Got my shield back from repairs yesterday and took it out to shoot today. Decided to check and make sure that it would fire without the magazine in and it fired great. But when the shell ejected it came out the bottom of the magazine well and the slide did not lock back. Is this normal?

Seems normal to me. Take your weapon and try to eject from the chamber without a mag. It should drop right on out of the mag hole.

And its not locking back because there isnt a mag in it. Yep thats a normal issue as well. You can test this simply by ejecting your mag and trying to rack the slide backwards. You will notice it will close and not stay back. Take and empty mag and put in it, rack it back and it will stay open.

+1

I did it with my Beretta Nano

Russ

What locks the slide back is the follower of the magazine having reached the top and its edge pushing up on the slide lock. No magazine in, no follower to push up, thus no hold open. As to ejecting down through the magazine well, I can see that since there is no magazine in there and gravity would make the empty tend to want to go toward the ground. I would not be too worried.

I should have known why it didn't lock back, for some reason it just didn't cross my mind. But boy was I surprised when the casing came out the bottom bouncing between my fingers. I suspected that this would be normal but wanted to make sure. Thank you.

Whats happening is the ejector is reaching up and grabbing the casing as it should. But since there is no (bottom) which would normally be the top of the mag or the next bullet. The ejector doesnt eject it because the casing just falls through the empty bottom.

No biggie though, its all good.