Holly moly...

I just saw this on reddit.
From the sum on it. He bought one and it came with a ported barrel but not the slide. The slide doesn't say performance model on it. Please check and be careful.

Quality mistake when assembling the gun from the factory I guess.

There are a lot of new owners out there that has no idea how a gun operates. Even if they saw this. They won't Even know it will be bad.

New M&P Shield cracked after 75 rounds : SmithAndWesson

The barrel appears to be bulged, so I'm going with squib load and a follow up shot that started this mishap. And, that's not just a crack, it's a serious fracture, these types of things just don't "happen", there is always some mitigating issue behind it, I'm guessing reloads.....
Pretty sure the factory will have something to say about it, and that's probably "not covered by warranty"

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.............SmithNut

Ported barrel, non ported slide... So where does all the pressure go? I'd say right where the frame cracked.

I didn't know that S&W were experimenting with polymer Steyr GB clones. Looks like some more engineering thought is needed.

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Release the Kraken

And it's so funny to read reddit commenters blaming the ammo

user error as with almost every single case of kabooms. the only legit kabooms are glocks because of the breach face design failures

Before any educated guess might be made, a much closer look needs to happen, and some questions answered.

What does the fired case look like?

Is the barrel ringed? (Obstructed bore event)

Did testing of the remaining ammunition reveal any problems?

Does the ammunition maker (Norma) know of any QC problems with any production lots of that ammo line?

How did that ported barrel get in the standard Plus that wasn't modified by the Performance Center? (All that hot gas has to go somewhere, and the ported models have multiple ports cut into the short slide.) If someone in the Shield Production cell (assembly line) didn't notice the barrel they grabbed was ported, that might qualify as an OOPS on the part of the factory somewhere along the line (parts stocking, assembly, etc).

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Ret LE Firearms inst & armorer

I can't make out the bbl porting on the image.

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NRA Life Member

This one gets the best view.
Ported barrel + non ported slide = cracked frame
"The Basics of Physics"

Attached Images

A 2021-12-04 18-49-29.jpg (19.6 KB, 298 views)

Yes. The barrel is ported and the slide was not. That's the other picture he posted on another thread.

Gonna go out on a limb here....
Aren't the ported Shields PC models? I don't see the PC marking on that slide.
My guess is that either the slide or the barrel was swapped without the corresponding compatible part, i.e., non-ported slide without non-ported barrel. Any takers on this theory?

Nickhpl: Welcome to the Forum and thanks for the post !

May just the photo angle, but The barrel port doesn't look just right.

Count me in. I checked with the S&W website, and it shows that there are no ported versions of the Shield Plus. I can't believe that pistol left the factory with that barrel. Did someone mess with that gun post-factory? A mystery for sure.

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What, me worry?

Troll alert?

New member. Internet allegations of S&W engineering failure. Never hear from OP again. Prove me wrong.

Actually that was a good find with that reddit post.
I do not see any attack on S&W engineering.
The failure was caused by human's mistake, nothing else.

The owner of the pistol in question puchased it on GB from D&L Shooting Supplies and has receipt for NEW M&P Plus
nvoice: "SMITH AND WESSON S&W M&P M&P9 SHIELD PLUS W/ MANUAL THUMB SAFETY 3.1" 9MM * NO CREDIT CARD FEES * NEW IN BOX SKU 13246"
EDIT:S&W has sent the owner a shipping label
From the serial number they will know who assembled it and if the person also had the ported barrels at hand.

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NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUN

The pics posted on that site are wild, the barrel has some really funky looking marks on it, especially at the end of the chamber block and the rings along the barrel are odd, as if the slide and barrel where hitting each other instead of sliding smoothly. There is no doubt the gases were blowing out and down from the barrel after hitting slide, you can see how dirty the guide rod and spring are.

hmmm...Reddit...that's a clue

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

Try this page of the website. The Shield Plus 9mm models that come ported are Performance Center SKU #'s, and 2 of them (1 has an added kit form https://snwcdnprod.azureedge.net/sit...-specsheet.pdf ) use 3.1" barrels, like the standard Shield Plus -
13255
13254
13253

M&P(R) Shield(R) Plus | Smith & Wesson

I'd still have to wonder if some ported 3.1" barrels meant for the PC models got mixed into the bin(s) of standard 3.1" barrels, and ended up assembled in guns without ported slides.

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Ret LE Firearms inst & armorer

If you are running a ported barrel with the ports being contained within a non-ported slide... yes, the pistol is going to end up broken. This is not a design flaw, it is a user flaw.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

All depends on who installed the ported barrel. While not an mechanical design flaw it certainly could be a production line flaw.

Honestly, I doubt that is something I would have looked for before heading to the range...until today.

Ported pistols are not on my radar screen. If the owner had ORDERED a ported model you would expect him to notice the lack of ports in the slide, but noticing a ported barrel inside a non-ported slide? Any thread on this post about a new production gun will have one person saying they strip, clean and re-lube before a range trip and another saying they expect a new gun to perform right out of the box and test accordingly. I have a tendency toward the first position, but if the owner was in the second camp and not expecting ports, this could be the result.

From this point forward every semi-auto whether new, used or custom gets a field strip and examination.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

The longer I served as an instructor and armorer, and the more NIB guns I saw arrive over time, the more I became of that mindset.

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Ret LE Firearms inst & armorer

I look at those pictures and a question comes to mind. When the gun is fired, the bullet starts down the bore and the barrel and slide start to move to the rear locked together. The pressure will take the path of least resistance and doesn't enter the slide until the bullet passes the vents. It then has to fill the space and build up enough pressure to crack the frame. In the mean time, the barrel and slide begin to unlock. So, why doesn't the pressure vent around the outside of the barrel and out the ejection port? The gun is designed to fail like it did if the barrel bursts but this doesn't seem like an uncontrolled release of pressure and absent an obstruction, the pressure will drop as soon as the bullet clears the muzzle.

I'm not familiar with this pistol so I'll ask:
With the slide back and the slide stop engaged would those ports be exposed or does one need to remove the slide to see them.
Someone with a PC Model would probably know.

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NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUN

It's not an attack on S&W. I found that post and it's probably a human mistake assembling it. I have the shield 2.0 and love it. I also have the shield plus performance center 3.1 and that's my everyday carry. Just saying for the newbies out there. Be careful.

Some of these comments are just wild. Someone up there said he just checked and S&W never made a ported Shield. Lol. My performance center has ported barrel and the slide has 6 ports. It shoots pretty leveled. Not much kick. It gets you right back in sight.

And yes. The port will be exposed if the slide is locked.

Not my picture. And this is the 2.0. But this is what it should look like:

One thing for sure is the person that owned this pistol was too foolish to pay attention to a ported barrel and non-ported slide assuming he did not mix parts from two different pistols!! Anyhow theres no use in worrying over it .

There have been a couple of comments of this nature for this thread. The first thing that comes to my mind is: Does the owner know enough about firearms to know that a ported barrel needs to have a ported slide if the ports are not outside of the slide? If he does know this, does he know that shooting it with the ports inside the slide will result in a fractured frame. Then the big question is: Does he care?

lol, I was just thinking that. Reddit is where brain cells go to die

LOL! I could not agree more! I think Reddit might be where people who get booted from Wikipedia go to spread their disinformation.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

I saw about this a while back IIRC
The poster said he had two different guns = One ported & one not & "HIS FRIEND" put the barrel in the wrong slide & started firing & "FIRST SHOT" Kapow the frame broke, He also stated his friend was buying him a new pistol because of it, IIRC it was the M&P Forum BUT??
I'll go see if I can find that thread over there.

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MightShowYouHisSmith&Wesson

99% of kaboom cases outside of glocks is human error. reddit is concentrated stupidity

That does seem like a very likely explanation.

One thing is clear. A ported barrel was put into an unported slide. Who did it is the question.

It's not a question anymore...

"HIS FRIEND" did it.

Read post #33 in this thread, this is the only correct answer to what happened to the pistol in question. Either the "Friend mis-assembled the gun as suggested, or the owner did and won't own up to his own stupidity!


I did skim through the M&P Forum thread back about 2 years and cannot find anything resembling this situation!


If I offend anyone, so be it, but I cannot believe so many ridiculous guesses as to what may have happened!!!!!!!!

Actually there was more correct answers, but you are right about stupid guesses, what might caused this defect.
The "best" suggestion I found on "reddit" was : "call ammo manufacturer"