How popular are the M&P Shield pistols? Test samples of the new Performance Center Shields arrived just before December 1st, 2015, when I received a stunning press release: Smith & Wesson had just shipped their one millionth Shield; not “planned,” not “ordered,” not “in production,” but one million shipped! Thinkle onnit, okay? The Shield had only been available since mid-2012; about three and a half years.
Smith & Wesson serves a global market, but I’ll bet the overwhelming majority were sold in America, so let’s look at it in US context: That’s about one Shield pistol for every 320 Americans — almost 24,000 Shields per month since production kicked off. And all of that has been driven not by the marketing department’s dreams, but by demand.
The numbers are staggering, but the Shield’s popularity is no surprise. I received one of the first Shield 9mm’s out of the pipeline and reviewed it for the March 2013 issue of GUNS Magazine. I called it “The Goldilocks Gun” because I quickly found it’s not too small and not too large, but just right, not only for my XL-plus hands, but for smaller and even larger hands too. For me, if it were smaller or lighter, it would likely be difficult to point and control, and recoil might be decidedly unpleasant. If it was any larger and heavier, it wouldn’t carry and conceal so comfortably and easily.
Sure, besides being light, slim, flat and agile, it also enjoys the M&P family attributes of reliability, practical accuracy and ease of use. But in my opinion, what has contributed most to the Shield’s broad people-pleasing power has been a superb combination of dimensions, geometry and subtleties of shape, curvature and touch, creating great ergonomics. That’s no accident; just smart design and engineering.
A few other notes. I checked some online forums for complaints about the Shield. They were notably absent, and most complaints were ridiculously stretched apples-to-oranges comparisons; more like apples to squid and oranges to Ferraris, plus the usual “I just don’t like plastic guns” carping. Then I checked two of the largest online firearm broker sites, searching for used Shields for sale. I found 13 on one and none on the other. Thirteen? With a million Shields out there? This tells me virtually all Shield owners are quietly pleased with their Shields — and hanging on to them. I’m one of those guys.
Miles of text have been written on the mech-and-tech details of the SHIELD and its mechanically similar siblings in the M&P family — including, by me — so I won’t re-hash it all here. Let’s talk about what’s new and different about these Performance Center puppies.
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