Problem with a Shield and great service by Apex Tactical to resolve

[maximus83]

Thought it was worth mentioning a "good service" story and giving credit to Apex Tactical for great service.

Short version:
* Bought a new M&P 9 shield with the AEK trigger and kit installed by G&R. The pistol function tested fine under dry fire. There was no reason to think this pistol was not in perfect working condition like several others I've bought from G&R.
* At the range under recoil, the pistol had repeated failures to reset, resulting in dead trigger.
* Called Apex and per their advice, adjusted the trigger bar loop a couple of times using a gap wrench, also checked, removed, reinstalled the Apex parts except for the trigger itself. Everything looked fine, but no progress.
* Apex offered to ship the pistol back to them and fix it. They found several issues, mainly factory tolerances involving the striker and the trigger bar, resolved it, and even range-tested it. No charge to me.
* This past Saturday, fired 106 trouble-free rounds through it. The trigger pull is at 6 lbs, minimal take-up, breaks clean, crisp reset. Perfect. I'll put another 300-400 through it before I trust it to carry, but it's running great.

Just wanted to give Apex Tactical kudos for great service in resolving what seemed like a pretty complex set of OEM issues keeping the trigger from resetting.

[MrTwister]

It's too bad that you had to deal with this issue but it's nice to know we still have many good companies in the firearms industry that are willing to provide great customer service after the sale. Enjoy your pistol.

[maximus83]

It's too bad that you had to deal with this issue but it's nice to know we still have many good companies in the firearms industry that are willing to provide great customer service after the sale. Enjoy your pistol.

Yes valid point. For me there were 2 takeaways to this experience.

1. The good: despite occasional horror stories, there are also some friendly, honest, quality-minded people working in this industry who are great to do business with. Two of them are G&R Tactical, and Apex Tactical.

2. The bad: there are still too many manufacturers including S&W, cranking out firearms that may be a good design at their price point, but are of uneven quality and occasionally even unreliable.

On item 2, the factory tolerances on my particular Shield were apparently so off, it's possible it had the dead trigger issue (failure to reset) even with the OEM parts and before the Apex AEK was installed. We'll never know now, it's a moot point. But after I experienced the dead trigger, I researched online and found this issue has been well documented in Shield pistols. The problem can occur with or without Apex parts, and with either a new pistol or even a used pistol that previously worked fine through several thousand rounds. Which suggests the Apex parts aren't the issue. Don't know how common this is, and of course S&W is not going to release any public data on what % of Shield pistols were affected by this issue. But there are plenty of online discussion about it so it happens, and not rarely. The causes vary and usually involve some combination of tolerances with the striker assembly, the trigger bar assembly, and the sear engagement.

[Alex V]

That's good to hear. I have the APEX trigger and internals in my 9mm Shield but I never had a functionality issue. I didn't even have to adjust the trigger bar. I shot about 300 rounds through it before installing the APEX parts along with 10-8 sights, it functioned fine with the factory parts. Seems like factory tolerances are all over the place.

[SeriousStudent]

Randy Lee is a solid dude, and that is definitely "above and beyond" service.

I was in a pistol class this weekend, and recommended their parts to a new shooter with brass to the face on a Gen4 G19.

Apex always delivers.

[jrx35]

What a great customer service story. I am a strong supporter of Apex and their products. Kudos to them. I was leaning on getting a Shield but your story has me wondering.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G928A using Tapatalk