Well, I really loved my new Shield Pluses - All 6 of them, BUT....
As usual, Smith & Wesson just can't seem to get its act together, this time with Shield Plus magazines, so....
Yesterday, I sold all 6 Shield Pluses and bought 4 new Hellcats and 2 new Ruger LCP Max .380's. Tomorrow, I'm gonna buy a couple Ruger Max 9's. Lots of mags are available for them, as well.
Although the new Ruger .380's were just released about 2 weeks ago, there are plenty of extra magazines available and I have 4 of them.
And, when I bought my very first Hellcats almost 2 years ago when they were newly released, I had all the spare mags I wanted almost immediately.
Now, S&W is in a shambles, which is probably why there are no magazines and a real lack of innovation in their product lines. Oh, yeah, they have the .380EZ and the ShieldEZ...Ho, Hum.
But the real problems reside in the current management structure. The holding company just fired the S&W CEO, P. James. Dabney, who had rescued S&W from its almost bankruptcy back around 2008 and introduced the Shield, etc., etc.
Well, he's gone and now the recently spun off S&W division is being run by a couple of amateurs whose only claims to fame are marketing plastic bags and consumer products or some such ****!
We all know that Shields are assembled by almost completely unskilled laborers from buckets of parts and that the engineering staff has been extending the life of decades old designs for some time now rather than introducing the kind of innovative products that the present market is craving for. As examples, just look at the P365, Hellcat, Max9, LCP Max, etc., etc., etc.
Instead, from S&W we get overpriced and slightly upgraded and re-engineered M&P's and revolver re-makes, all the while pushing us to Performance Center options that cost much more than the competitors STANDARD offerings. This is a prescription for failure. Want evidence? It's spelled C-O-L-T.
S&W has NO REASONABLE EXCUSE for the complete lack of availability of spare mags for the Shield Plus. Nor, do they have any excuse for their distressingly SLOW warranty service on brand new guns. Nor, their unwillingness to provide reasonable time lines for repair and replacement parts. Nor, a whole lot of other company-killing methodologies that they have been employing during their continuing decline as a company.
It's too bad that the company's only defense for its obvious bad management are the few forum regulars here who offer all kinds of hypothetical and contrived excuses as to why problems in availability and quality exist at all.
The REAL problem is that these holding company ventures and spinoffs and reorganizations and executive shakeups always end up producing the same result - customer dissatisfaction which leads to brand abandonment and eventual unprofitability and reduced market share and then, the end of the brand. Does Colt and Remington happen to come to mind? Same sequence of events and the same end results.
I'm not going down with the ship. Best regards to all who may not realize that the end is near.
As usual, Smith & Wesson just can't seem to get its act together, this time with Shield Plus magazines, so....
Yesterday, I sold all 6 Shield Pluses and bought 4 new Hellcats and 2 new Ruger LCP Max .380's. Tomorrow, I'm gonna buy a couple Ruger Max 9's. Lots of mags are available for them, as well.
Although the new Ruger .380's were just released about 2 weeks ago, there are plenty of extra magazines available and I have 4 of them.
And, when I bought my very first Hellcats almost 2 years ago when they were newly released, I had all the spare mags I wanted almost immediately.
Now, S&W is in a shambles, which is probably why there are no magazines and a real lack of innovation in their product lines. Oh, yeah, they have the .380EZ and the ShieldEZ...Ho, Hum.
But the real problems reside in the current management structure. The holding company just fired the S&W CEO, P. James. Dabney, who had rescued S&W from its almost bankruptcy back around 2008 and introduced the Shield, etc., etc.
Well, he's gone and now the recently spun off S&W division is being run by a couple of amateurs whose only claims to fame are marketing plastic bags and consumer products or some such ****!
We all know that Shields are assembled by almost completely unskilled laborers from buckets of parts and that the engineering staff has been extending the life of decades old designs for some time now rather than introducing the kind of innovative products that the present market is craving for. As examples, just look at the P365, Hellcat, Max9, LCP Max, etc., etc., etc.
Instead, from S&W we get overpriced and slightly upgraded and re-engineered M&P's and revolver re-makes, all the while pushing us to Performance Center options that cost much more than the competitors STANDARD offerings. This is a prescription for failure. Want evidence? It's spelled C-O-L-T.
S&W has NO REASONABLE EXCUSE for the complete lack of availability of spare mags for the Shield Plus. Nor, do they have any excuse for their distressingly SLOW warranty service on brand new guns. Nor, their unwillingness to provide reasonable time lines for repair and replacement parts. Nor, a whole lot of other company-killing methodologies that they have been employing during their continuing decline as a company.
It's too bad that the company's only defense for its obvious bad management are the few forum regulars here who offer all kinds of hypothetical and contrived excuses as to why problems in availability and quality exist at all.
The REAL problem is that these holding company ventures and spinoffs and reorganizations and executive shakeups always end up producing the same result - customer dissatisfaction which leads to brand abandonment and eventual unprofitability and reduced market share and then, the end of the brand. Does Colt and Remington happen to come to mind? Same sequence of events and the same end results.
I'm not going down with the ship. Best regards to all who may not realize that the end is near.
