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Thread: The Premature Old Man Gun: .380 Shield EZ

  1. #1

    The Premature Old Man Gun: .380 Shield EZ

    A guy at work ordered himself a gold-accented Performance Center M&P 380 Shield EZ over the winter. He wanted something easy to shoot, posessing a good trigger, coming with high visibility sights, and taking up roughly the same footprint as his 9mm Shield. He got the call last week to pick it up and his wife immediately told him to lose the gold plated sissy pistol. Evidently, any handgun in her house has to stop a bear. So he tried flipping it to another coworker who triooed me onto the tracks as I walked by at the wrong moment. It's mine, now. New in box and unfired. Wife, kids, and I fixed the unfired problem on Sunday:



    Wife prefers the curved trigger on her base model EZ as it keeps her finger high and unpinched by the trigger guard, daughter prefers the smoother and lower profile grip safety of the base model, son needs remediation in a firm grip to prevent stoppages with his noodle arms. In my clumsy mitts, the Performance center can land loose hits on a 5.5" wide by 8" tall target zone with 0.19 second splits at 4.5 yards if I don't fall prey to trigger stutter. I prefer the Performance center to the bSe model for being more endearingly ugly and having a higher profile grip safety to better fit my meathooks with the subtly longer trigger reach.

    Just like my wife's gun, the roll pin retaining the loaded chamber indicator is already walking out the right side of the slide. I will recenter it and slam both ends with center punches to flare it in place. That a Performance Center gun is doing this is completely annoying. It wasn't even installed flush at the factory.

    This coming weekend, I hope to see if my background check has come up and cleared for the Ruger LCP II Lite Rack .22 and Malaysian model 10. Then head to the range and spend an afternoon doing work. With the Performance Center EZ, I want to shoot a Wizard Drill cold before checking POA/POI at 25 yards and hoping it drives the dot. Then spend the rest of a box of JHP running a police qual. modified for extra headshots as an easy way to do some varied shooting on the clock without curating my own series of drills. Any leftover ammo in the range bag will be spent doing draws to single shots at a 6" steel plate at seven yards. If there is any time after that, I will cast some 105 grain semiwadcutters to load over a fair bit of Unique. Be interesting to see if they feed and, if so, how well the slowish powder gasses the barrel port.

    For support gear, I intend to bake a kydex appendix rig (probably blue as to have a chintzy blue and gold nod to the Cub Scouts) when my order of belt loops arrive and possibly put the effort into blanking the spare magazine to press a pouch. If that isn't ready by the weekend, I'll just run the strongside OWB I pressed the wife. Also plan to borrow a bud's Olight Mini to see if one would fit on the dustcover rail.

    If the Shield EZ works out, I'll designate it as a potential Old Man belt gun next to a .38 K-frame. Which may come sooner rather than later as my strong arm has a rotator cuff getting closer to a date with the meat carpenter with every passing year. But that's really just an excuse to keep a fun mousegun bought to bail a guy out. Should also make a dandy range piece for novice companions that is of higher build quality than my CPX-3.

    Anyone been playing with the EZ series guns? Lucky Gunner's Youtube video is about the only reference I've found from someone who actually runs gear before commenting. I'd be curious to hear how they're working out in actual service. On my end, the Performance Center has been taken down to wipe off the excess factory oil, dry patch run down the bore to degrease, reassembled, and is up to a mere 50 rounds of ball. Won't turn into a 2,000 round affair and is a backburner project that'd take forever to get there anyway so I'd enjoy reading some learned perspectives.

  2. #2
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    I haven't shot a Shield, but I can never dry fire them without the front sight jumping. Something about that long, flat grip.

    For an old man gun, I like the P250 .380 quite a bit. 12 or 15 rounds, your choice of grip modules. Super-slick DAO trigger.
    .
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  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by OlongJohnson View Post
    I haven't shot a Shield, but I can never dry fire them without the front sight jumping. Something about that long, flat grip.

    For an old man gun, I like the P250 .380 quite a bit. 12 or 15 rounds, your choice of grip modules. Super-slick DAO trigger.


    Two points.

    1. They should still make it.

    2. I should have bought two when I could have.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by OlongJohnson View Post
    I haven't shot a Shield, but I can never dry fire them without the front sight jumping...
    Have you tried the trigger on the EZ models? They've got a lighter true SAO break than the first generation 9mm and .40 Shields I have shot. A buttery DAO with hand-filling doublestack grip is what sold me on the SCCY .380 but that's just a little fun gun. Do wish the Sig was still made or I'd bought one when they were clearing out.

  5. #5
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheNewbie View Post
    1. They should still make it.

    2. I should have bought two when I could have.
    If the P365 XL had a P250 action, I'd have three of the durn things and sell a bunch of other stuff.
    .
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    Not another dime.

  6. #6
    Member feudist's Avatar
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    SCCY Marshall, how do you like the .380 SCCY?

    Perhaps a short writeup?

  7. #7
    SCCY recently sent me three replacement mags (I'd asked them about spotty ejection and they suggested the magazines may have been the cause) shortly after the apocalypse kicked off and I went to seven day work weeks. Let me run a few more boxes through and sure. Though I can say that I am pleased with the gun and enjoy it quite a bit. It's one of my most commonly reached for DA dryfire pieces.

    So far, the Good:

    - Trigger
    - Sight regulation
    - Slide manipulation
    - Reliably feeds a bunch of bullet profiles to include empty cases
    - Very low felt recoil
    - Not as sensitive to limp wristing as the .380 Shield EZ
    - Metal rear sight
    - Fits in a jacket pocket if one wanted to answer the door of their Airstream with their hand on a doublestack in the bathrobe pocket
    - Polymer frame seems rigid enough with no flex in my grip
    - Everyone who has shot it has enjoyed the thing, especially my daughter
    - Comes with three magazines
    - Nicely deburred profile for comfortable carry


    The Bad:
    - Was returned to the manufacturer after a couple hundred rounds when they trigger pull got heavy and gritty
    - It demands to be kept squeaky clean or it fails to eject which the replacement mags may remediate
    - The sight markings don't denote point of impact so need to be covered to not distract from the top edge where the bullets dot the post with a dead center hold.
    - Feels cheap
    - Magazines need breaking in or can actually be loaded wrong if the hung-up follower is forced down and goes crooked but that clears up after it scrapes off some clearance

    For the money and excellent customer support, I'd say someone curious would find it an entertainment value. I am admittedly grading on a curve with two problem child Ruger LCPs, four Glock 42 magazines that delaminated polymer from the metal feedlips, and two .380 Shield EZs with walking roll pins. If someone is on a tight budget and wants a concealable handgun with manufacturer support that will ultimately be made to work, it seems like an option with some serious compromises to consider.

  8. #8
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SCCY Marshal View Post
    The Bad:
    - Magazines need breaking in or can actually be loaded wrong if the hung-up follower is forced down and goes crooked but that clears up after it scrapes off some clearance
    I always pull magazines apart and clean the mold parting flash off the followers before placing them in service. Even H&Ks.
    .
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    Not another dime.

  9. #9
    Poking around, I noticed Smith's vapid new promo clip:

    https://youtu.be/CqZY3QEwRRk

    And something caught my eye:





    The pin on the unit selected for their advertisement is proud of the slide. Nice job, dudes!

    Sootch video with pin protruding from the right side of the slide: https://youtu.be/DKSYWNVCKs8

    Edit: Looking at other videos now that my attention is piqued.
    Last edited by SCCY Marshal; 05-16-2020 at 01:07 PM.

  10. #10
    Site Supporter OlongJohnson's Avatar
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    They've used revolvers for the product images on their web sites with embarrassingly bad roll marks, too.
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