In praise of the S&W Shield 9mm

R

Rogervzv

New member
My Shield 9mm is one of my CCW guns, and as such I feel obligated to train with it at the range fairly often. Mine is stock excepting that I added Meprolight Tritium sights to it. I have to say, after having owned the gun for two years, I literally cannot find any fault with it.

In terms of accuracy, the Shield 9mm is about what you would expect for a small 9mm carry gun. It is very accurate at self-defense distances, i.e. 10 yards or less. I can reliably hit near the center of a head-size target at 10 yards pretty much every single shot. Obviously with fixed sights and combat sights and its overall size, the Shield is not a target competition gun and it is not designed or intended to be one.

My Shield has never jammed. Not once. It always goes bang.

Some Shield owners have complained about the trigger, others not. I am in the latter category. The trigger is fine and seemed to smooth out with the first 100 rounds or so.

I like the thin profile of the Shield. It feels great in my hand and it is great to carry too. And it does not have the hated boxy profile of a Glock.

My Shield has a manual safety. Say what you want, but I will not own a semi-auto without a manual safety. Period. Guess that harkens back to my Army days carrying a 1911 all the time.

The Shield is very easy to strip down all the way to removing the firing pin for cleaning the striker channel. The striker channel does not collect much gunk and this probably only needs to be done infrequently. I enjoy doing it and it is even easier to do this than even the Ruger SR series guns.

Overall, for the money it is hard to imagine a better handgun than the Shield. I like this one enough that I plan to pick up a second one, well, just because.
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The entire M&P lineup has really caught my attention over the past year.

I was a died in the wool Glock shooter (both as an issued duty gun and as my preferred off duty/ccw gun)

While i still like the Glocks for their simplicity, the M&P just SHOOTS better for me. Better grip angle..better trigger (esp with an Apex kit installed).

I run one of my M&Ps with an RMR reddot and the M&P CORE system attaches the sight to the slide BETTER then the Glock MOS.

Smith &Wesson took a good concept (Glock) and improved on it:eek:

While i dont have a Shield yet (3 full size and 1compact), im sure there is a Shield sitting on a shelf waiting for me to come along:D
 
Glad you like your Shield. I love mine. I have had a few Glocks and like them. I like the triggers on both guns. To me the trigger on the Shield really needs the manual safety for pocket carry. The shield trigger is 98% fully tensioned and is a very short light pull where as the glock is the conventional glock where the trigger pull finishes tensioning the striker. I have pocket carried Glock 27's in pocket holsters without incident. I sometimes carry my shield this way, but I am glad that it has a manual safety.
 
I have a Shield 9 also. Really like it, although I haven't found a holster I like yet. I'm thinking about a Shield 45 in the near future. My opinion is that the Shields are about perfect for cc. My fav. has got to be my Ruger Lc9s. Glad you like yours.
 
Carry my Shield in 'The Uni' holster. Almost forget it's there. Christmas brought me a Crimson Trace grip laser. Now I like the Shield even more.
 
Agree with much of the above. I bought the one without thumb safety but took it back when I realized how little trigger take up there was before ignition . The trigger is otherwise fine and I found no real advantage to the supposedly tweeked trigger on the ported Shield . Felt about the same to me . I did put Truglo TFX sights on mine . I wish the gun was a bit lighter but that would increase the now very controlable recoil . All in all , very close to the perfect CCW gun . No wonder they have shipped over a million of them already .
 
I too got the thumb safety version. I love it. I shot 1911's a good bit a few years back, but I carried Glocks for over 6 years.

I'm comfortable with the thumb safety and I absolutely love it. The trigger is a million times better than the Glock. I'm actually just upset that they didn't have the 45 when I bought mine two years ago! I'll probably get a 45 at some point, but I have too many other things on the list that I need first...
 
I picked up a Shield in June, shot a few mags out of it and headed back overseas. My idea buying it was pocket carry - finding it's too large for that and really prints. It seems almost as chunky as my Glock 26.

I think I'd really need to put some more rounds through it because, as of right now, I'm not a fan of trigger. I'm contemplating an Apex trigger kit for $130 or trading the gun on a Glock 43.

I bought the Shield used and it has the single side thumb safety. Being left handed, unless someone invents an ambi-safety, the safety will be removed.
 
M&P triggers are generally awful but can be replaced. The Shield trigger is much better than the full size gun which has a weird three stage pull.

The guns themselves are a very good bargain for the money. They were selling Shields at the PX for $329/ no tax so I picked one up a while back. Eventually it replaced my Glock 27 as my off duty/ low threat carry gun.

I prefer the 8 round magazine for carry as I have large hands. It works well for either IWB or OWB carry. My has no manual safety.

While there are lighter guns out there in that category I prefer something with a little more mass as it makes follow up shots easier so this fits the bill.

Everything lands inside the ten ring and it is much easier to shoot than the 27.
 
I'm with you, it's a FANTASTIC gun. I wanted to hate it when it first came out, but then I tried it... It's everything I could have asked.

And I get spectacular accuracy. It's not CZ 75 level, but it's just as good as a Glock 19 in my hands. Recoil feels less too. It's really quite a gun.
 
I've had mine for a couple of years now. I chose the 9mm as it was for me the best combination of size gun, purpose and power. Very good 9mm. Accurate, reliable, and good shooting.

Below 20 rounds of 115 gr. CCI Blazer fired at 8 yards. The flyers are where I jerked the trigger.



Compared in size to a S&W made Walther PPK/S



tipoc
 
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