Amish, the only issue I had was with the magazine drop; there are several threads about it with photos on here. This is apparently rare, and only a few of the forum members have experienced it (actually there were some 9mm Shields that did this too at one time). It's a little plastic piece inside the mag called the "follower" which was creating the problem in my case.

Anyway, I bought mine from Palmetto State Armory, and it shipped with the old parts in the magazines, so thanks to some of the good members here, I found out about the issue then called S&W and they overnighted the new style followers to me at no charge. I swapped them out in about 15 minutes and the magazines now function perfectly. Again, in most cases, this never happens, but if it does at least you will understand it.

This should in no way discourage you from owning the Shield 45, it's an incredible value and an outstandingly accurate firearm.