Shield 40 Mishap

2001gmc · Oct 2, 2013

Today me and dad were enjoying the nice weather and decided to shoot our guns. We shot the AR's and his Walther PPK 380 and his Sig 1922 pistols. I got out my Shield 40 out to shoot and was planning on putting 100 rounds down the pipe as the gun has only 150 rounds through it so far with about 10 Fail to ejects. I shot 50 UMC 180gr flawless with no issues except I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. So I got this box of Federal 180gr High Shock JHP. I load up 7 rounds bam bam boom on the 3rd round all I seen was a flash and got 3 small burns and where something hit under my eye and blood was running down my face. My hands were numb and just couldn't believe what had happened. Well it appears that my shield I guess you could say blew up in my hands. The mag flew out on the ground and I couldn't find the remaining ammo that was in the mag. There are 4 more rounds somewhere up in the hay field. What do you guys think about this and should I email Smith&Wesson and send them the pics or just call them first?

justherenow · Oct 2, 2013

Wondering if there was a casting problem. On another forum a guy tried to replace the sites on his and the area around the site cracked majorly.

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2001gmc · Oct 2, 2013

I dunno but it scared me to death my hands are still kinda numb and it happend almost 3hrs ago. I forgot to add it knocked out a piece of my inlays and the white dot out of my rear site to. It was quite a shock to my hands. I'm not sure what hit me in the face but as you can see the take down lever is half or more gone in the pic I couldn't find it either.

Jakpro · Oct 2, 2013

That looks bad. I am glad that you were not hurt more seriously.

I would call before emailing, personally.

I am subscribed to this thread. I would like to know what you find out about it. I have a Shield .40, also.

Dieselscout80 · Oct 2, 2013

I would talk to the Ammo manufacture too.

jwalts27 · Oct 2, 2013

2001gmc said:
Today me and dad were enjoying the nice weather and decided to shoot our guns. We shot the AR's and his Walther PPK 380 and his Sig 1922 pistols. I got out my Shield 40 out to shoot and was planning on putting 100 rounds down the pipe as the gun has only 150 rounds through it so far with about 10 Fail to ejects. I shot 50 UMC 180gr flawless with no issues except I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. So I got this box of Federal 180gr High Shock JHP. I load up 7 rounds bam bam boom on the 3rd round all I seen was a flash and got 3 small burns and where something hit under my eye and blood was running down my face. My hands were numb and just couldn't believe what had happened. Well it appears that my shield I guess you could say blew up in my hands. The mag flew out on the ground and I couldn't find the remaining ammo that was in the mag. There are 4 more rounds somewhere up in the hay field. What do you guys think about this and should I email Smith&Wesson and send them the pics or just call them first?

The exact same thing happened to my buddy about a month ago. It actually looks worse than yours as it blew part of the trigger guard apart. Stung his finger really bad. He had about 500 rounds of factory ammo through it. That day we were shooting reloads that i made myself 165g flatpoints loaded rather softly. I have never had a bad reloaded round before. SW blamed it on the reloads which I think is just a bull**** excuse. But they did give him a replacement gun no questions asked.

2001gmc · Oct 2, 2013

I hope they replace my gun. Will really be a bummer if they don't. I'm just glad I still have all my fingers and whatever hit me in the face didn't hit me in the eye.

SmurfHunter · Oct 2, 2013

jwalts27 said:
The exact same thing happened to my buddy about a month ago. It actually looks worse than yours as it blew part of the trigger guard apart. Stung his finger really bad. He had about 500 rounds of factory ammo through it. That day we were shooting reloads that i made myself 165g flatpoints loaded rather softly. I have never had a bad reloaded round before. SW blamed it on the reloads which I think is just a bull**** excuse. But they did give him a replacement gun no questions asked.

The fact you said reloads ends it for me. Double charge without question. I've seen it happen way too many times.

As far as the OP goes if you were firing factory ammo it sure looks like the case failed. Not the gun. It has a clear bulge on the rim of the casing.

hkmiller · Oct 2, 2013

This looks very serious. I am sure S&W would want the gun returned to try to determine what went wrong. From a legal perspective, this could be a big problem with them.

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jwalts27 · Oct 2, 2013

SmurfHunter said:
The fact you said reloads ends it for me. Double charge without question. I've seen it happen way too many times.

As far as the OP goes if you were firing factory ammo it sure looks like the case failed. Not the gun. It has a clear bulge on the rim of the casing.

possibly, but I have loaded 10s of thousands of reloads and never had a double charge, but hey first time for everything. I think SW has a problem here and isn't recognizing it.

2001gmc · Oct 2, 2013

Is this a normal primer strike? I just been looking things over and noticed this.

DocSunShine · Oct 2, 2013

2001gmc said:
Is this a normal primer strike? I just been looking things over and noticed this.

That is a normal primer strike, but it looks like you had a kaboom, glad to hear you're ok though. Contact Smith, very strange for this to happen with factory ammo and this is the first Kaboom I've heard of in the .40 shield... But as you learned they do happen, despite their rarity. Perhaps you should play the lotto as well.

bionic218 · Oct 2, 2013

Sorry this happened, and glad you're okay. Did it fire out of battery, or is that just where the slide ended up?

The explanation of events and pictures look like it fired out of battery.

But looking at the case alone, it looks like brass failure.

Either way, I'm sure S&W will make it right, and I'm glad you're okay. That's what matters. They make new guns every day. New hands or eyes...not so much.

2001gmc · Oct 2, 2013

bionic218 said:
Sorry this happened, and glad you're okay. Did it fire out of battery, or is that just where the slide ended up?

The explanation of events and pictures look like it fired out of battery.

But looking at the case alone, it looks like brass failure.

Either way, I'm sure S&W will make it right, and I'm glad you're okay. That's what matters. They make new guns every day. New hands or eyes...not so much.

This is where the slide was when I opened my eyes and the mag was laying on the ground. The other 4 rounds flew out of the mag somewhere I couldn't find them we looked all over. The brass you see in the pic is only half of it. The other half is suck in the chamber like it ripped it perfectly in half. But there is no bullet in the barrel.

hkmiller · Oct 2, 2013

How does the inside of the barrel look?

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2001gmc · Oct 2, 2013

hkmiller said:
How does the inside of the barrel look?

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Looks normal to me other than half of a casing is hung in the chamber end. It just ripped it right in half. I haven't really tired to pull the slide back and see if it will come out. I was gonna give it to Smith just like it is.

Roger S&W · Oct 2, 2013

The two most common causes of this happening are :
1) Poor chamber support
Take a round and put it in the chamber of your removed barrel. The case should have full support around the entire periphery.
Older Glocks lacked this. The casing did not have full support at the 5,6,7 o'clock positions. In the potent high pressured .40 caliber, they were getting KaBooms.
Glock fixed this by giving the chamber full support.
I checked the chambers (as described above) and my M&Ps in .40S&W have full chamber support. Don't think I checked my Shield but it's in 9mm which is very rare to have Kaboom.
I'll check it later

2) Double charged reloads.

Hope your hand feels better. Put ice on it.

Roger S&W · Oct 2, 2013

Dude, I don't wanna jump all over your sh1t cause I know you've enough pain for one day but....no eye protection. C'mon man. You could be permanently blind in one eye as of right now.
Hope everyone reading this now knows why we wear eyes. EVERYTIME.

jonesy814 · Oct 2, 2013

The fact that you had 10 failure to ejects out of 150 rounds makes me wonder if something wasn't wrong with the gun from the start. The shield is generally much more reliable than that.

Der Biermeister · Oct 2, 2013

2001gmc said:
as the gun has only 150 rounds through it so far with about 10 Fail to ejects.

No one has questioned this part yet, so I will. I believe that your 10 Fail To Ejects is quite abnormal for only 150 rounds. I have about 600 rounds through my Shield 40 and zero Fail To Ejects and I read many other similar reports. So perhaps this issue was a precursor to your KABOOM?

Shield 40 Mishap

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