They say necessity is the mother of invention. In this case it was more desire doing the mothering! I wanted a pinky extension and saw a guy on YouTube that had screwed one made for a Taurus PT-709 onto his flat mag bottom. No, no, that would never do for this anal retentive Virgo. It looked like it might be big enough to modify so I ordered a couple and set to work.
OK, boys and girls, here it is:
First I had to find a way to hold the mag on to the extension so I could trace it without it sliding all around:
Here's the pencil-traced extension with the lines filled in over the flanges:
After much work with a dremmel, here's the widened mag channel before and after:
These don't show too well, but here's the widened flange channel before and after:
When iserted into the gun, it wouldn't go in far enough for the mag catch to grab, so I had to shave down the top side of the extension by about a sixteenth of an inch. Here's a before and after. It's a little hard to see the height difference:
Last but not least, the hole in the mag extension was slightly smaller and further forward than the button on the Shield floorplate, so the hole had to be widened and extended:
Here are a few of the finished product:
All in all I was very lucky not to have *****'ed this project. Went slowly and kept checking for fit. "Small moves Ellie, small moves."
Better tools and a maybe a vice, and it could have gone faster, but anyway, at almost 66, I love a challenge.
Now watch, shortly, someone like Pearce or S&W themselves, will come out with a Shield specific mag extension.
OK, boys and girls, here it is:
First I had to find a way to hold the mag on to the extension so I could trace it without it sliding all around:
Here's the pencil-traced extension with the lines filled in over the flanges:
After much work with a dremmel, here's the widened mag channel before and after:
These don't show too well, but here's the widened flange channel before and after:
When iserted into the gun, it wouldn't go in far enough for the mag catch to grab, so I had to shave down the top side of the extension by about a sixteenth of an inch. Here's a before and after. It's a little hard to see the height difference:
Last but not least, the hole in the mag extension was slightly smaller and further forward than the button on the Shield floorplate, so the hole had to be widened and extended:
Here are a few of the finished product:
All in all I was very lucky not to have *****'ed this project. Went slowly and kept checking for fit. "Small moves Ellie, small moves."
Better tools and a maybe a vice, and it could have gone faster, but anyway, at almost 66, I love a challenge.
Now watch, shortly, someone like Pearce or S&W themselves, will come out with a Shield specific mag extension.
)
