S&W M&P Shield 9 Plus Guide Rod Damage

[Bill2905]

This guide rod damage occurred during a recent range session. S&W is sending me a new replacement guide rod assembly.

This pistol is barely broken in with 350 rounds. From a quick search, it appears to be a common problem with these pistols. I am wondering however, did I do something wrong during the last reassembly after cleaning or is it just a quality/design issue with the manufactured part?



Thi

 

[nucular]

I'll have to take a look at mine now but I'm not even sure how you could cause that? If you didn't seat it fully on the barrel?

 

[Bill2905]

I'll have to take a look at mine now but I'm not even sure how you could cause that? If you didn't seat it fully on the barrel?

That was my thought too, not fully seating it in the recess. Although, I don't know if it would even function like that.

 

[nucular]

I just checked mine out. There is no way you could do this unintentionally. You can't over seat it on the barrel and you can't really underseat it either unless its completely off the lug in which case the slide won't install. The only way I could figure out to screw up the guid rod install was to have one side pushed further out (rod not parallel to barrel) but in that case the spring guide will get hung up and not allow you to lock the slide back. Maybe just poor heat treatment?

 

[sliptap]

I just checked mine out. There is no way you could do this unintentionally. You can't over seat it on the barrel and you can't really underseat it either unless its completely off the lug in which case the slide won't install. The only way I could figure out to screw up the guid rod install was to have one side pushed further out (rod not parallel to barrel) but in that case the spring guide will get hung up and not allow you to lock the slide back. Maybe just poor heat treatment?

This has been my experience with every semi-auto that I've owned. If the guide-rod/recoil spring assembly wasn't installed properly, then I am not able to reassembly the pistol.

I would assume this is a S&W quality issue but sounds like they are taking care of you OP.

 

[NyleRN]

This issue should be unique to the RSA itself and not the Shield Plus as both the standard Shield and Plus models use the same complete upper assembly and the single stacks don't have this issue. At least the older ones didn't. The first generation did have some issues with some of the coils breaking