M&P 380 Shield EZ

**Hodgie** · April 8th, 2018, 11:48 PM

Once again the consumer become the beta testers for new unproven products made by firearms manufacturers.

**Brian Ahearn** · April 10th, 2018, 03:41 PM

I picked up one of these without the safety ,arrived today so I won't get a chance to test fire until tomorrow morning. Overall it's not a bad little pistol, but after tearing it down and giving it a good going over it has one real issue as far as I am concerned just plain cheap ass sights. The front sight has no dovetail and is not retained with a screw like your Glock sights, nope S&W got totally cheap ass and used a small E-clip which is bent into place to retain the front sight,are you e-ffing kidding me . Guaranteed to blow your front sights off at some point in the future at the range or worse during a self defense situation. In addition the rear sight looks to be riveted in place , but it's in a dovetail. Don't count on bumping that rear sight like Scootch was saying he would have to do on the one he was testing because it shot to the left. You will have to do some mods to do that. Hopefully one of the aftermarket sight manufacturer's will come up with replacement sights. Over all it grips well ,points well and I like the grip texture and full size grip feel. Trigger out of the box on my Lyman gauge reads 5.7 lbs not the 4.5 that Scootch was getting on his. I would suspect that the pistols that are sent to reviewer's may be tuned pistols, I pulled the trigger in dry fire about 100 times now and it's pretty consistent still 5.7 lbs on average,its not a bad trigger ,but it's not 4.5 lbs,may get better after shooting. Now tomorrow morning I will run it against my Bersa 380 CC striker fired pistol, grip is full size holds 9 with one in the chamber and has a god awful DA only trigger pull ,but I am used to it. With that said I expect to shoot the S&W more accurately because the trigger is better right out of the box. I will let you know tomorrow.

**Hodgie** · April 10th, 2018, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by Brian Ahearn

I picked up one of these without the safety ,arrived today so I won't get a chance to test fire until tomorrow morning. Overall it's not a bad little pistol, but after tearing it down and giving it a good going over it has one real issue as far as I am concerned just plain cheap ass sights. The front sight has no dovetail and is not retained with a screw like your Glock sights, nope S&W got totally cheap ass and used a small E-clip which is bent into place to retain the front sight,are you e-ffing kidding me . Guaranteed to blow your front sights off at some point in the future at the range or worse during a self defense situation. In addition the rear sight looks to be riveted in place , but it's in a dovetail. Don't count on bumping that rear sight like Scootch was saying he would have to do on the one he was testing because it shot to the left. You will have to do some mods to do that. Hopefully one of the aftermarket sight manufacturer's will come up with replacement sights. Over all it grips well ,points well and I like the grip texture and full size grip feel. Trigger out of the box on my Lyman gauge reads 5.7 lbs not the 4.5 that Scootch was getting on his. I would suspect that the pistols that are sent to reviewer's may be tuned pistols, I pulled the trigger in dry fire about 100 times now and it's pretty consistent still 5.7 lbs on average,its not a bad trigger ,but it's not 4.5 lbs,may get better after shooting. Now tomorrow morning I will run it against my Bersa 380 CC striker fired pistol, grip is full size holds 9 with one in the chamber and has a god awful DA only trigger pull ,but I am used to it. With that said I expect to shoot the S&W more accurately because the trigger is better right out of the box. I will let you know tomorrow.

I guess S&W didn't think enough of this pistol or it's intended market to care about any aftermarket sight support?

**Brian Ahearn** · April 11th, 2018, 10:38 AM

So here are my shooting impressions after this morning's range session. It shoots a good bit low and left at 7 yards ,I will get back to this in a bit. Trigger is not the cause ,I like trigger better than my Bersa 380 cc Da. Ran 150 rounds through it zero malfunctions,remember this is the non safety model. Shot 50 rounds with the Bersa, been shooting this one for two years and I know how it shoots. It was about 30 degrees at 8 am when I got to the range. I did not bring my magupla mag loader just to force myself to load them by hand. In the cold I had difficulty loading the full 8 rounds into the Bersa mags. The little buttons on the S&W allowed me to load much more easily and get the full 8 rounds in every time,but after an hour of shooting the buttons were getting hard on my finger tips the cold,but I got every mag loaded to capacity every time. Bottom line S&W mags were easier to deal with. Trigger beats the Bersa hands down ,by the end of my sessions I could put my shots where I wanted them. With Bersa you must be focused on trigger pull ,if not you shank a shot which I did this morning and blew the one by three on the left side of my target frame in half. I am good for hitting the wood on my target frame at least once a session with the Bersa if I don't stay focused on my pull. The Bersa has lots of after market sight choices because ,this one uses Sig dovetails. The Smith the front sight is loose ,but it's mounted with a cheap e-clip , The rear has a oval slot so you could bump it some left or right ,but I would be worried that the rivet would loosen up. In order to consistently hit a 2 and 1/2 inch square at 7 yards I had to stack the front sight on the top of the rear one and aim to the right about two inches to hit consistently. So over all out of the box accuray goes to the Bersa, you do your part with the trigger and your shot go were you want it. I like the feel of the S&W grip better and the trigger better than the Bersa, but I have to say the Bersa is built better with the only detraction being the stupid lock device built into the Slide. I will have to put about 500 more through this Smith before passing final judgement on this pistol . Final thoughts for today it is what its is a cheap handgun ,you got what you payed for gun ,but it has a full sized grip feel that I like. Sights on this one and accuracy ,I am not impressed.

**Emptymag** · April 11th, 2018, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Hodgie

I guess S&W didn't think enough of this pistol or it's intended market to care about any aftermarket sight support?

Do you think women who are afraid to shoot a 9mm and like this because they can rack the slide really give a fuck about aftermarket sights?

**Hodgie** · April 11th, 2018, 11:32 AM

Originally Posted by Emptymag

Do you think women who are afraid to shoot a 9mm and like this because they can rack the slide really give a fuck about aftermarket sights?

I bet they will when the stock ones fall off or they are pinned off and they can’t hit their target as stated above.

I dont buy into marketing gimmicks especially the ones that exploit the poor “weaker” sex.

Ruger tried this 5 years back and it didn’t get far I see the same happening with this.

From what I have seen on several forums in the last few weeks including this one are all experienced men who have purchased this pistol for themselves.

**Emptymag** · April 11th, 2018, 11:46 AM

I have no idea why anyone would choose a .380ACP over a 9mm aside from the ability to have it in as small a package as possible - and "smaller" is not what these guns are.

That said, if there's a market for them, they will sell. I just don't see it.

**Brian Ahearn** · April 11th, 2018, 12:22 PM

I have women who like 9mm and bigger and I have those who can't rack them and don't like the recoil. 380 with the right self defense ammo gets the job done. I have a 3/4 laminated piece of plywood with 18 gauge cold rolled sheet steel over it. We shot Lehigh Defense Penetrator rounds along with PMC Starfire hollow points using a Beretta 84 380 right thru it at 10 yards. 380 ACP with the right ammo can stop a assailant. Bigger gun more ammo always a better choice as far as I am concerned, but there are times and places when sometimes I have to carry a smaller gun so I have experimented on a lot of the small guns. Most of them for me are compromises, they all have have something I like or don't like. On this one I am just pointing out somethings I like and don't like , I a dealer so I can get rid of this and try some more if I choose to . One thing for sure it racks easily and has minimal recoil ,decent trigger ,it will hit a man sized target in a self defense situation ,but sights are down right cheap and accuracy out the the box could better,but it is a cheap gun ,better than no gun at all. Last thing people ask me all the time what put the big holes through the plywood and steel and are shocked when I tell them it was 380 acp.