New shield 45 impresses at range but then.......

[BlueZee]

Finally picked up my shield 45. Gave it a good clean and lube and took it to the range Saturday. For a cheap gun it was pretty damn good. Trigger a little heavy. Feels a little lke pulling it througn the mud but not too bad. I'm just used to some really sweet triggers. It's fine for a carry gun. Rung it out at 7 yards to start and it was plenty accurate at that distance. Had no problems hitting 8 inch plates at 25 yards too. 150 rounds 3 different ammo brands zero malfunctions so a good day.

Then I got home to give it a quick clean and inspection. When I field stripped it I went to remove the recoil/guide rod assembly and it came out and apart in 3 pieces. Long 1911 type spring, small spring, and guide rod all apart. No broken pieces, nothing went flying just all apart. I'm sure it was one simple captured assembly before. Could not get it back in the slide.

I've got to call S&W tomorrow to hopefully get a new assembly. Don't know why or how it happenned but it did. Hope they can send me a replacement quickly cause I did enjoy the hell out of it.

 

[gtistiffler]

They will mail you one. If it's like the mp full size it has a little threaded nut that holds it together. Probably wasn't tight from factory

 

[swsig]

A couple of years ago, defective Shield recoil spring assembles were much more common, and it took over three months for me to get a good one. Today, bad ones are pretty rare, so S&W should be able to get you one pretty quickly, most likely in a few days.

 

[Bozz10mm]

Same thing happened to the 45 Shield I bought in April. I field stripped and cleaned it before going to the range. When I got home and field stripped it again, the RSA popped apart. I got on the S&W customer service chat room and they sent me a new one, no questions asked. Ten business days. The new one seems to be holding up.

I thought by now they would have remedied the problem.

BTW, you clean up that trigger a little bit with some polishing in the right places. Look up 25 cent trigger job. Mine has a pretty clean 5½ lb. pull.

Unless it's a New York thing.

 

[BlueZee]

Thanks for the info guys. Called S&W today and they're sending me out a new recoil/guiderod assembly asap no questions asked. Not that big a deal just a little annoying. Like I said I'm pretty happy with it so I have no real complaints. Now if this happens on a regular basis then I'll be pissed but a one time issue is OK.

Will check out the 25 cent trigger videos. Was considering the apex upgrade too but I'm going to dry fire and shoot quite a bit before I do anything.