I have attempted a few times to remove the striker and end cap and failed. The weapon is fairly new. I have moved the white plastic part of the striker toward the ejection port and looked between the end cap and striker and saw that the striker was not locked into the end cap. Pulled and pushed on the end cap and it don't budge. No movement at all. Sure don't want to screw up the slide or end cap. Seems pretty straight forward to remove the end cap and striker assembly. Got me beat.

They don't come out easy on the 45's! You will need something to pry it out, mine was the same way. Just make sure you have the striker plastic part disengaged. Try to pry straight up so you don't wedge it.
Karl

Mine was super tight as well. Thought I might destroy it trying to remove it but ultimately I didn't. It came out much easier the next time.

Good luck.

Thank you for the responses. Thought I might be the only one having tight issues with the end cap. Did you all use anything like plyer's, screw drivers or just finger power ? Might have to have another set of hands and maybe I can pull the cap off while someone is holding the striker back. Thanks again. Will let you know in the future how it turns out. Keeping my mits off for now.

I think what I ended up doing was putting the slide in a vise, using a punch to hold the sleeve thingy on the striker back, and used a small screwdriver to pry it from the back side of the plate. Once it moved a little I used that same screwdriver and slipped the blade between the slide and the plate and pushed it the rest of the way out. Hope that makes sense.

Yup. Afraid that it does. Thought that might turn that way. Now I know to leave it alone unless it is absolutely necessary. Yup got to keep my hands off. At first I didn't know what to make of it when I saw others take off the end cap with no problems. Thanks again.

What I do once I get a tight one out is lightly sand or scrape the flashing from the mold (if any) with a razor blade or Xacto and lightly oil. Much easier the next time. Just a couple of .001"s makes a big difference...

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CERAKOTE Svcs.
Class 01 FFL

Something I'll have to keep in mind. Probably and hopefully so that it will some time before I would have to get to the striker assembly. For now I'll leave it be. Old saying I must remember, "if it ain't broke don't fix". Good tip jim46ok.

Just to confirm...you do not have to take the rear sight off on the Shield 45, correct? That is just the case for the M&P 2.0 models. Right?

That is correct, GKC. I don't need to remove the end cap nor rear sight. More of a future reference to remove the end cap. Thought that it might come off without being that tight. One of the response's had difficulty in removing this on the Shield 45acp.

I like to clean out the striker channel on occasion...and on the previous M&P pistols, including Shields, and SDVE pistols, that I've owned, you didn't have to take off the rear sight to take out the striker. I haven't done that yet on my Shield 45, but I'm getting ready to do that, as well as replace the end cap with a custom design.