Originally Posted by Buttercup

I have been quietly watching this situation with interest as I had contemplated getting one. What I see is a wide range of circumstances surrounding this issue. I have seen somewhat entry level shooters up to very experienced shooters experience the kaboom. I saw ammo ranging from yard sale boxes that were possibly someone's reloads to standard fmj factory to hollow point self defense rounds all being involved in the kabooms. The only common factor in these situations is it's isolation to the shield 40. For me personally I don't care if it is one per 100,000 produced that is one too many!!!! And what we are seeing is only a fraction of the owners out there as most of them are not on this forum nor do they even know it exist so what is the true ratio? Only smith and wesson knows and they are sticking to their patent answer of it is the ammo being out of spec. As someone said in another thread, there sure is an awful lot of faulty ammo out there that seems to find its way into the shields only. I am not willing to play Russian roulette with my health and personally will not be adding a shield 40 and highly doubt I would consider even a shield 9 at this point simply because I do believe the evidence is mounting that there is a problem that they are not acknowledging and what is to say they will on other products if a situation were to arise? To sum it up, I understand that things can go wrong when shooting and that no manufacturer is perfect, however what separates the men from the boys is how the problems are handled and I am not personally satisfied with Smith's reaction to these occurances.