I got me an M&P Shield. I’m one of the cool kids now, right? No… it’s me, I’ll never be cool; always a geek. 😉

I first wrote about it here, then shortly thereafter got to play with one. That left me wanting one, and I put in an order for one. Happened to get lucky and got one.

Yes I know, I should probably decorate this with pictures, but sorry… I’m lazy. 🙂  But now that I’ve taken it to the range, I wanted to give some further impressions on it.

The Gun

It is thin. It’s almost too thin for me. I am going to have to shoot it a lot and dry practice with it a lot to adjust to it. My trigger finger wants to go really deep into the trigger guard, almost to my distal joint. That’s too far, and then it causes me to either push or pull the gun and hit left or right. It all depends, because well… it’s the trigger. Because of the ergos of how much finger I put on it, then when I try to adjust because the trigger is hard, it’s all… rough.

Yes, this will need an Apex Tactical trigger upgrade. I did hear that installing the existing M&P hard sear from Apex smooths things out and improves the trigger a lot, but I’m unsure about installing that until there’s solid word this is OK to do. The tolerances might be just different enough. But honestly, I would reason S&W worked to keep as much between the full-sized M&P and the Shield the same, using same parts, to help keep manufacturing costs down and thus supporting the Shield’s low price-point. Still, word posted on Apex Tactical’s Facebook page leads me to believe Shield parts are coming soon.

The sights aren’t that great, but as I said on the full-sized M&P, they are some of the better factory sights I’ve used. At least the front post is narrower than the rear notch, so you do see light on either side of the front post. That’s great! I did take a Sharpie and black out the dots on the rear sight, and while not a wicked awesome set of sights, they are alright and will certainly do. I know Dawson Precision has a Shield in their possession now, so they should be able to figure out all the details to make sights. Just have to stay tuned.

But the big thing is, how does it conceal? Pretty damn well. When you use the short/flush magazine, the butt of the gun is about an inch shorter than my full-sized M&P. The Shield does fit somewhat into my Comp-Tac MTAC holster (the gun profiles are generally the same, and the leather back to the MTAC helps it fit better since it collapses a bit, but by no means is the gun secure), and when holstered… geez… it just disappears. With the extended mag in, it’s a little more obvious. I’d say it’s almost to the point of “might as well carry a full-sized”, but the thinness of the Shield helps to further abate “sticking out”. I was able to see a size comparison vs. an M&P Compact; the height is about the same, the Compact is wider of course.

Carrying it is pretty nice. I wore it in my MTAC for a while, using the flush magazine. You barely notice it, because there isn’t stuff jutting out everywhere. No beavertail jutting into your ribs, the butt doesn’t rub against the back of a chair, no clothing hanging up on it depending how you move around. One thing is that with the gun fully loaded there’s enough “backpressure” on the magazine that the magazine’s basepad it pushed back from the bottom edge of the magazine well, leaving a space. The edges of everything are rounded off, nothing truly sharp, but it did notice this area “scratching” against the skin of my side a bit. Nothing horrible, just a minor irritation, but there. I’ve got sorta sensitive skin, so I wonder how this will fare over the course of wearing it all day every day. I think it’ll be OK, just something to get used to and then the body will tune it out.

All in all, I like the Shield, and will like it a lot more once Apex allows for a better trigger.

Shooting

I didn’t shoot much, only 200 rounds. 50 rounds of American Eagle 124 grain. 50 rounds of PMC Bronze 115 grain. 50 rounds of my handloads. 50 rounds of Gold Dot 124 grain +P. Everything worked fine, and boy that PMC has a TON of muzzle flash (never shot it before today). But everything fed and shot just fine and dandy, and I consider this a good first sign that the gun runs well, especially with my chosen social ammo.

Accuracy was acceptable, shooting out to 15 yards (didn’t try any greater distances). I know I blew some because of the trigger issues, either because I had too much finger and pulled the gun towards me, or too little and thus yanked it because it is a heavy trigger. In a close up fight, it’ll be fine, but for finer control and longer distance group shooting well… I’m back to wanting the Apex trigger. I wish I could convey the trigger over the Internet somehow so y’all could know… it’s not horrible, I’m sure most people will be fine with it. But once you know there are better triggers to be had in the world, you’ll find the factory trigger to be serviceable but with a lot of room for improvement. Which is why Apex has such heavy business. 😉

It is a little hard to control, because it’s hard to get all your hands on it. Of course, it’s more controllable with the extended magazine since you can get your pinky on there, and pinkies play a large part in recoil management. What I really want to try tho is some faster shooting, like Bill Drills. Just can’t do that at the local indoor range. Also try some one-handed and see how it goes. I will probably try something like the “3 seconds or less” drill.

Reloading actually isn’t all that bad… a little hard to seat things because your palm’s in the way, but really not as bad as some small guns I’ve tried. I did notice that, try as I might, it doesn’t auto-forward. I admit the auto-forward is something I do NOT like about the M&P, so if this doesn’t auto-forward I’ll be happy.

Speaking of that… because of the limited magazine capacity, you’re likely to follow the practice of loading the magazine fully, seating and racking to put one in the chamber, then dropping the magazine and topping it off. Thus with that flush 7 round magazine, you can have 7+1. Thing is, when you do that? It’s VERY difficult to seat the magazine; you really have to slam it home, which is kinda hard when your palm is a bit in the way. It’s do-able, but you need to be careful.

Conclusion

Well… it’s still to early to draw any conclusions. All I did today was start to break it in, throwing lead downrange, some accuracy checking, does it feed different ammo brands, does it function, etc..  The trigger does feel a little better than when I first got it, but it doesn’t matter… it needs Apex improvement. But apart from the trigger, all seemed alright today.

I also want to do more serious shooting with it, like Bill Drills, the 3 Seconds or Less drill, and just put it more through its paces and see how it runs.

Finally, I want to let students try it. I want to see how folks with small hands can handle it. Can they rack the slide? Can they control it? Can they work that factory trigger? All too often small hands also come with “small strength”, so just because they can grip it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good/right gun for them. I had Wife and Daughter try it, and there was a bit of struggle in working the slide, but with better technique (e.g. racking over the top of the slide, bringing it in close to the body like opening a pickle jar) they could manipulate it.

But I’m starting to like it… a lot.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go dry fire for a while. 🙂

I just returned from the southern chapter of the local indoor gun range.

The reasons for my visit I’ll detail at another time. I wanted to write about something else that happened while I was there.

While shooting, two gentlemen came to the adjacent lane to shoot. I overheard one of them express their newness, in asking the RSO for some help in how to load the gun. Yes that was a red flag to me to be more aware and mindful of what was going on a lane over. But to the range’s credit, I’ve been seeing RSO’s actually in the shooting area actively watching what’s going on. I must give them credit for that improvement.

Afterwards, I was able to talk with those gentlemen for a bit as they were parked next to me. They are new and very eager to learn. Of course I gave them a KR Training pen and disclosed my assistant instructor status there. We went back inside to look at a few things, and here’s where I winced.

The guys behind the counter… I guess they’re used to being muzzle swept all day and are jaded and don’t think anything of it, for they had no problem walking in front of the muzzle of the gun I was helping the gentleman look at. One guy behind the counter chimed in, and as this was their house I just let him talk and did my best to keep my mouth closed. To his credit, he gave a lot of good advice. He was spot on about getting a good holster. He recommended larger guns and not compromising. And much of what he said was pretty good stuff. That’s a welcome thing to hear, as all too often the guy’s behind the gun counter don’t know what they’re talking about and dole out bad advice.

But what bothered me the most was his gun handling.

I should have counted how many times I was swept by his muzzle. I’ve been muzzle swept enough, and I still don’t like it and still don’t take it casually. Maybe in my case I know the guns are loaded, and in the store they reckon the guns aren’t, but that’s a little too much complacency for me (Cooper Rule 1 and all that).

The store clerk took what I assume is his carry gun out of a bag, to show his Raven holster to the customer. He was very casual in the handling of the gun. I have no idea if the gun was actually loaded or not, but we all (should) know Col. Cooper’s Rule #1, right? I will assume it was loaded with one in the chamber tho, because the way he spoke implied it was his carry gun, there was a magazine in… and so I’m pretty sure it really was loaded. But again, it doesn’t matter — rule 1.

And that’s why it bothered me even more with how casually he held the holstered gun… with one hand on the grip, and the other hand holding the muzzle. And he kept doing it… just a fiddling thing, like you know how you might punch your fist into the palm of your other hand? it was a motion like that, punching the muzzle of the holstered gun into the palm of his other hand. Just one of those mindless things where you’re keeping your hands fiddling with something, but wow…. what’s Col. Cooper’s Rule #2?  And NRA Rule #1?

I was all ready to be impressed with how things are improving at the local indoor range, and then I saw this sort of gun handling.

The thing is, this customer was coming to these guys for answers. It’s completely understandable for customers to expect gun store clerks to know something about guns. The trouble is, when you don’t know anything about guns, you don’t know if the information you’re getting is good or bad… but based upon what you expect — gun store should know about guns — these newbie customers are going to take what you say AND DO as gospel.

So come on… you know people are coming to you expecting you to be the expert. Behave like one. This is not just what you say, but what you do. Walking in front of muzzles, not respecting safe direction, fiddling with loaded guns behind the counter, violating fundamental gun safety rules, violating your own store policy (that big sign at the front door about all actions must be open…). I was all set to be impressed, but was just let down at the end.