S&W M&P Shield 9mm Review

Hey guys, welcome back. Today, I'm out here shooting my Smith & Wesson 9mm Shield. The Shield is Smith & Wesson's first entry into the ultra-compact market. It's an exciting new product for 2012, and we're going to take a closer look at it this afternoon. Let's get going. The Shield is a very small 19-ounce pistol that's a single-stack pistol. You'll notice it's very narrow. As a matter of fact, it's only about .95 inches wide. It's less than an inch wide. This pistol is just a little bit smaller than the 9C M&P, which I have here in my right hand. This is the double-stack 9C, and this is the Shield. The Shield's just a little bit smaller in overall dimensions, but it's quite a bit more narrow than its big brother. The Shield is designed to be a pocket pistol, or just a small holster inside or outside the waistband carry pistol. It's designed to either be a backup, but it also can be used as a primary carry handgun. It is a feature-rich pistol, and let's talk about some of those features now. The Smith & Wesson Shield is very similar to its bigger brothers in the M&P line, although it does have some differences. First of all, it is a Zytel polymer-framed handgun that weighs 19 ounces. It has the same 18-degree grip angle as its larger brothers, which makes it a very ergonomic pistol. Where it differs, again, is in the thickness. Less than an inch wide, so it doesn't fill the hand as well as one of the larger handguns in 9mm, .40, or .45, but it does feel very good in the hand. It has the same sights as the larger M&P series of pistols. You'll also notice that the controls are very similar to the standard M&P series of pistols. You will also notice that it has a manual thumb safety here. This is an option on most other M&P pistols. It is not an option on the Shield. If you buy a Shield, you get the thumb safety. We'll talk a little bit more about that here in a minute. The controls, again, are similar. The takedown lever, the slide stop is right here. What is different is that on the right-hand side of the pistol, you don't have the ambidextrous controls. You don't have the slide stop on the left, or I'm sorry, the right-hand side of the pistol like you do on this 9C. You'll notice ambidextrous control. The pistol is striker-fired, just like its bigger brothers. Now, listen very carefully when I release this trigger. That was the reset of the trigger. That's different than most M&P handguns if you're used to shooting M&Ps. It has an audible reset. That's one of the biggest complaints against the M&P series of handguns from its owners was that it didn't have an audible or tactile feedback through the trigger, letting you know that the handgun had reset. That's been remedied in the Shield. Smith & Wesson says that this new trigger is going to wind up being in all future M&Ps that are manufactured. The Shield is one of the first to get it. Now, the Shield has two magazines available for it. It has a 7-shot flush-fit magazine, and it has an 8-shot extended magazine. The extended magazine has this sleeve that slides over the magazine, which allows for your pinky to rest on something other than the magazine when it's in the pistol. That's what it looks like. Now, with this in, it actually makes the grip about as long as a Glock 19. It's actually slightly longer than a Glock 19, and just shorter than a Glock 17. That just gives you an idea of how much longer it makes this pistol grip. The handgun is meant to be a subcompact, and it's supposed to be a concealed carry handgun. That's why it has a 7-shot magazine. There are other problems with that extension, which I'll talk about here in a few minutes. With the 7-shot magazine in, the pinky really wants to hang off the handgun. There's no real purchase for the pinky on the pistol. With the 8-shot magazine in, obviously, you can get a full grip on the pistol. But you sacrifice concealability. The pistol weighs 19 ounces. It has a 3-inch, 3.1-inch barrel, and is 6.1 inches in overall length. The trigger has a 6.5-pound release, according to Smith & Wesson. However, I've measured this pistol, and it's just over 7 pounds for me. But it's a very crisp, light trigger. Not light, but a very crisp, sharp trigger, I should say. Now, let's take a look at the thickness of this pistol again. That's the key feature. The shield isn't much smaller than the 9C, which I have here. It's just much thinner, and just a little bit shorter. Let me take the magazine out of the 9C here for you real quick, so we have a basis to compare. And you can see, and this is the shield right here, you can see the differences in the two pistols. Shooting the shield is very pleasant. It really has surprisingly little recoil for a handgun chambered in 9mm that's this size. I find it to be a really accurate handgun. At 15 yards, you can shoot nice, tight groups with it, and I can shoot out to 25 yards with it and easily hit a man-sized target. It's a very accurate and reliable handgun. Speaking of reliability, I've been firing some 147 grain-jacketed hollow points out of it here right now. I've also been shooting ball rounds out here this afternoon. In total, I've put over 1,000 rounds through the handgun before shooting this review. Just out here shooting the handgun today, I've put 300 rounds through it. I've had no malfunctions with the handgun. The only problems I've had with it is occasionally I'll rest my thumb on the slide stop and I'll prevent the slide from locking open the last shot fired, but that's my fault and my big, goofy thumbs. If I pay attention to what I'm doing and just learning how to use the handgun, that won't happen. Aside from that, no malfunctions. Let's fire off some of these hollow points. See? Field-stripping the shield is very simple, and it's almost identical to how you would field-strip any M&P pistol. First of all, you want to make sure that the weapon's empty, drop the magazine out, check the chamber. On this side of the pistol, you have a disassembly lever. You'll want to draw the slide to the rear, lock it to the rear, and rotate the disassembly lever down. Once you do that, you'll want to let the slide ride home, and when it gets to the closed position, you're going to want to pull the trigger. Pulling the trigger releases the striker and allows the pistol to come apart. Inside the pistol, you'll find a dual captured recoil spring and its 3.1-inch barrel. There are a couple of other differences between the shield and the larger M&P series handguns. First of all, you'll notice inside the pistol, there's that yellow lever that you would normally use to take down tool that's stored in the grip of the larger Smith & Wesson M&P pistols that looks like this. This tool would normally be stored here in the grip of the handgun, but this tool doesn't come with the shield. You'll notice that it's just a hollow compartment back there, and there's no place to store the tool. You can still reach in through the ejection port like you would on a larger Smith & Wesson M&P handgun and hit that lever so you don't have to pull the trigger to disassemble the pistol, but you don't have to do that. Even with the larger Smith & Wesson M&P handguns, you can simply pull the trigger to release the sear to take the handgun apart, and that's what you do with the shield. Another difference is, you'll notice that the grip inserts are not removable like on the larger handguns. It's molded with just this one grip, and it's not removable. Let's put the handgun back together. To reassemble the handgun, put the barrel back into the slide, take your dual captured recoil spring, put it in there so it sets like that, slide the slide onto the frame, pull it to the rear, lock the slide to the rear, turn your disassembly lever to its locked position, and the handgun goes back together. Now, you'll also notice I don't have the magazine in the gun, and I can fire it. There's some rumors circulating on the internet that the Smith & Wesson shield has a magazine disconnect safety, and that's not true. It does not have one. The eight-shot magazine of the shield has this polymer friction fit extension on it. This is meant for your pinky to rest on. It just slides up and down the magazine body. This is less than ideal, and this is one of the cons to the pistol, or I should say, just to the magazine, not the pistol. It doesn't take much force to cause that to slide down. Now, if you carry this magazine inverted in a magazine pouch like I am out here today, it doesn't take much. Gravity is working with you, and you'll notice it's just stiff enough where it's difficult to push unless you hit it just right, but it doesn't take much force to get it to slide down the magazine body. I've also carried this magazine around in my pocket loose, loaded, for a couple of days, and at the end of the day, it's usually right about there on the magazine body. Let me show you why that might be a problem. I'm going to stick it back in my magazine pouch and do a reload. Now, you'll notice I really had to whack the magazine to get it to go into the pistol. If that's up the body, you go to insert the magazine into the pistol, when I just normally whack it, it's not seating. I really have to whack it to get it to seat. If you're in a gun fight, you're probably not going to remember to do that. You're going to go to reload your magazine or reload your pistol with the magazine that you have in the magazine pouch, and you're not going to get it into the gun, you're going to whack it, let the slide go, and you're going to have nothing. You're going to have to stop and troubleshoot your handgun. Less than ideal. There is a solution to the problem with the 8-shot magazine and this friction fit extension. For me, it's just to take the piece off and get rid of it. Carry the magazine like this as a spare magazine in the pouch. Why would I carry it as a spare? Because the shield, in my opinion, was designed to be, or should be, a 7-shot handgun. It needs to be as small as possible. It's designed for ultra-compact carry. If I put the 8-round magazine back in the gun, it makes the grip as long as a larger handgun. It makes it as long as a standard M&P or Glock 17 almost, a full-size handgun. By having that extra round, it defeats the purpose of having an ultra-compact handgun. Shaving an inch or so off the barrel doesn't really help you much when you're trying to hide a handgun. Shaving it off here is what makes all the difference. If you're going to buy a handgun like this, you don't need that 8-shot magazine. You should be after that 7-shot magazine. So, for me, I just carry this as a spare without that sleeve on it, or you can superglue it, but if you do that, you won't be able to get your baseplate off to clean the magazine down the road. That, or leave it in the drawer and buy an extra 7-shot magazine as a spare. For carrying concealed, I use a Raven Phantom holster, and that's what I have the shield in here now, and that's what I'm using out here at the range today. When I bought my shield, I contacted the guys at Raven to find out if I could get one of their Phantom holsters for it, and I was lucky. They were just tooling up to start making these holsters. They now have on their website that they're in stock, and you can order one and get it shipped to your house right away. You won't have to wait. Now, if you are in the market to buy a shield and you plan on buying a Raven, I would go to their website now and buy one, simply because they're so popular, the stock and the inventory may change, and you might have to wind up waiting a couple of weeks, but right now, they list them as in stock. I like the Ravens because, well, they're a Kydex holster. They fit closely to the body. They're convertible. You can carry them inside the waistband or outside the waistband. All of my carry guns ride in Raven holsters, Phantom holsters like this. The holster retails for $79.99. I also picked up a spare magazine pouch, which cost $34 from Raven, and that's so I can have an extra magazine with me. Since the magazines only carry seven or eight rounds, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a spare magazine pouch. Again, $34 from Raven. That thumb safety, the manual safety that exists on the left-hand side of the frame, I'm not really a fan of, and when I first saw the shield, I was kind of disappointed that Smith & Wesson didn't either leave this off or make it an option, because I would opt not to have it. But, after shooting this weapon quite a bit and putting, like I said, about a thousand rounds or so through the handgun, I've discovered that I'm really not that opposed to the safety. It stays out of the way. Now, I'm of the firm opinion, if you have a safety on a handgun such as this, you must train to deactivate or take that safety off every time you present the pistol. You can't make the assumption that the safety is going to stay off, because if you do that, Murphy's Law will always catch you in the end, and when you have to draw this pistol to save your life, chances are that safety will be on, and you'll sit there and yank on a trigger and can't figure out why your gun's not firing, it's because you didn't train properly. But let me show you. I'm going to go ahead and make sure that the safety's on. You can see that it's on. I'm going to put it in the holster, and I'm going to show you how you can still present and easily brush that safety off. Now, putting it back on isn't that easy, but that's not a problem. You kind of have to shift it in your hand to get the safety back on. But it comes off nice and easy with a simple thumb motion. Well, guys, some final thoughts on the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield. Overall, I'm very impressed with the fit and function of the handgun. The melanite finish is great, it's very durable, I've carried a Smith & Wesson M&P around quite a bit over the years, it's a nice handgun, so I know that the melanite finish is durable. The grip angle is very familiar to me. If you're used to a standard M&P handgun, that 18-degree angle is going to feel very familiar to you. I won't say it's the same, the gun does feel a little bit different because of how narrow it is. However, all the controls are the same if you're used to the M&P. Reliability, superb. Not one malfunction in over 1,000 rounds fired, so this handgun can handle just about anything you stick in it. I've stuck 147-grain hollow points in it, 115-grain hollow points, a number of different ball rounds including Winchester White Box and Federal Range ammunition. I've had no problems of any kind. I also called up Smith & Wesson to ask them if the shield was rated for Plus-P ammunition and what they told me was that the handgun can fire any 9mm ammo that's within SAMI specs. Plus-P ammunition is, so the handgun, according to Smith & Wesson, is safe for Plus-P ammunition. For a price of $449, which is full retail, it's a really good buy in my opinion. Now, these handguns, once they hit the wild, they are out in the wild now, the price will probably be a little over $400. I bought this handgun from my local gun shop, Bly's Sports, in Valparaiso, Indiana. Now, if you guys are a fan of the channel and you've watched, you'll know that the CM-9 is the 9mm handgun that I've carried around in the past. Here it is next to the shield. The car's just a little bit smaller than the shield, but the ergonomics of the shield surpass that of the car. I'm a big fan of the car, but I think the shield is going to replace it in my holster on my hip when I need an ultra-compact 9mm. And that's saying a lot. I do like the car handgun. If you guys have any questions about the Smith & Wesson shield, you can ask those questions on our Facebook page. You can find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com forward slash military arms. As always, everybody, thanks for watching. Thanks for those subs, and we'll talk to you guys soon.