The gun is absolutely fine and I liked it first outing. However both mags are defective. Several rounds of ammo in each mag hung up several times during each firing. I took the mags out and couldn't eject the rounds with my thumb and then only with difficulty. The rim got hung up on the lips of the mag. I tried Hornaday, Fiocchi, MD Venom, Speer Gold Dot and a couple of others with the mags out of the gun and they ALL hung up a few times for each loading. One mag is slightly better, but still very unreliable. I sent the mothership an e-mail asking what to do.

I'll post any results.

PS. The mag to my original Shield is a fine piece of work of chromed steel and works great. The mags supplied with the EZ appear to be made of aluminum, but I'm not sure.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Could the mag spring be in backwards ?

They are brand new, and both mags do the same thing. But that doesn't mean they are right. The factory might have hired somebody like me to assemble them.

Thanks

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

In addition i suggest you take them apart, inspect and clean them

EZ 9, or EZ 380? Are these the mags that came with the gun?

Some magazines need to have the very top of the magazine "Tweaked"
just a little bit to get the round to seat at the correct angle to feed properly,

if the spring is installed correctly, and the ammo pushed to the rear of the magazine.

You can destroy a magazine, if this is not done properly, so know what is needed
before you start bending things out of shape.

This ^^^^ may likely help.

... I didn't want to mess with them and void the warranty. I'm sure a little rat tail file action would clear it up but both mags grab the rim tight as a tick. I can't eject the rounds without depressing the round or the spring.

Anyway, they wanted me to return the mags only. I sent them early this week. We'll see what what happen.

Oh, it's a 9mm.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I sent the mags off and they sent me 2(two) brand spanking new mags. The the problems is they have exactly the same defect. Rounds catch and won't feed.

OK, so do I send the back in order to avoid messing with the mags myself. I would have to wait a couple more weeks to get new mags and they would probably be exactly the same.

I looked at the loaded mags and realized that the rim of the cartridge wasn't catching on the feed lips, but the mouth of the cartridge was catching square on the front of the magazine.

So I decided to make an adjustment. Attached are two pictures. One of me trying to push out a round with my thumb. You can't get it out without depressing the round slightly or wiggling it some until it decides to pop out. Uncontrollably, not a genuine 'ramp feed' action. You can push it HARD and it will not feed.

The next shows the amount of material I sanded off the front of the mag to keep the rounds from catching on it. Seems to run through the gun just great. I'll try it at the range ASAP.

Attached Images

	SWmag.jpg (69.9 KB, 121 views)
	MAGSTICK.jpg (38.0 KB, 110 views)

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Is there a stainless steel recoil spring and guide rod for this pistol? Bought mine today. OE appears to be plastic.

You could use the sand paper to soften the sharp edge of your feed lips on your mags too but since you assumed I might be wrong about mag spring might be in backwards But if you do not check , shame on you . Mean time keep up with the entertainment!

You have had four brand new mags that all exhibit the same issue. I wonder if this is a common problem among many 9EZ magazines? Has anyone else experienced this issue?

Four brand new mags. I would begin to suspect something on the pistol is not exactly right.

Thank you too for the entertainment!

,,,disassembled both mags and there was no problem there. After I disassembled/reassembled them about 4-5 times each I got good at it.

Though I thought so at first I don't think the feed lips need any work. The cartridge really seemed to catch on the case mouth. It was the same for all four mags.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

'

The mags did the same thing out of the pistol. You can see the picture of me pushing HARD from the back of the cartridge to get it to slide out the mag and it ain't going nowhere. All four mags did this with different ammo. When I took down the front I could unload each mag 'flip, flip, fliip' with my thumb as should be. The first three rounds in the mag were the worst because the spring pressure was stronger holding on to the case mouth.

I'm am going to test the pistol this coming week. That'll let us know if that's the real problem.

My question is doesn't anybody else have trouble with this? Why does S&W put out such sorry mags that could be fixed with a slight modification? I tried to put my original Shield mag in the gun to see if it would work, but it wouldn't fit. So I have a Shield and a Shield EZ that wont use the same mags.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Shot my new one yesterday with the two new mags. No problem.

It should be apparent to anybody that uses the pistol. These have been out for a while. I wonder what gives?

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Do your mags look like the ones I pictured side by side? I wonder if they changed mag suppliers?

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

But the mags acted the same way outside the gun as they did in the gun. You should be able to unload a mag with your thumb easily but these really got stuck on the mag. You could push HARD and they wouldn't come out unless you depressed them or wiggled them some and then they would pop out uncontrollably or stand up and be difficult to remove. Maybe there's something wrong with the gun, but the mags definitely ain't right. I'll try them this week and see if the problem isn't deeper.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

...but the guide rod appears to be plastic. Next time I break it down I'll look closely.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Just got back from the range. Shot all kinds of ammo through the 9mm EZ. Not a single hitch. It looks like the slight mod I made on the mags were well worth it. I now deem it a good, reliable gun and a good shooter. My wife did well with it, too.

It still puzzles me why S&W would include mags with an obvious defect. The fix is simple.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

What did you do? Sand the followers?

You can see in the picture where I sanded the FRONT of the magazine that the cartridge has to pass over to get to the feed ramp. One is sanded and one is not. Afterward I sanded both down and they work great. I disassembled the mag to I wouldn't touch anything except the part that needed removal.

The pics are in post #9.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I took the liberty of enhancing rwsmith's picture:

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

Ah, interesting. I had been convinced that the malfunction happens as the slide travels backwards. I am not sure how this modification would fix that but if it works, it works. If you can fine tune the amount of material that needs to be removed, you could construct a file guide to get clean, consistent cuts.

rwsmith indicated the cases seemed to be hanging up on the case mouth. My first thought would be to create a 45 degree chamfer on the front, inside edge of the magazine body.

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So many S&W's, so few funds!!

I tried taking off a little at a time so as not to 'overdo' it. I put the mag back together and tried it as I went. I most certainly didn't not want to remove more material than necessary. Anyway, the finished job is where the tendency to hang up ceased. It was a lot more than I anticipated. At first I was just going to file a small bevel crescent in the middle, but that didn't help as the cartridges would 'find' a place to hang up on slightly to the right or left. Anyway, the amount removed is surprising large, but they designed the mag where that front portion is right in the way of feeding cartridges. Did they change suppliers at some point?????

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

...the mag with your thumb by pushing out the cartridges from behind, just like the slide picking up a cartridge in its forward travel. Most often the cartridge would just stop when it got hung up (see picture trying to push out with my thumb. You can push it HARD and it won't budge) but if you managed to get it loose by wiggling or depressing it some, it would either pop out vertically and uncontrollably or even stovepipe between the feed lips and be a real bear to get out. Neither of these actions are conducive to getting a smooth feed up the ramp. It did this with all four ammo types I tried.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Thank you very much.

PS: I DID see another post that sounded like the same problem so I directed them here. The thing is the way they have mag designed it WILL NOT WORK RIGHT. They MUST have changed mag suppliers somewhere along the way.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

....and put them back together about 20 times I got quite good at it. The little wings that help you hold down the mag springs while loading are handy but tricky to remove and install unless you pay attention to how the slots in mag line up.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

This thread went through a LOT of (great) discussion and ideas but I wonder if anybody else has any experience with this. I got my wife a .380 EZ and it worked fine out of the box. There was one thread where the owner didn't have the problem that I did.

Also, I THINK that the ramp on the 9mm EZ is supposed to lift the nose of the cartridge as it clears the lips of the magazine, but the mouth of the case was catching and didn't allow this to happen. I'm wonder if RN ammo would work better, but I can't try it now and I don't want to use RN ammo for SD anyway.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I bought a 9mm EZ shortly after they were introduced, kept it for two years, and sold it about two years ago. I never had a problem with the 9mm feeding ammo from the magazine. OTOH, my wife's 380EZ was a nightmare with feeding problems that took three years to resolve (the barrel was replaced).

I have a number of mags for different handguns and the only way to unload them reliably is to push them out with the eraser end of a pencil at least until I get it partly unloaded !

Last - Send the whole pistol back to s&w and tell them to shooting them self then fix oe replace it ?

If you have a good shooting buddy how about asking them to check this EZ out and test it with ammo of his choice and just pay for the ammo used . Some time new eyes and head might find the problem .

Could be that a new stamping die for the mag body metal is slightly off. Or, looking at my 1.0 mags, the formed angle of the feed lips is off a bit. Again, a die issue, this time with the lip forming die.

When the 1.0 came out, after a bit there was a redesigned mag follower to correct some problem I never experienced with the original follower.

...and I never had a lick of trouble with it. And I didn't have any problems with the .380 EZ. It's just weird.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

... get an original mag and revisit this. It doesn't make sense that I would be one of only a few people to have trouble. UNLESS the problem was is actually with the barrel and not the mags. Except the mags didn't feed even when not in the gun.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I have an M&P 2.0 9mm ez and it shoots / runs both mags with no problems