My order of a Steel mag catch and 2 Gen 2 S15 magazines from Shield Arms was received today.
They are nicely finished in the hand and feel super slick. There is a slight amount of assembly oil on the inside. Still, I wiped them down with the recommended (by Shield) Eezox product, inside and out.
I was prepared for a struggle to remove the basepad, as is normal on Glock mags. I was pleasantly surprised they disassemble easily, in fact they remind me very much of HK P30/VP9 magazines, the way the retainer fits into the spring base and the basepad slides over the metal catches of the mag body.
These are the black oxide coated; the black and nickel electroless plated versions are not yet available with the Gen 2 S15 mags.
The follower is blue (gray? Not sure, I'm color blind slightly) and a similar shape as OEM. The basepads I received appear to be the "Gen 2" basepads (during the order rush it was stated some mags would come with Gen 1 basepads, I appear to have lucked out and gotten gen 2 pads. The only difference I'm aware of is a cosmetic blending of the basepad and a slight channel to aid removal.
The steel mag catch is recommended by Shield to go with the S15s. The finish on this part is superb. Removal of the plastic OEM catch and install of the steel was uneventful, requiring some dexterity with a 3/16" flat blade and a few desultory curses. I really like the square dimple texture on the mag catch surface, vs the striped texture on the OEM part.
The mags jump out of the magwell like candy bars at intermission (this also reminds me of HK mags.) I would guess the steel mag body has vastly less coefficient of friction of the plastic mag bodies. (For fun I did try an OEM 10 round mag, and it required manual action to strip. I have no plans to run the OEM mags at the moment, however).
I am really impressed so far.
I loaded up 15 rounds of AE 124 FMJ to let them both sit over night. I will hit the range soon to check them out.