For you folks that have run a few (hundred/thousand) rounds through your M&P Shield: how often do you clean your striker channel or do you clean it at all? I'm the happy owner of a new 9mm Shield and would like to stay current on maintenance. I've run 250 rounds of Federal HST 124 grain through it with no problems. Thanks.

Unless I chip a striker, it gets cleaned once a year in my competition M&P. Strip the slide, clean and DRY the striker channel, and inspect the striker closely. NO LUBE in channel. I have had more striker failures in M&Ps than any other part, second the trigger return springs. The recoil springs that so many obsess about seem to last practically forever.

For my Shield, I figure maybe another 5000 rounds before I strip the slide, barring accident or failure. Unless you lube the channel, it does not gum up.

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Science plus Art

I pull the striker out about every third or fourth range trip and clean it. That works out to about 500 rounds or so. Never found anything out of the ordinary but it makes me feel better to know its clean. My routine is to run a pipe cleaner down through the striker channel and then blow it out with compressed air. The striker assembly itself is wiped down and blown off before reassembly. No lube of any kind.

I clean the striker channel at 10K rounds and replace the channel liner at 50K rounds. I find that carbon gets embedded into the plastic liner and at some point won't clean out. The liner just pops out and is made of the same plastic material as the plastic on the striker.

I clean mine after every range trip. I'm OCD about cleaning my guns.

I give it a quick shot of brake cleaner every 3rd time of shooting.

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Life Member NRA
Acts 2:38-39

if you keep it dry (i.e. keep the oil or lube out of it), no need to take it apart and clean it for several thousand rounds OR if you start getting light primer strikes.

Can anyone post a link on how to do this on a shield 9mm ?

https://youtu.be/_9zn9kT2ojU

Here you go:
This works for all the M&P's.

Ty for the video

You are welcome.

For the record I typically clean mine after every range visit. It's not a big deal as long as you are gentle with the plastic part on the firing pin assembly.

Thanks to all for their point of view. I appreciate the information.

This video made my head hurt. Using the frame to support the slide while knocking out the extractor pin??? And then lubing the striker assembly?

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Randy