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Old 06-17-2017, 02:48 PM
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I had the same problem with my Shield .45, and it was still happening at 1900 rounds. I cured it by doing two things at once, so I'm not sure which one of them solved the problem. I suggest doing the easier one first, which is lightly polishing the lower feed ramp and the vertical wall area just below it where the bullet tip hangs up. I rummaged around in my auto stuff and found some "Turtle Wax Polishing Compound Light to Medium Cleaner" paste. I lightly rubbed in a small amount of it with a cotton cleaning patch, and buffed it off thoroughly with a second patch. I used a Q-tip to get any remaining residue out from the crevices around the ramp. To give the ramp an added degree of slickness, I repeated the process with some "Prestone High Protection" synthetic liquid wax. Again, I did some heavy buffing to ensure there was't enough wax left on the ramp to build up on the bullet tip. The result was a ramp that was smoother and slicker than before.

You don't have to use the specific products I mentioned above, (they just happened to be on hand at the time), but you should use ones fairly low in abrasiveness. I know we all like to use our Dremels whenever we can, but I recommend hand polishing.

The second thing I did was more radical, because it's considered by a lot of gun enthusiasts to be a no-no. I very lightly lubed the insides of my magazine tubes. The goal was to "unstick" the followers so they wouldn't hang up part way to the top, thus causing a failure to feed. I have seven semi-auto handguns and I'd never even considered lubing a magazine until then, but I was so thoroughly peeved at the continuing failures to feed with my fully broken-in Shield, that I was willing to try anything. You should only try this if the ramp polishing fails.

I first cleaned them with Mil-Comm's water-based gun cleaner which is designed to prep surfaces for their TW25B synthetic gun grease. I then applied a very light coating of TW25B grease to the insides of my magazine tubes and then buffed it off, leaving the thinnest possible coat. I did the same with the sides of the followers where they contact the magazine walls. I chose TW25B because it only requires a very thin application to be effective, it doesn't migrate, and it doesn't attract much residue. As a result, the followers slid up and down much more easily than before.

I since have fired 290 rounds, all of which loaded and ejected perfectly. I recently cleaned my 6-round magazine and will check how it functions unlubed on next week's range visit. Interestingly, I found very little residue inside. I'll wait on cleaning my seven-rounders, because they can be a hassle to reassemble. (There are several threads devoted to reassembly of the seven-round magazines. I advise reading those before you take your seven-rounders apart.)

These solvable issues aside, the Shield .45 is a great gun. It is amazingly accurate and enjoyable to shoot. Now that its reliability issues have been solved (knock on wood!), it is giving my wonderful M&P 40 compact some serious competition to become my everyday carry.
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Last edited by swsig; 06-17-2017 at 02:51 PM.
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