manufacturer IMO--and the good ones IMO know that.
 
Last edited:
At this point, I'm inclined to bite the bullet myself and attribute it to operator error. That would be me.
Click to expand...

Given that you don't know that for sure, I don't think it's out of line to send the pistol in. You're not demanding S&W give you a free pistol, you're doing your due diligence to see what might have been the cause.
 
If I had an inkling or the slightest thought that I personally made a mistake, I could not in good conscience send it back and not tell them. I value my personal responsibility too highly. After all, isn't that what many on here supposedly champion?
Click to expand...

Just going to jump in here. I think part of the issue is he doesn't KNOW if he made a mistake. It's not far fetched to think that the pistol had a failure, is it? Let the manufacturer decide and go from there.
 
"So, they will have to work a deal with you. Use their customer service email. Do not call them."

Good luck with that. I had horrible, horrible experience with their customer service. I'd send an e-mail, then get an automated e-mail saying it'd be 3 business days before I'd receive a response. Three days later I'd get a response, then I'd question their response, and then I'd get an automated e-mail saying it'd be 3 days later until I'd get a response.

This went on for months. All I wanted was the stupid takedown lever for my m&p 22 that broke and that was notorious for breaking (pot metal junk).

It all started after they wanted me to send in my gun for a simple takedown lever replacement. After going round and round somebody finally said, no problem! You don't need to send it in, we'll just send in the replacement.

Well, 6 months later no lever, so I had to go through the e-mail spin of death again.

Finally I looked up all of the head cheese's e-mail addresses (easy to find, actually) and e-mailed every single one of them the crap I was going through.

3 days later I received a new takedown lever and a new magazine for my problems. I think it was the CEO or COO or something like that that ended up sending it (or seeing that it was sent).

Sorry to hijack your thread.
 
Last edited:
javadog60 - sorry to hear of your woes - just glad you weren't hurt. That's the most important thing.

I have a 9mm Shield and all it gets is a steady diet of my cast bullet reloads. Yea . . . I read the manual from cover to cover. I haven't purchased store bought ammunition in a number of years regardless of if it's 9mm, 38s, 45 Colt or bottleneck rifle cartridges. BUT, I don't load to maximum and I inspect all of the "range brass" that I use for my 9mm. You could very easily have dropped a double charge.

Just curious - what are you using to load your 9mm? I use mainly Bullseyr with a 120 ish gr. round nose (Lyman/Ideal 358-242). And where are you on the min/max for the powder you were using? Lead or jacketed rounds?

In my load work-up - as an example - with the same 120 gr. lead bullet - my SR9 cycles fine with 3.5 gr while my Shield won't cycle with that load - it takes 3.7 grains of BE which is not near the max. It will cycle all day long on that load and shoots 'em well. If you were loading near max or +P, that may have been the issue? Or, you may have just had a bad casing that you didn't catch.
 
When ruger eliminated warranties, it was seen eventually as a great thing. Fewer legal risks, and just plain simple. A one year warranty is inferior to a lifetime service policy that will service it at their discretion.

What in the world ever led you to question me about whether I'd lie about using handloads? When die I say that people should lie and cheat?

Frankly, I don't have to answer that, and won't. Until I blow something up, I won't need to make that decision. I don't foresee telling some bs story, and dragging my integrity, ethics, Moralt into this is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

This comment sounded like you might be suggesting that he omit telling S&W that he was shooting handloads when the gun blew up and rather leave them to make that determination forensically but I can see that you weren't implying that and I'm sorry for asking if you were.

Lit them prove that he did it, rather than blowing him off because he used the wrong motor oil
Click to expand...
 
I'm glad that you see my point now.

All that I have ever said in these posts is that reloads are not the only reasons that guns fail. Companies love to lay obstacles in the path of providing honest service. If there is doubt about ultimate responsibility, that doubt should be addressed before the customer throws away a damaged product. Laws regarding warranties are enormously complicated, but one of the fundamental principles is that a product must perform to standards expected (within reason). A basketball must bounce, a wrench must be strong enough to be used, a coffeemaker must heat up.

If that thing blew with factory loads, no doubt it is warranted. But a handgun designed to fire factory loads should be capable of using handloads that meet factory standards, and many laws reject the idea of these things. You don't have to use Ford parts in your Ford, jus equivalent products.

But, once again, I'm getting all fired up. The single most important question is whether or not the gun was defective. We're there weak spots in the casting, did it fire oob, poor fit, so on. Would it have blown with a normal load? It happens sometimes. Sometimes they just don't work. Smith should address it. Maybe it really is 100-% their fault, maybe his, and maybe regardless of fault they will do something.

We just spent $15k replacing my wife's car with a three year old one. We bought bumper to bumper coverage. A few weeks, maybe three months later, the two year old battery gave out with two years left on it. It chafed my shorts. By warranty conditions, I had no rights, and they told me so, and then had the gall to ask me if I wanted to buy a replacement from them. What did I do? I said no, took my business elsewhere, and now have an angry spot in my soul that a purchase like that buys no expectations of good will. Half off on the replacement would have been all it took to make me happy.

If Smith wants him to ever buy another one,they had better consider their response carefully.
 
My memory (and eyesight) may be a bit foggy--but strangely enough in a few of Jerry Mucileck';s videos--whom I believe is a BIG sponsored spokesperson for S & W--I think I've seen him standing in front of shelves with reloading components in his shop.

Anyone else ever notice this??
 
He probably has sponsors from ammo companies as well, come to think about it, and hast bought make in years. His shelves in one video, however, were piled with components.
 
After much thought and reflection I've come to the conclusion that it was either the gun firing out of battery or, more probable, I let a bad case slip by.
I probably will get another shield because for me, it is the perfect pistol for IWB. I shot it well and it never malfunctioned until the Kboom. I imagine I had about 1000 rounds through it and I kept it clean. I use a turret press so I don't believe it was a double charge.

I will keep reloading but will inspect my brass closer. I really thought I was being careful but maybe I let that "one bad one" slip through. I enjoy reloading almost as much as shooting.
Click to expand...

I have to ask, and it is my opinion that a cracked piece of brass (bad brass) DID NOT CAUSE YOUR ISSUE. OUT OF BATTERY 99.9% SURE NAH NOT THAT EITHER.
I'll put my money on a double charge.
After just re-reading your OP you had a round that you double charged. Out of battery and you would have sustained personal injury. Accept the fact that YOU double charged a case
 
Last edited:
I'm curious as to what load the OP was shooting. If it was a powder bulky enough that a double load would have overfilled the case then I would think that would have been noticed during the loading process. If not a double charge,could have been a bullet not crimped enough and got pushed way in to the case causing a high pressure situation.
 
Don P, if I were the OP then even if I were willing to own full responsibility for creating the overload, I would still send the gun in, admitting the fact, and offer S&W the opportunity to check it for metallurgical issues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top