This pocket pistol is built to impress connoisseurs, while adding practical benefit to a pistol that’s already built for extremely reliable, extremely accurate service. RELATED STORY: Smith & Wesson M&P Shield Upgrades One economy-grade FMJ failed to ignite, but it also failed on a second attempt, and on a third attempt in a different gun, so we can’t hold that against the Shield. The Shield had no problems at all chambering any round we fed it-FMJ or JHP-during the course of 600+ rounds fired. The main concern with jacketed hollow points is their feeding reliability in semi-autos. Anecdotally, however, the second shots did not exhibit as much climb-to-the-right as rapid-fire second shots from subcompacts normally do. As these tests were too informal to reveal hard science, we didn’t document them. RELATED STORY: Smith & Wesson’s M&P22 Compact Suppressor Pistolīy venting in a V-shape, rather than straight up, this Performance Center variant directs the flash away from your direct line of sight, and also helps stabilize the pistol during its downward push-something like an inverted, instantaneous bipod fighting muzzle climb.ĭouble-taps, though unmeasured, tended to cluster noticeably more closely than those fired from a non-ported, similar-size subcompact we brought for informal comparison. They serve to vent any errant gas and particles that miss the primary ports, but seemingly their primary function is for aesthetics-to reaffirm that this is the compensated model. ![]() Never do the ports pass under the rear two pairs of slide-relief porting. After the projectile has left the barrel and the pressures have dropped to safe levels to extract the shell, the slide moves rearward, exposing the ports around 0.47 inches later. Surprisingly, the Shield’s slide features six ports-three per side-while the barrel features only two. Those holes measure 0.31 inches long by 0.15 inches tall (preserving the ports’ 2:1 ratio of length to width). They vent hot gases (and particles of unburned powder, copper jacketing, etc.) through a hole in the slide milled for each of them. There are two of them-one at two o’clock and one at ten o’clock. The ports are surprisingly tiny ovals measuring roughly 0.15 inches long by 0.079 inches high. The housings around the rods are steel, which is a plus, and the rods glow noticeably, even in low light, and really help you see the sights against dark-colored backgrounds. The fiber-optic sights are an excellent touch. The striker resets after only 0.27 inches of the slide’s rearward travel. The Performance Center-enhanced sear shortens and smooths the trigger reset (enjoy that audible click as you let the trigger forward) and the Performance Center-optimized striker plunger improves the trigger pull. The trigger breaks around 6.5 pounds, which is spot-on for a defensive striker-fired gun. ![]() The engineers at the S&W Performance Center mill two ports in the barrel and six ports in the slide of the Performance Center version of the Shield. The biggest differences-all improvements-to this Shield over the standard Shield, are first in porting, then in the trigger and finally with the sights. They retain the style, function, shape, controls and most of the ergonomics of the larger double-stack handguns in that line, all while slimming down to make them unique. 40 S&W handguns in Smith & Wesson’s remarkable Military & Police (M&P) line are its single-stack Shields.
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