Shield 45 FTF mystery w/pix

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cs45pilot

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Having a big reliability with my Shield 45. I've found others with the same problem on other forums with no solution. First of all, I've been a pistol shooter for 40 years, NOT limp wristing, clean mags, happens with most ammo. Love this pistol and simply seeking to find the problem. Hasn't jammed yet using Hydrashoks (go figure) but FTF's even with Critical Duty and standard RN jacketed 230 grain ammo. Trying to avoid a trip back to S&W. I need this to be completely reliable for carry and I'm back to my Glock 36 until I can figure this out.

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ANY help would be appreciated.
 
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Are the mag springs oriented correctly? I ask because it seems the rounds are hanging in the mag, not even making it to the feed ramp.

I had a similar problem with an M&P9 Pro, but they were nosediving into the feed ramp. It did make a quick (3-week door-to-door) trip to S&W at their expense and came back better in every way.
 
Did you replace the follower? Maybe didn't get things back together right?
Just asking, as mine has been rock solid reliable.
 
BigDog48 said:
Are the mag springs oriented correctly? I ask because it seems the rounds are hanging in the mag, not even making it to the feed ramp.

I had a similar problem with an M&P9 Pro, but they were nosediving into the feed ramp. It did make a quick (3-week door-to-door) trip to S&W at their expense and came back better in every way.[/QUOT

Mag springs are correct. FTF happens on my six and both seven round mags. It seems in a later post that is a newer follower available. Looking at the photos, I have the old version. I'll call S&W customer service Monday.
Click to expand...
 
I have a Shield .45 with the old followers (new ones are on the way). I also had a failure-to-feed problem that looked just like yours. I cured it by lightly polishing the lower feed ramp and the vertical wall just below the feed ramp where the tip of the bullet hangs up. I used a a car polish I happened to have on hand, "Turtle Wax Renew Rx Polishing Compound Light to Medium Cleaner", but I think any good car polish would do. It only takes a couple of minutes to rub on a tiny amount with a Q-tip, and buff off with a cleaning patch, and it has become a part of my routine cleaning process. I've had only three failures to feed in the last 1200 rounds, and each time it was because I had neglected to polish the feed ramp area during the previous cleaning. (I clean after each range visit.) I have never had a failure to feed during the 1000 rounds I've shot with a freshly polished feed ramp, even though I still have the old-style followers. Before you mess with sending your Shield back to S&W, try this simple remedy. I hope you will be pleasantly surprised. Good luck, and enjoy your new Shield. It's a great-shooting pistol.
 
cs45pilot said:
Having a big reliability with my Shield 45. I've found others with the same problem on other forums with no solution. First of all, I've been a pistol shooter for 40 years, NOT limp wristing, clean mags, happens with most ammo. Love this pistol and simply seeking to find the problem. Hasn't jammed yet using Hydrashoks (go figure) but FTF's even with Critical Duty and standard RN jacketed 230 grain ammo. Trying to avoid a trip back to S&W. I need this to be completely reliable for carry and I'm back to my Glock 36 until I can figure this out.

Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

ANY help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Don't waste your time or money.
I had the exact same problem with all six of my 45 Shields since April.
I wasted ammo, tried every fix listed in these forum threads, replaced springs, followers and mags and NOTHING made these six Shields reliable.
I had long conversations with several factory law enforcement reps and after all their apologies and theories, they said to send them all in for 6-8 weeks of analysis. Yeah, sure! I'm gonna let them screw around with $2,400 worth of my guns on my dime?
I got rid of all of them.
I bought four 40 Shields and two Glock 45's and have not had a single problem with anything since.
No matter what members say in this forum about their personal experiences with their 45 Shields, I can say that this model is NOT ready for serious carry because it is all over the map on ammo sensitivity, grip style sensitivity and magazine sensitivity. Too bad because it is such a nice shooter even though it can NEVER be trusted.
One last comment...
Some of my 45 Shields inexplicably developed the nose-dive intermittent failures immediately and some after they were extensively fired.
There is no pattern to this gun's unreliability. You either get a good one (you think) or a lemon.... I got six lemons. Shame again on S&W for producing such an unreliable product and letting the customer do the reliability testing!
 
Nonuthin said:
No matter what members say in this forum about their personal experiences with their 45 Shields, I can say that this model is NOT ready for serious carry because it is all over the map on ammo sensitivity, grip style sensitivity and magazine sensitivity. Too bad because it is such a nice shooter even though it can NEVER be trusted.
Click to expand...
This is nonsense. So I guess the only "personal experience" that matters to the forum is... yours? This model is excellent, which explains why so many members here love it and rave over it. I'm not sure what happened with your "batch" (or if you really bought six of them, who does that?) but at the end of the day you're trying to project your experience on to the entire model — in this case, a highly accurate gun that many of us have hundreds even thousands of rounds through with very few issues reported. You couldn't pry this gun out of my hands with a crowbar.

I do agree about the magazine issue, but even that has only reported by a few members and it's a 10 min parts swap at no cost. At any rate, sorry about your problems and it's unfortunate the "grip style sensitivity" (whatever that is) was too much for you to handle :o

Anyway, so which gun will you now choose for "serious carry?"
 
I'm having the same issue, ftf, it's been back to the factory. Tested fine at the factory after they polished the feed ramp. When I got it back still had trouble. I tried using Rem Oil inside the mags and switching ammo, was using Sellier Bellot with problems. Using Remington fmj with good results but not comfortable carrying it yet. More testing on Tues.
 
I purchased a Shield .45 and had problems with the slide locking back after a few rounds,also mags dropped out several times. Sent it to S&W 4 times and they finally replaced it. Replacement gun was not any better.After dealing with this for almost a year I traded the gun in for a Glock 30S,which now is my EDC. Very disappointed with S&W because I like to buy made in the U.S.A..
 
Nonuthin said:
Don't waste your time or money.
I had the exact same problem with all six of my 45 Shields since April.
.....
I got rid of all of them.
...
No matter what members say in this forum about their personal experiences with their 45 Shields, I can say that this model is NOT ready for serious carry because it is all over the map on ammo sensitivity, grip style sensitivity and magazine sensitivity. Too bad because it is such a nice shooter even though it can NEVER be trusted.
Click to expand...
To the OP-- sorry about your problem, but am sure it will get solved.

Nonuthin' -- No offense, but six Shield 45's is a little beyond believable.

My experience is that the mags are tight, length-wise and have to be banged into your palm after loading. Having followed that with now 7-800 rounds with no problems, I have a hard time believing that the Shield 45 is undependable or can never be trusted. I trust mine.

I shoot it regularly and carry it often, in a rotation with a Shield 9, a Glock 19 and an M&P Bodyguard, depending on my clothing.
 
Looks to me (just my opinion) that the follower might be dragging. Mine were out of the box. I disassembled the magazine. I took some Flitz polish to the inside and outside. I like a clean magazine. Look at the follower. Mine was full of sharp edges. I used some sand paper to knock down the edges and smooth it out. Takes a few minutes. The seven rounder is a biatch to reassemble. After that the mags functioned flawless.

If you have the older mags might as well sand a notch where the magazine catch engages. Avoid dropping mags.

Worth a try before you give up.
 
FloridaS&W said:
This is nonsense. So I guess the only "personal experience" that matters to the forum is... yours? This model is excellent, which explains why so many members here love it and rave over it. I'm not sure what happened with your "batch" (or if you really bought six of them, who does that?) but at the end of the day you're trying to project your experience on to the entire model — in this case, a highly accurate gun that many of us have hundreds even thousands of rounds through with very few issues reported. You couldn't pry this gun out of my hands with a crowbar.

I do agree about the magazine issue, but even that has only reported by a few members and it's a 10 min parts swap at no cost. At any rate, sorry about your problems and it's unfortunate the "grip style sensitivity" (whatever that is) was too much for you to handle :o

Anyway, so which gun will you now choose for "serious carry?"
Click to expand...

I won't waste my time replying to your "attack". You're obviously drowning in the S&W KoolAid so, have a gulp on me!
 
BigDog48 said:
To the OP-- sorry about your problem, but am sure it will get solved.

Nonuthin' -- No offense, but six Shield 45's is a little beyond believable.

My experience is that the mags are tight, length-wise and have to be banged into your palm after loading. Having followed that with now 7-800 rounds with no problems, I have a hard time believing that the Shield 45 is undependable or can never be trusted. I trust mine.

I shoot it regularly and carry it often, in a rotation with a Shield 9, a Glock 19 and an M&P Bodyguard, depending on my clothing.
Click to expand...

Another S&W KoolAid drinker?
Whether or not you believe I actually bought and got rid of six 45 Shields since April is of no consequence to me. I couldn't care less what you believe. I have better things to do with my time and experience than to post falsehoods in forums.
My six 45 Shields all failed me, just like I posted.
And, if you can read what I posted above, I said "You either get a good one (you think) or a lemon.... I got six lemons."
Those are the facts, like it or not.
In light of the continued posts about failures to feed and mags falling out, etc. only a fool would depend on a 45 Shield for his life when there are many more reliable pistols out there to trust, some of which, in my personal experience, are S&W's.
 
Here's the pic so we don't have to move to another window:
T8bcSNe.jpg


This type of problem is almost always the magazine. I wasn't aware of a follower update, but I'd definitely start there. S&W will send you a couple of followers for free. Try that and report back please.

Nonuthin,
If the 45 Shield is so bad, why did you buy 6? Why wouldn't you let S&W try to fix them for you? It's free you know.
 
Nonuthin said:
I won't waste my time replying to your "attack". You're obviously drowning in the S&W KoolAid so, have a gulp on me!
Click to expand...
Attack? lol, okay. See this is what I've noticed about you, sir. You seem prone to wild exaggeration when it comes to these firearms. Like the thread you started last month when you told us, "Fix Your Shield Before It Fails!!!" :rolleyes:
Fix Your Shield Before It Fails!!!

Anyone who reads that thread will see it as an exaggeration at best. By the way, no one is attacking you. An "attack" would be like if someone comes on here and starts name-calling others "S&W KOOLAID DRINKER" or saying anyone who trusts this model is a "FOOL." Oh wait, those are your posts, aren't they. :rolleyes:

Look, I'm just saying, you can't project your experience on the entire model line, when we have so many Shield 45 owners who are flat-out thrilled with the gun. In fact, on other threads you have projected this narrative that M&P's and Shields in general (not just the 45) are plagued with problems:

"I have extensively researched this nose-dived cartridge mis-feed problem on this and other forums and found numerous posts by M&P and Shield owners that go back several years."
http://smith-wessonforum.com/139634028-post10.html

And yet, people are buying M&P's and Shields like crazy, magically putting thousands of rounds thru them without a glitch, and so many are loving the guns. Let's get real here. On a percentage basis, if a significant number of them were unreliable, we wouldn't have hundreds of thousands of satisfied owners. It just doesn't add up. We have several M&P's in our armory, one of my M&P 45's already has 1,000 rounds through it, with zero FTE's, zero FTF's, zero failures EVER, with a gun that costs a few hundred bucks. To say the M&P's are an American success story would be the understatement of the year.

I will be the first to agree that a few of them have problems. Nobody is suggesting the M&P's are perfect. But when we see over a MILLION sold and so many people happy with the products, then I see someone come on here with these kinds of wild exaggerations just bashing a great product, saying "ONLY A FOOL" would trust this model; well, it just tends to make that person start to "appear" like a troll who over-reacts to everything, and that's the last thing we need on a firearm forum.

By the way, you never told me, which gun will you now chose for "serious carry?"
 
FloridaS&W said:
Attack? lol, okay. See this is what I've noticed about you, sir. You seem prone to wild exaggeration when it comes to these firearms. Like the thread you started last month when you told us, "Fix Your Shield Before It Fails!!!" :rolleyes:
Fix Your Shield Before It Fails!!!

Anyone who reads that thread will see it as an exaggeration at best. By the way, no one is attacking you. An "attack" would be like if someone comes on here and starts name-calling others "S&W KOOLAID DRINKER" or saying anyone who trusts this model is a "FOOL." Oh wait, those are your posts, aren't they. :rolleyes:

Look, I'm just saying, you can't project your experience on the entire model line, when we have so many Shield 45 owners who are flat-out thrilled with the gun. In fact, on other threads you have projected this narrative that M&P's and Shields in general (not just the 45) are plagued with problems:

"I have extensively researched this nose-dived cartridge mis-feed problem on this and other forums and found numerous posts by M&P and Shield owners that go back several years."
http://smith-wessonforum.com/139634028-post10.html

And yet, people are buying M&P's and Shields like crazy, magically putting thousands of rounds thru them without a glitch, and so many are loving the guns. Let's get real here. On a percentage basis, if a significant number of them were unreliable, we wouldn't have hundreds of thousands of satisfied owners. It just doesn't add up. We have several M&P's in our armory, one of my M&P 45's already has 1,000 rounds through it, with zero FTE's, zero FTF's, zero failures EVER, with a gun that costs a few hundred bucks. To say the M&P's are an American success story would be the understatement of the year.

I will be the first to agree that a few of them have problems. Nobody is suggesting the M&P's are perfect. But when we see over a MILLION sold and so many people happy with the products, then I see someone come on here with these kinds of wild exaggerations just bashing a great product, saying "ONLY A FOOL" would trust this model; well, it just tends to make that person start to "appear" like a troll who over-reacts to everything, and that's the last thing we need on a firearm forum.

By the way, you never told me, which gun will you now chose for "serious carry?"
Click to expand...

As I posted above, your S&W KoolAid-drunken attacks are not worth my time to intelligently discuss with you.

Others can judge your close-minded bias by your posting history: at least 1 out of 4 of all your posts are you rushing to the defense of the 45 Shield whenever anyone else points out its unreliability.

And, you accuse me of "bashing" and "trolling" because I share my ACTUAL disappointing experience with my six 45 Shields? You must be seriously overdosed on that KoolAid...

There are just way too many zealots running loose nowadays espousing all kinds of **** as they attempt to discredit the truth.

Maybe one of your sympathizers will throw you a life preserver so you don't drown completely in that ocean of S&W KoolAid your floating in...
 
I can't believe anyone would keep buying the same exact item if they kept failing. If I got one defective pistol I'd be disappointed and if I get a second defective one, I'd be quite angry and no way would I keep on buying the same exact thing. Makes no sense to me. Slow learner maybe?
 
Rastoff said:
....snip....

Nonuthin,
If the 45 Shield is so bad, why did you buy 6? Why wouldn't you let S&W try to fix them for you? It's free you know.
Click to expand...

As I posted here and in prior threads, I bought six 45 Shields during the $75 cash rebate period between April 1st and June 30th. I bought the first 3 in April, which all failed me with nose-dives, etc. so I sold them to a gunsmith friend who said he could fix them. I don't keep guns that fail like these did.

Then, I bought two more in May and a final 45 Shield in late June. All were LE guns and all failed with nose-dives, closing on empty chambers, etc. I got rid of those three as well.

Why did I buy six? That's a fair question and I'll answer it for you the best that I can...

I have always liked the Shield since it was introduced back in 2011/2012. I always had great luck with my old 9mm and 40 Shields, which I sold around 2015/2016 as I transitioned to Springfield XD Mod 2 45's (another reliability disappointment but that's for another discussion).

When the $75 rebate hit on April 1st, my LE dealer had three 45 Shields in stock. I bought them all because I thought there was great value at my after-rebate net cost of $275 per gun, as compared to $440 for an XD Mod2 45.

Not wanting to give up on this very impressive new 45 Shield with its superior accuracy, great trigger, satisfying grip texture and fantastic concealability for a 45, I bought two more from a newer production run, believing that my function problems may have been batch related. Unfortunately, the newer 45 Shields suffered from the same unreliability issues.

And, finally, I bought the sixth and final 45 Shield at the end of June so I could get the rebate and try the newest production batch but, sadly, that one failed like the others. I traded that one in as the rebate was about to end and put my money into 4 new 40 Shields and 2 new 9mm Shields which have ALL functioned flawlessly no matter what kind of ammo I feed them.

That's my experience with the very disappointing 45 Shield. If S&W ever modifies them so they became reliable in the future, I would try again because, other than its proven unreliability in my case six times, it's my idea of an almost perfect pocket 45.
 
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