Shield Slide Reduce Tension

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Jul 9, 2022
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Can the tension on a Shield 9mm be reduced for the owner that doesn't have a lot of strength?
 
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Short answer NO

A lot of engineering goes into making sure the timing of a semiauto's slide cycling is correct. The weight/mass of the barrel and slide, angle on the slide lug cutout, tension of the spring, energy of the cartridge etc all go into consideration.

Reducing the spring tension could lead to the slide unlocking early, casing a case rupture.

Bottom line is if the spring is too stiff Smith makes their EZ line
 
A weaker recoil spring can also lead to the slide moving so fast and bouncing off the receiver's impact surfaces that the receiver gets damaged and the slide may actually return to battery so fast that the next round in the magazine is not properly picked up by the breech face, leading to a failure to feed.
 
Most everyone wants a defensive pistol that's the size and weight of a credit card that will never malfunction, run out of ammo or miss it's target. As the size goes down, the difficulty of operation goes up. This is both in the matter of shooting it and just simply being able to operate it. Size does matter.

People trying to pick out firearms should try to operate the example before buying. In this case, for a semi-auto pistols, racking the slide like you're loading/unloading it. Either the EZ series or a larger version should be easier to rack.

Most can learn to dress to hide a larger gun.
 
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One way to possibly make it suck less is to put an empty mag in the pistol and use it to lock the slide. Then load one round into the mag, chamber it, and finish loading the magazine. Don't unload the pistol unless there is a really good reason to do - my pistols that are available for use stay loaded all the time (no kids in the house, which makes that easier).
 
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