Greetings from beautiful eastern Orygun...
I have recently discovered the Shield line-up and do love the weapons. Accurate, dependable and easy to grip, breakdown and maintain. THAT being said, the slide-lock vs slide release is an issue for me. Silly that the manufacture would remove said slide-release and require the shooter to "sling-shot" a loaded firearm.
Argue this all you want but when you do a combat load and your on target, you loose all of your sight picture to reach over and manipulate the slide to chamber a round.
Design flaw if you ask me. I've been in L/E and a cert Range Master from Calif and Oregon and would NEVER teach a student to reach over the top of their weapon to preform this. Eyes on target always because things tend to change while your busy playing with your "slide-lock". My rant.. I just file them down and make them modified into a slide-release.