S&W Shield Coming in 45 ACP!

[johnnyrem]

williejc, you essentially eliminated some of the engineering put into the pistol to make it more reliable.

Since brass is not particularly good at wearing down hard steel, the scallops are effective for a lot longer than you suppose.

Reliability is about have multiple redundancies to push the pistol toward running correctly under all conditions. Just because you have no experience with something does not mean it is not functional. Racking the slide over a loaded mag confirms drag is added to the slide, which probably helps keep the slide from outrunning the magazine and reduces the chance of inertial misfeeding. The more powerful ammo gets, the more help you need.

Next time don't remove something you are not familiar with. Possibly reducing the gun's functionality for more powerful ammo cannot be considered a good thing.

The amount of brass removed by the scallops is very small and unlikely to significantly affect brass life. The area of removal is where the brass is comparatively thick and it is unlikely a round would experience removal from the same area repeatedly.

Generally, through extensive chronographing, I find velocity loss between a 3 and a 5 closer to 100 fps. If you find standard velocity a little in the slow side, you may have more problems making up for that.

With thoughtful ammo selection good expansion can be had. Performance will meet needed standards.

I find the 45 Shield noticeably less bouncy to shoot than my 40 and this mostly with other than wimp loads. I do not find it to be anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be even compared to a 40 plus ounce 1911. It is nearly mild.

The size of the pistol lends needed support from the pinkie with the short mag. I like that. Size wise, the pistol fits an exacting niche well and is a pleasing option in a carry pistol. I will not wallow in the mud in combat with it, just carry it for CCW.

[alcante262]

Great gun accurate,reliable and recoil is like a 40 cal.

[williejc]

No pictures. I got my first center fire semi auto in1963, and since then have owned several hundred handguns. I bought my first Gun Digest in 1957 and have been a serious student of the game for 60 years. The 45 Shield is the first pistol that I've ever seen or heard of that uses machine marks to retard slide velocity. Upon seeing the marks, I wondered if that might be their purpose but then ruled out that option. I realized that the strongest upward pressure of the mag's rounds would be exerted by the first cartridge up. Thereafter the upward force would decrease as each round was fired. The overall result is that this retarding force would not be constant.

Factors controlling slide velocity in pistols include slide weight and barrel weight. In short recoil locked breech pistols slide and barrel move together until unlocking of the two parts occur. That's the reason that barrel weight is a factor. Another factor is strength(weight in lbs) of recoil springs, and yet another is the weight of hammer springs. The time measured in milliseconds referred to as dwell time also contributes and refers to that duration that slide and barrel remain locked together.

When looking at the Shield, we must delete hammer spring weight as a factor in this striker fired pistol. Smith has introduced another factor, which to me appears not precise because force involved is dependent on number of rounds in the magazine. Simpler approaches would have been increasing slide/barrel weight or recoil spring strength. The latter was ruled out to allow easier slide manipulation. I'm not an engineer nor a machinist nor a mechanic nor a designer of any type. Hence I'm not qualified to speak as an authority. However, I do have six decades of study based on library research and previous ownership of a few hundred handguns and experience from having fired at least 300,000 rounds through these several hundred handguns. That's all know.

[johnnyrem]

Bottom line: the engineers who designed the pistol thought it necessary. They know far more about the pistol than you do.


Drag is exerted as long as a round is present. It is very likely that low round count drag was sufficient to provide the needed attenuation and more rounds was simply icing on the cake, so you may well be looking at it from the wrong perspective.

A non engineer overriding an engineering feature purposely installed into the gun does not strike me (or the Smith and Wesson engineers) as a smart move.

Defending this modification sounds nonsensical to anyone reading your reply, quite frankly. The most authoritative source possible has already called it a mistake. Increasing recoil spring strength or slide weight has downsides, especially recoil spring strength and was already rejected as a solution.....then you deleted their fix.

Not good!!

You appear to have much in common with 1911 feed ramp polishers, modifying that which you do not understand.

[nml]

Here are the serrations http://smith-wessonforum.com/attachm...0&d=1479611976

Johnny it's done unless you are the S&W engineer we don't know what specific parameters they are needed for. If he gets 1000s and 1000s of trouble free rounds it will be okay. S&W is a high volume manufacturer and I could see someone mistaking the marks. He is not telling people to modify their guns unknowingly. We can be civil.

[nml]

Johnny also I forgot to thank you for sharing your chrono results. Looking at 230 gr +P I could expect close to or over 800 fps from your experience.

[johnnyrem]

We do know what parameter the serrations are for.....to reduce slide velocity. The heavier the load the more the serrations are needed.

Non Plus P 230's normally specc'd at 880-920 fps will do in the 800 fps range. Hornady critical duty Plus P 220's get around 900-920. Other Plus P 230's in the 850-900 fps range.

[nml]

The 230+P load is only doing 900-920 out of a 5" according to manufacturer.

I meant the parameters needed to induce failure without the serrations. (I'm not going to be the one to test it.)

Hoping to pick up this gun in a few months. For when a G19 is too big ha.

[johnnyrem]

One can figure the high velocity capability of the gun has been reduced somewhat, and as the magazine springs take a set or the load is increased failure to function will occur earlier than an unmodified pistol.

Just what point that is, is not known. Would have been best to leave the pistol uncustomized to ensure full capability.

Plus P loads are from 950-1000 from most manufacturers with 230's in a five inch.

The 880-920 fps loads are not rated as Plus P in most instances. My 230 PDX1, for instance, is rated at 920 from a 5 and is not Plus P.

Non plus P handloads also approximate these speeds with a 230.

[williejc]

Actually, if I were a firearms engineer, I would have recognized the marks and then would have not had to go through the reasoning exercise that led to an incorrect conclusion. Had I talked with the Smith tech first, then I would not have polished this surface. I explained my thought process based on my experience. This experience did not include using a rough surface to retard slide velocity. One thing that I omitted in the posts was that reading relevant forums showed that others had the same idea in that they viewed the rough surface as tool marks. This finding guided my thinking.

37 years ago my employer bought several hundred Model 65 revolvers from Smith & Wesson. The first shipment contained 300. Of these, 200 would not function. The company sent a team of senior technicians and one engineer to Texas. I was privileged to spend two hours with them while they repaired the revolvers. As we talked shop, they used a big lead hammer and files to correct defects. The lead bar torqued various parts of the frame and yoke. Files removed metal as needed. I saw efforts consisting of 99% art and 1% science. The engineer, a new guy, watched. He did not have these skills.

Smith designed the Model 39 in 1954 in response to our government's interest in replacing the 1911. The crowd mentioned above described this pistol as a piece of shit. One of my friends from the past was Frannie Longtin, who worked for the company for 40 years and retired as product service manager in 1972. Frannie did not use profanity but described the M39 in other term with the same meaning. In the 1960's Smith developed a security pump shotgun(riot gun)for sale to law enforcement agencies. It was a failure because the gun flat out did not work.

I write all this because I do not place engineers on a pedestal. They know more than we lay people but sometimes present ideas that do not hold up. One of their functions is to control manufacturing costs. It will be interesting to see if Smith continues to use tool marks to assist in controlling slide velocity. If the method shows success, then I suspect it will be maintained. My opinion is that gun makers design and produce firearms using the committee method with bean counters wearing big hats. KelTec uses engineers who so far have not been successful producing handguns that work.

I would not polish these marks if I bought another Shield 45. At the same time I would feel discomfort hearing the grind sound when retracting the slide. To learn more, I plan to talk with Smith's technical department to satisfy curiosity, which in the first place motivated me to buy the .45.

It is from interactions such as these in this thread that we learn. Thank you.