Well,
My wife and I were finally able to get our hands on a Shield 9mm for her after about a 6 month wait… We got it and I did a functions check in the store. I noticed the slide stop seemed to stick a little but just chalked it up to it being a new gun. I didn’t have rounds in it at this time so I couldn’t really “slingshot” it to ensure everything functioned. I assumed since it was an M&P that it wasn’t a problem.
Well we got it to the range and started running rounds through it. My wife went into her first reload, slapped in a fresh mag and attempted to sling shot the slide forward… Turns out that the ONLY way that the slide will go forward is to use the slide stop. The gun will NOT slingshot the slide home with a loaded mag inserted, with NO mag inserted, or even for takedown. The slide stop has to be manually forced down by the shooters thumb even with the slide removed from the frame.
The slide does lock to the rear on the last round like it is supposed to…
The issue to me appears to be one of two things.
THere is no spring tension on the slide stop. There is supposed to be a captive spring providing tension. This is the most likely situation.
The slide stop is binding on the polymer part of the frame.
I already talked to S&W Customer Service and they called the factory to talk to a Shield tech, none of them had heard of this particular problem. They are giving me a shipping label to send it back for repairs. it just sucks because I just sent her Sig P938 back into the factory as well because of a missing grip screw/stripped frame… S&W is being kind enough to extend the shipping label for 3 weeks so I hopefully have her Sig back so she isn’t gunless…
SO far the customer service from S&W has been great and I will Post updates as they occur.
Anyways I just thought that I would share and maybe this might be helpful for someone.
I don’t think so to be honest. I daily carry a M&P 9mm that I bought based off my observations of my wife’s M&P 9mmC…
I am thoroughly impressed with M&P products over the 4-5 years that I have owned them. I did a google search on this particular problem and nothing turned up… So I thought that I would annotate it on a couple forums that I belong to so anyone else can see the issue, note the steps I have taken to correct it, and maybe recieve a little help if they happen to find them in my position.
I am not bashing S&W by any means and I hope it didn’t come across that way. They are the only handguns I own now. With the exception of the Sig I mentioned earlier and that is getting traded upon its return for a .308 Bolt Action.
Your issue, while regretable and a PITA, is a sample of one. S&W has very responsive customer service and will take care of the issue. Yours sounds like it will be a simple fix, most likely an out of spec part which will take about five minutes to fix. I see a fair number of these guns in off duty qualifications and have yet to see an issue such as yours. I have a T&E sample that has approxiamately five thousand rounds through it without issue. I bet you will get your gun fixed to your satisfaction by S&W and be happy with it.
These things happen, I had a few full size M&Ps come in that had some out of spec slide stops. Smith sent me new ones (ten out of 600 guns) and after installation we had no more issues. Don’t sweat it.
I know its probably a simple fix and I know it is a relatively rare situation and this is why I posted it. That way anyone else who ends up having this problem will know how to go about getting it fixed. I’m a firm believer in s&w and the m&p lineup.
The slide can be sling shot. You just have to put a little more elbow grease until it breaks in. Remember it’s a small pistol with dual recoil springs.
The slide stop on M&Ps are notorious for being tight out of the box. It will break in nicely over time, or there are ways to accelerate it.
I don’t know if you read the rest of the previous posts but the problem has already been diagnosed as a faulty or missing captive spring that powers the slide lock and provides tension on the slide lock… THERE IS NO TENSION therefore there is NOTHING to make the slide stop drop back down once the slide pressure is off of it. It just hangs out in the UP position even when the slide is completely removed…
I just got out of my local gunshop and compared my issue to 4 Brand new Shields and none of them exhibited this issue…
S&W and I already diagnosed the issue. I didn’t start this thread to try and diagnose a problem, it was more to make people aware of the potential issues and the steps that S&W is taking to rectify it should they happen to end up with the same issue.
Thanks for the reply though I think we are all just a little off the same page.
It’s been a minute since I detail stripped an M&P, but I believe the slide stop’s spring is what attaches to the roll pin. So I don’t think it could be missing, or it would fall out.
So if you remove the remove the slide, the slide stop notch is just floating in the air? With the slide off, what happens if you jiggle it - does it fall down or stay up? Do you feel any resistance when jiggling it - like something could be jammed up in there?
Yes The slide stop just hangs out in mid air and no amount of shaking will get it to move. It has to be physically pushed down. There isn’t any real resistance or pressure either way. That is the weird thing.
From the was S&W explained it to me was that there is some sort of captive spring that provides the pressure on the slide stop and they said that the issue could be that it was broken or completely missing or even just assembled incorrectly.
I tried to run a drop of oil down the slide stop and into the components up front but that didn’t work, so I tried some froglube up under the slide stop where it contacts the frame and sat and forceably worked it back and forth for about 20 min while on hold with S&W… Coincidentally this is the first thing that they recommended to me once I was taken off of hold
I would agree with any other gun but my or my wife’s EDC. That gun needs to be 100% from the get go. I refuse to have her carry a gun that we “hope will work its issues out with time”. If it doesn’t run 100% it either gets sold, traded, or sent back to the factory.
While we would all like to have the things we buy be perfect right out of the box, guns are mechanical devices and sometimes need a little “running-in”—Kahr recommends a 200 round break-in period—I would like to see a couple of hundred rounds downrange from ALL pistols before I could trust it for defense—and I’m talking about self-defense ammo, not just FMJ.
I speak as a former manager of several large retail gun stores—I’ve seen most any problem you can imagine.
I agree with the above post JYO, however, in this case it is a major mechanical issue not the occasional stovepipe or FTF, therefore, it is going back to the factory. I didn’t start this thread to debate what I should have done, bitch about S&W, or start trying to debate different break-in practices.
I simply started it document information regarding the issues that I’m having with this particular gun and what was finally done to get it running 100% that way if anyone else ever runs into a problem like this they can find it with a simple search unlike myself who could find NO info on this issue online. Just trying to do someone a favor down the road as I personally have learned a lot from threads like this.
My shield 9mm went fed ex to the factory for the same identical problem on tuesday. I was hoping to hear a follow-up on this issue and will post one when I get my shield back. Mine was that way from day 1 and this makes three on this thread alone.
