After seeing these posts here, I am starting to think Smith has a significant problem with this failure mode. Same thing happened to me with a new Shield I purchased in July. Field stripped the new gun to clean storage oil off it, lubed it, went to range.... put about 100 rounds through it (which it shot well and 100% reliably, fortunately).... When I tried to field strip it to clean it, the slide was "jammed/locked" and I could see that spring in the cut out. I am wondering if they have made so many of these Shields that the tooling is getting worn out and things like this are happening. I am a Smith & Wesson fan, but this was disappointing. Not what I would expect from Smith. Sent it in to the factory and they also told me 4 to 6 weeks. Not what you want to hear after dropping several hundred dollars for a new gun. My gut feeling is that they HAVE to be aware of this and hopefully, have a mod to prevent it from re-occurring. ....time will tell. Biggest problem with something like this is that it hurts your confidence in the gun.....not good. If it happens again, it is "Bye Bye, Shield...."