In 2012 Smith & Wesson released the Shield single-stack carry gun in 9mm and .40 S&W. The pistol was an immediate hit. There was nothing on the market that was really popular in that size or niche. The cost is one of the things that made it popular really fast. With an MSRP of $469 it didn’t seem that great, but when it hit the street the price was about $375. For that price everyone wanted one, and everyone bought one, including me.
The pistol has lots of things going for it, and one of its best qualities is the trigger reach. With one of the smallest grips on a 9mm the trigger reach is really short so people with small hands and/or short fingers can work the trigger correctly and like the feel of the gun in their hands.
The gun is big enough to have less felt recoil then other single stacks on the market, it carries 8+1 rounds in the extended magazine (that comes with the pistol) and looks like a small gun. All of these things have made the gun super popular for professionals, concealed carry persons, and novice shooters. Everyone seems to love the gun.
There is one problem with the gun, and it has to do with the magazine. Everyone loves the extended magazine so that’s what everyone uses. The magazine is stopped from going too far into the gun by the base plate. It’s the same way with the bigger M&P series of guns too. The magazine base plate is built oversized to hit the bottom of the frame when shoved into the gun.
That’s not an issue with standard sized magazines. If you want to use an extended magazine now a sleeve or spacer is required so the magazine can’t be pushed too far into the gun. Smith includes a sleeve on all their extended magazines, but it isn’t the greatest design and works most of the time, but not always.
On a Glock pistol the magazine has a flat spot towards the top of the mag the hits against a flat spot in the gun. So you can run extended magazines with or without a spacer/sleeve/grip extension. People (including me) do this all the time. I love running a full sized G17 mag in my compact G19. The mag sticks out the bottom about an inch and gives me a couple extra rounds and something to hold onto to get the mag out if it doesn’t want to fall out like it should.
With the Shield and M&P series of guns, if you use a bigger magazine and don’t use a spacer or sleeve the magazine doesn’t have anything to stop on when you push it into the gun. The top bullet will push up against the ejector. The ejector is only a thin piece of metal sticking out designed to push the empty brass out of the pistol once it’s been fired. Without your ejector the pistol will stove pipe or double feed every shot. Using the extended magazine without the sleeve and pushing against the ejector will eventually break the ejector and your gun won’t run correctly.
The sleeve on the Shield is one of the major draw backs of the gun. Everyone loves the gun with the extended mag, but no one wants to deal with the sleeve.
The sleeve extends down and forms the bottom of the grip so you can get your pinky on the gun making it feel way more secure. The sleeve is formed so it looks good and is a part of the gun. When you look at the mag inside the gun, it’s hard to tell where the gun starts and the magazines begins.
When the magazine is in the gun the sleeve is locked in place by being wedged between the grip of the pistol and the magazine base plate. When you remove the mag the sleeve can and does slip up when pushed on. Also, if you hold the magazine upside down and shake it enough, the sleeve starts slipping down the magazine body towards the bullets.
Once the sleeve moves, it makes putting the magazine inside the gun difficult. So if you are carrying the gun concealed, with an extra magazine (like you should) and something goes really, really, wrong and you have to go to a second magazine, the sleeve moving could be a problem. Because you’ve probably been wearing that gun and magazine all day, walking around and doing your normal stuff, and that magazine is sitting in a mag pouch upside down and every time you take a step it shakes that magazine a little, when you pull that magazine out and try to shove it in the pistol you have problems with that sleeve being in the way, and now the mag doesn’t want to seat correctly and you may have just created a malfunction at the worst possible time in your life.
For me, I have size bear paws for hands, the mag sleeve is too slick, getting smaller at the bottom and is rounded off. All of that makes it really hard for me to hold on to the gun. So the Shield I have is a safe queen and only comes out to let others shoot it.
Enter the Plan B from Safety Solutions Academy and my friend Paul Carlson. He sent me two of the Plan B base plates and sleeves to try. So I pulled out the Shield, replaced a couple magazine base plates and headed to the range.
I really like the new base pate and sleeve. The pistol was never a joy to shoot and never fit my hand. I really didn’t like it. It moved every time I shot it and felt like a was trying to hold onto a string while someone pulled it through my hand. The Plan B actually made the gun fit my hand better.
The first thing I noticed was how the new base plate sticks out. That created a wedge for me when I gripped the gun, tightening my fingers and making the gun feel better in my hand. At the range I could actually hold onto the gun and keep a firing grip during recoil. In short, this base plate would actually let me shoot the gun. Now it’s something I would actually carry for self defense.
The base plate is bigger all the way around the magazine letting you get a really good grip on the mag to get it out, if you have a malfunction and have to rip the mag out. On some really bad double feeds or failure to feeds a round can get caught by the feed lips of the mag and have the front of the bullet touching the feed ramp. This creates a bridge that holds the magazine in place. If this happens to you, ripping the magazine out is the way to go, but it may take a bunch of force to make it happen. With the extra lip on the Plan B base plate it makes it easy to grab and go.
The most genius part of the sleeve and base plate in the Plan B is that they lock together. The sleeve won’t move unless you pull the base plate off first. No more having the sleeve ride up and creating a problem when inserting it into the gun. I really appreciate that.
With the original sleeve on the extended magazine you have to really take most of your hand off the gun to get the magazine to drop out of the gun. The Plan B sleeve changed that. Now I still have to move my pinky but I don’t really have to move all my fingers and the magazine will fall out like it should.
The Plan B is made of aluminum instead of plastic like the original and that gives you about an extra ounce of weight on the bottom of the magazines and that helps them to drop free also. And the metal just makes the gun look custom almost like an extended magazine on a race gun. I just like it.
If you want to be a professional, consider yourself a professional or train like one with this gun you’ll find the shortcomings of the original magazine sleeve really fast. After training with the gun for a couple times, I just knew this wasn’t the gun for me, and it stayed in the safe. Now with a Plan B I’ll be using this gun as part of my carry guns. It solves all the problems associated with the magazine sleeve and base plate.
After working with the gun, and then working with the Plan B base plate and sleeve here’s the people that will benefit the most from the product:
- If you train hard with your carry gun – With lots of time you’ll get frustrated with the original and start doing things like removing the sleeve or super gluing it in place hoping not to get any glue inside the mag.
- If you carry an extra magazine – Sooner or later you will pull that magazine out at the end of the day (or heaven forbid, when you actually need it to save your life) and the sleeve will have moved on you and the mag won’t wont to go in the gun correctly.
- If you have big hands – If you are like me the Shield is just too small a grip. With the base plate on the bottom pushing my fingers together it acts as a wedge to give me a way better grip on the gun.
- If you have problems getting the magazines to drop free – It’s probably your hand in the way. With the original sleeve I’ve seen this problem with a lot of people. It happens a lot less with the Plan B and was a lot easier for me to get the mag out, new one in, and my hand back into firing position.
Get more information about the Plan B here
Right now the product sounds like the best thing ever, and it’s great, and you should probably get a couple if you carry a Shield. But there are two down sides I found.
The first problem I found, and it’s really not a problem with the product and doesn’t affect its use, but can be annoying, is it rattles. On some of the Shield mags the base plate and sleeve rattle when you shake the magazine. I have three Shield mags and the Plan B rattles on 1 of 3. Both of the samples of the Plan B rattled on that magazine, and both of them did not rattle on the others. Like I said, just annoying and really isn’t the products fault, Smith just seems to be making the magazines slightly a different spec on different runs. Two of the magazines I used for the test where bought brand new and the Plan B installed before they had been loaded or used. So I don’t know why some mags will rattle and some won’t. A piece of electric tape would fix that. I would probably use the tape if I carried the gun and heard the rattle at all during my day.
The other issue I sort of kind of have is the finish on the product. I’m just being super picky and this was the only other thing I could find that I would change on the Plan B. The finish is a really nice parkerize that looks good and seems to hold up well (since I dropped it, accidently, on the concrete a couple times before the pictures were taken for this post). The Safety Solutions Logo on the bottom look really cool, and I’d love to keep that. I would like to see what it would look like if the finish matched the finish on the slide. Like I said, just really small, no effect on how well the product works, and is the only thing I could find that I might change.
Overall the product is great! Paul did a really great job solving a couple small issues with the gun that should have been fixed at the factory, or at least been a factory option. I love mine and I’m glad he is letting me keep the two I have. I’ll have to buy another one just so all three of my extended magazines have one.
If you want to buy one, go to SmithPlanB.com to order yours today. Don’t wait they are being made in limited runs and Paul has to get the initial order in Aug 1. Go to the web site and order a couple of them, you won’t be disappointed.
Stay Safe,
Ben
PS Here’s a video I shot the first time I was shooting with the Plan B