Smith & Wesson's Shield Plus

About three years ago, SIG-SAUER opened a new market niche with their P365, a subcompact 9mm carrying 10 rounds of 9mm Luger in its smallest profile magazine, an 11th in the chamber and more in extended magazines. It rocketed to the top of the carry gun charts and the rest of the industry quickly followed.

GLOCK’s answer was their Slimline series, the G48 and the shorter barrel G43X with “semi-staggered” magazines also holding 10 rounds and aftermarket mags available which held more. Springfield Armory went directly at the P365’s market niche with their Hellcat with 12 rounds on board.

Smith & Wesson, in late first quarter 2021, followed suit with their Shield Plus.

Putting The “Plus” In “Shield”

When Smith & Wesson introduced their striker-fired, polymer-framed subcompact Shield as a part of their Military & Police line almost a decade ago, it was just as much of an instant hit as the aforementioned P365 SIG. It quickly hit the magic One Million Sold mark — in a far shorter period than their all-time classic, the Military & Police revolver of 1899 — and has remained a best-seller for Smith & Wesson and for American gun shops ever since. When the P365 “changed the game” by upping the ante of round-count, it was a logical place for S&W to start their counterattack into the new subset of the market.

It operates exactly like the familiar Shields of recent years, with the big difference being a different trigger which we’ll discuss shortly. Our test sample, serial number JHC9222, came with a short 10-round magazine for discreet concealed carry and a longer magazine marked as 13-round capacity with finger extension for full grip. A witness hole at the breech of the barrel serves as loaded chamber indicator and our sample had a right-hand-only thumb safety. Sights were fixed and plain with three white dots. Our sample had neither optic cut nor light rail.

Accuracy

With these very-short-barrel subcompact 9mms, it has become customary in the firearms press to accuracy test them only out to 15 yards, or 10, or maybe even seven. I have yet to find a case of a violent criminal shouting to his accomplice “Aw, Spike, let’s give the poor armed citizen a break. Let’s get closer so he has a better chance of hitting us.” Accordingly, I still test at the standard distance for full-size service pistols — 25 yards. At this distance, we used a Caldwell Matrix rest on a concrete bench. As usual, ammo represented the three most popular bullet weights for the caliber.

I hope S&W and SIG will forgive me for mixing their brands but I wanted at least one dedicated short-barrel load in the mix and the SIG “365” with their 115-grain V-Max jacketed hollow point filled the bill. Rated for a bit over a thousand foot-seconds out of a short barrel, recoil was noticeably mild. The five-shot group just kissed the commonly quoted acceptable level of accuracy for a full-size duty pistol, 4″ at 25 yards. The five bullets went into 4.05″ measured center to center of the farthest, with the best three in half of that, 2.00″.

The group with 124-grain FMJ American Eagle training ammo was strikingly similar: 4.00″ for all five, 2.05″ for best three.
The 147-grain subsonic was more to this gun’s liking. It gave the tightest five-shot group, 3″. The best three was another case of “halfsies” — 1.50″. Ya don’t see this very often. As is usual with 147-grainers in most pistols, these rounds — Winchester jacketed truncated cone training ammo — grouped high over point of aim, in this case by a couple of inches.
Shooting and Carry C

Shooting and Carry Characteristics

The original Shield was noted for its soft recoil in 9mm and particularly for its surprisingly mild “kick” for such a light gun in the .40 S&W and .45 ACP versions. Presently made only in 9mm, the Shield Plus predictably proved likewise easy to shoot. A part of this may come from the fact the Shield Plus is an ounce or two heavier than most of its direct competition, not something you’re likely to notice in carry.

The stippling pattern on the grip-frame is more aggressive than on my earlier Shields in the three calibers. It sat solidly and comfortably in hand and didn’t move within the grasp at all upon firing. With the short magazine, it was no problem to tuck the pinkie finger under the butt and maintain excellent control, but not surprisingly, the longer magazine giving purchase to all three grasping fingers felt better.

As with all such short-butt guns, we found we had to relax our grip considerably to get a clean magazine drop during speed reloads. The heel of the hand blocks the short magazine as it is trying to fall away, and the stippling on the extension of the long mag really catches on the heel of the hand. Not a Shield Plus problem, but an endemic short butt problem.

As with earlier Shields, the thumb safety is farther back than I’d like, and doesn’t give much for the thumb to catch. It’s easy to see why so many Shield fans prefer the models with no manual safety. I wish Apex or someone would come out with a larger safety lever for these guns. That being said, a manual safety is reassuring when carrying appendix or in pocket, or if the pistol has to be shoved into the waistband in an emergency.

Carry

I spent a day carrying this gun with 12-plus-1 in the long mag, in a high ride thumb-break holster from Precision Holsters (precisionholsters.com). It was very secure and concealable — the latter, after all, being the raison d’etre of the Shield series in the first place — and quick to hand. It proved very comfortable on a hip suffering from sciatica. I expect, though, the relatively aggressive grip stippling would be abrasive if worn all day tight against bare skin. My colleague Steve Denney found he could carry the Shield Plus comfortably and draw it cleanly from a Galco pocket holster in his Duluth pants, even with the long magazine.

My one real beef with this gun came on the capacity side. None of us could get the 13th round into the supposedly 13-round magazine. This may ease up after the magazine has been filled up longer than ours were. We could get all of the specified 10 rounds into the short magazine, but the 10th took a bit of effort and then we really had to pound it into the gun to get it to lock. This put downward tension on the magazine release button/mag release slot area and made unloading a bit difficult and awkward.

Overall, price is competitive with the GLOCKs and SIG in the same market niche. While we didn’t have the usual volume of test ammo to put through the Shield Plus during the ammo shortage you’re all familiar with, it worked 100% with all of the couple hundred or so rounds I and others happily put through it. On the falling plates, if I did my part, it gave a reliable six hits for six shots.
If you are in the market for a pocket 9mm that’s “shootable” and is built to hold as many rounds as a full-size Browning Hi-Power, you definitely want to consider the Smith & Wesson Shield Plus.

Smith-Wesson.com

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