New Shield Plus..... Two issues..... Day One

Just picked the shield plus today and having two issues that maybe this group can help with

  1. At 5 Yards all the shots are about 2" to the left?
  2. Within 50 shots my barrel looks like its chipping?

Can someone please tell me how to address this issues.

Lots of different possibilities for shooting a little left. It could be grip issues, sight alignment, or trigger finger placement. It can take time to adjust to a new gun. It is possible the sights are a little off. If the front and rear sights don’t look obviously misaligned on the slide you would have to use a bore laser or have another experienced shooter give it a try to see if that is the case.

Unless you dropped your gun barrel first on a rock, it looks like the barrel coating was not applied properly. Would contact S&W to ask their opinion.

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Is that actual chipping or powder residue. I have seen similar marks left by cheap/dirty ammo made by offshore companies. If it is chipping it would go back for repair/replacement. As for the sights, they might need to be adjusted. Not uncommon for a new out of the box handgun. As an aside, I had an M&P .45 that I ran a thousand rounds of the cheapest ammo I could buy and never cleaned it. Out of the box the sights were perfect and I never saw any chipping on the barrel. I only had 1 hang fire in the year that I abused that gun, an off hand push cleared it and finished the mag. Hope this helps.

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Most likely it’s too little finger if you’re right handed, too much if left handed. Not by much… just a tiny adjustment. I’ll attach a guide that can help you diagnose that.
If you have a solid grip that will help as well. See the video below with Travis Haley and Rob Pincus re: a good grip and why it is important.

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More concerning to me (being a rifle guy) is that the “chipping” you note is not even around the muzzle which to me indicates the boolit does not leave the barrel evenly. On rifles the ear mark of a well cut barrel is the “star pattern” of exhaust gasses from the boolit exit. Pistolas should exhibit the same effect if they are cut and crowned correctly. Me being me, if that was my pistol I would lap the muzzle to ensure that the lands and groves were all even, which as a bonus recesses the barrel crown to inside the barrel face.

As a side note, your left impacts could be due to the muzzle face being off.

Between you me and the fence post, that barrel was not finished/crowned correctly IMHO. No telling how many times you will have to send it back to get them to make it right.

Cheers,

Craig6

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Just spitballing here… My first reaction to your post would make me do a couple of things:

  1. I might check to see if my finger was moving down the face of the trigger throughout a shot string when at the range. I’d also check how much overtravel you have. I have a firearm that does both to a large extent and it tends to throw my shots left.

  2. I don’t know if it’s just the angle of the camera and the lighting, but it looks like you don’t have much of a crown, if any. I might see if other Shield Plus barrels are the same.

This is not my firearm, but a pic from the internet of an older gen Shield barrel. It shows a more significant crown (2014 Guns America Article on the M&P Shield):

My S&W M2.0 barrel is crowned like the above pic.

Edit: From checking out some online reviews on the “Plus,” I came across closeup pick of the barrel crown. It looks like yours. I guess S&W is cutting them differently for that model? Pic from "Gun Review: S&W M&P9 Shield Plus:

***Can’t post the article’s pic directly, but here’s a link to the pic: https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/IMG_9764-scaled.jpg

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@TimMDT made a great explanation.
Like I mentioned on other thread, try reverse the grip and shoot non dominant two hand grip.
Then compare result.

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