Shield 45 Guide Rod

[A.CAssaro]

Hello, Just registered here account my new shield... Yesterday I bought a new Shield 45 in Dayton, OH. I spent a while looking at the display they had, asked for a NIB pistol came to terms on price and purchased it. Got home from work late didn't look at it other than to put it in the safe.

Today had some time and wanted to disassemble & clean when I noticed that when you operate the slide the guide rod tilts slightly and catches on the front of the slide. When this happens the guide rod holds the slide about a 1/16th of an inch from closing, yet the striker will fire. The slide when operating it by hand feels like it is grinding up rocks. I disassembled the pistol. cleaned it put it back together cycled the slide a few times, same problem. I have now wasted 3hrs trying to figure this out but no dice.

Broke down and called S&W they emailed me a FedEx label and stated send it back.

This is my 5th S&W handgun, 1st ever issue. Has anyone had this issue with there's or is it just dumb luck.

Thanks

Angelo

 

[old-school]

I had the same problem with the recoil spring assembly in my shield 45, I returned it to S&W, took about two weeks to come back, the recoil spring assembly was about 1/16 longer and just barely extend long enough to engage the barrel lug.It seems to perform fine, but I don't feel comfortable carrying the shield and it is sitting in the safe

 

[kthom]

Don't know about the guide rod situation. My example has worked just fine for over 500 rounds now. If you will look at the center of the underside of the rear of your slide, behind the breech face, you will see a set of slightly raised half circles in the metal there. That's what's causing the grinding sound and feeling when the slide moves along the top of a round loaded in the magazine. I fired a couple hundred rounds through my gun and the situation improved a bit, but it was still noticeable.

I read, I think on this forum, where someone took a stone and slightly smoothed the top of those circles a bit so I did the same to mine. I did not remove them, just smoothed the top of them. I did not want to remove them in case there is a specific reason for them being there. Every copy of the .45 Shield I have seen has them in place. They may just have the purpose of slight control on the speed of the slide as it moves back and forth. With short barreled guns, the speed of the slide is critical to correct function. That means the recoil spring must be engineered for correct spring strength and tension and it means the gun is also designed to fire a particular loading (bullet weight, velocity, etc). That's why I will not use +P ammo in my Shields. In any case, the slight polishing that I did had no negative effects that I could detect but did slightly reduce the grinding sound and feel. Keep your stone straight and level while polishing, and do so judiciously. Hit a few licks slowly along those raised areas, then run your finger along them and test the feel. I think you want to still feel them, but feel them to be just a bit reduced and smoother than they came from the factory. On the other hand, I also believe you can just shoot away and in a bit of time, they will likely smooth out as much as they are going to. You will only feel it when you use your hand to fully rack the slide back and release it when a full mag is loaded into the gun. As I said, other than the noticeable sound and feeling, I have had no negative issues with the gun. In fact, I am extremely pleased with my Shield .45 ACP.

 

[Smitty357]

This is why u never jump on the first batch of any new product from s&w. Since the Sandy hook times, s&w quality control has been thrown out of the window. They are too quick to push out a new product. They don't have time to double check the quality of the work anymore. At least they don't spend near as much time on quality control as they did back before the Sandy hook times.

 

[LAA]

I trust my Shield 45 as much as any weapon ever. It hasn't failed... period. That includes many varieties of factory ammo, round nose, flat nose, hollow points, and reloads of different bullet types, and weights.
I do believe that S&W did a fine job with this gun. It appears that most reports are overwhelmingly positive. Very positive!

 

[A.CAssaro]

Here is a picture of what is going on


When the guide rod kicks to the side it will not allow the slide to fully close

 

[A.CAssaro]

As far as the grinding in the slide goes. I have not even put any round in the mag yet. I drop the mag out and manually operated the slide. It feels like these is sand in the slide. Here a picture of that

 

[Bob O]

What I would do is take the pistol to the place you bought it and show them, then ask them to swap a RSA from a new pistol for yours.

They can then send their pistol back in and you can go home with a functional one. If you have good relations with them, they should do that for you. This is exactly what I did with a 40 Shield I had over a year ago.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

 

[LAA]

Does your guide rod have the retaining clip on the end? That would seat into the machined end of the slide..........which keeps the guide centered. I just took mine apart to look. Mine is centered, and will stay centered with the retainer that looks like a washer slightly less than 1/2" diameter.

P.S. -- I don't know the names of exact parts, if it's called something other than a retainer.

edit: That retainer ring is approx 1/16" larger diameter than the end of the guide rod that's sticking out on an offset, with your slide.

edit: see below, when slide is not fully closed.

 

[LAA]

Just looked again, with the slide not fully closed. Then it does look offset.... like yours.

 

[LAA]

And pics can look deceiving. Viewed from the bottom, my guide rod is straight. No grinding without loaded mag.

 

[A.CAssaro]

Does your guide rod have the retaining clip on the end? That would seat into the machined end of the slide..........which keeps the guide centered. I just took mine apart to look. Mine is centered, and will stay centered with the retainer that looks like a washer slightly less than 1/2" diameter.

P.S. -- I don't know the names of exact parts, if it's called something other than a retainer.

edit: That retainer ring is approx 1/16" larger diameter than the end of the guide rod that's sticking out on an offset, with your slide.

edit: see below, when slide is not fully closed.

No....the end of my recoil spring sits right up against the end of the guide rod.

 

[LAA]

No....the end of my recoil spring sits right up against the end of the guide rod.

------Then it's missing that part, which keeps it centered.---- Not correct

And I'm full of mis-info. What looks like a retainer ring, is part of the spring. Ends up looking like a washer, to should sit in the recess to keep the spring centered.