Smith & Wesson Announces Recall on the M&P Shield EZ

[DonGlock26]

The majority of S&W customers do not want to pay for the QC that would consistently catch 2 bad pieces out of a shipment of 5,000. Some PF members might, but when it's time to vote with cash, even many PF members are tightwads. It's one of the reasons why guns like an 870 Wingmaster are no longer common. It's why the 870 Express is getting clobbered - A similar gun from a foreign manufacture with less QC is 30 bucks less at WalMart and selling like hotcakes.




How much manufacturing experience do you guys have? This is like when people say "Cops should shoot the gun out of the bad guys' hand", without understanding much about being a cop. I love vertical integration in manufacturing, but it's unlikely that S&W is going to become a better SME on MIM than a MIM manufacturer. So outsourcing makes sense on a process that S&W doesn't have 150 years worth of established knowledge base. If S&W made that part in house, it could (probably would) be worse.



It's hard to believe that something as important as the hammer can be sold by a third-party vendor for $10.49. How many companies have made profit on that part, and it's still 10 bucks? Unless MIM has advanced a long ways in the 10 years since I dealt with people in that industry, that is a horrible geometry to make in MIM. I suppose those ejector pin intentions visible on the side view could be from the die that makes the wax patterns for investment casting, but at that price I doubt it.



Even if they did 100% NDT, based on a LOT of experience with customer returns of 100% inspected parts (or 200% or 300% inspection - 100% inspection multiple times), unless it's robotic/automated, it's still only about 90% effective. That's why when customers care, they specify and pay for automated/robotic inspection on critical parts.


Are you sure that's MIM? The pics at the link show tooling marks from a lathe, and that geometry lends itself to a bar fed lathe or screw machine. It could have been made from bar, but overhardened enough to become brittle. If you still have the broken parts, send them to me and I'll section them and post pictures of the microstructure(I'm a Metallurgical Engineer).
https://www.midwestgunworks.com/page/mgwi/prod/pin-6

I was a Sig LE armorer for many years (I'm retired now). The P228 used roll pins. The P229 at some point was switched to a solid pin.
Sig has a checkered history of using substandard Indian MIM. Sig actually went back to the roll pins after these solid pins breaking. The fracture of my pin looked like a broken Kimber MIM part. You can search google images to see the internal structure. Do you think Sig machined the ridges on the solid pins? I don’t.

I do not like the idea of MIM being used in high stress areas like strikers, firing pins, or hammers.

[BillSWPA]

I checked my serial number and mine is good to go. I really enjoy my EZ 9. Everything they advertise about it is true. I've lost a lot of upper body strength and couldn't rack the slide on my older automatics. With the EZ-9 I have no problems.

I'm surprised at how light the recoil is on this gun. The magazines are a pleasure to load.

One of their suppliers had a QC problem but that's not to say the gun is bad. I've spent a lot of money on guns in the past that broke do to poor quality control.

I am thinking about recommending an EZ to at least 2 different people who are known or likely to be recoil sensitive. How do you perceive the recoil as compared to specific other 9mm pistols? If you would let me know the pistol(s) you are using for comparison, that would help me know whether to recommend 9mm or .380. Thanks in advance.


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[AzShooter]

I am thinking about recommending an EZ to at least 2 different people who are known or likely to be recoil sensitive. How do you perceive the recoil as compared to specific other 9mm pistols? If you would let me know the pistol(s) you are using for comparison, that would help me know whether to recommend 9mm or .380. Thanks in advance.


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I have a CZ that I cannot rack the slide on anymore. I also can compare it to my Glock and my friends Smith M&P. It's just so much easier even my girlfriend has no trouble with the EZ. I even tried a SCCY at out local LGS and had difficulty with it.

I had no problems years ago but I'm getting old.

[ST911]

@BillSWPA, have you seen this thread? https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....-380-Shield-EZ

In May I posted this comment, it may help. I'm not sure what other model/ammo combination to liken the recoil to, but it is very mild. Perhaps a full size steel 9mm with AE 147 FMJ. Or less. EZ's since the one discussed below have performed similarly.

Timely thread. At a very recent class, a ~50yo female student brought a .380 EZ with Wolf or Tula steel cased ammo. Through a couple of hundred rounds she and a few ladies of widely variable strength and dexterity, aged ~50-80, ran ~200 rounds through the gun without a gun-related issue. It shot to POA with the steel case and Black Hills 380 JHP-XTP. During a walk-back drill, gun and ammo stayed on B/C steel to 50yds. Recoil was very mild, trigger decent, and slide easily manageable. An occasional stovepipe occurred with visibly weak or low grips on the backstrap. Poor grip also failed to disengage the grip safety. When properly gripped, the gun ran. I'd want to shoot a few hundred more rounds of several different skus before forming any reliability judgement. Credit where credit is due, the ammo chosen was what the owner actually uses, and the gun performed adequately through at least a 3-mag basic load of each type.

[jh9]

T but it's unlikely that S&W is going to become a better SME on MIM than a MIM manufacturer. So outsourcing makes sense on a process that S&W doesn't have 150 years worth of established knowledge base. If S&W made that part in house, it could (probably would) be worse.

They don't have 150 years worth of established knowledge base on making polymer frames, either, but it's my understanding they do that in house anyway. I base that on not first hand knowledge but an earnings call where the CEO (Debney) stated they had some excess plastic molding/casting capacity. It was after the stock market shat itself in 2018, and he was talking about alternate streams of revenue. I don't remember which quarter, but it stuck out in my mind.

So, I asked the question at the bottom of page 1 and I guess I'll ask it again: It's my understanding that S&W does (or at least did) manufacture it's own MIM parts in house. Does anyone know for sure whether or not that's correct?

I assume so. That jibes with the fact they still run their own drop forging operation for handgun parts and even manufacture some parts, like their AR-15 detent pins, in house that a lot of shops outsource. The company culture overall seems to be very geared toward things made in house rather than outsourced. Though they do, obviously, use outside vendors for some things. Springs come to mind.

So the provenance of the outsourced MIM Shield EZ hammer is interesting. Maybe it's a matter of "some" and not "all". Which would explain some things. Like why the 642/442 is so damn cheap compared to anything comparable in the product catalog. I assume the trace amounts of scandium and titanium studs in the 342 don't account for the $500 difference in price.

[Toonces]

I was a Sig LE armorer for many years (I'm retired now). The P228 used roll pins. The P229 at some point was switched to a solid pin.
Sig has a checkered history of using substandard Indian MIM. Sig actually went back to the roll pins after these solid pins breaking. The fracture of my pin looked like a broken Kimber MIM part. You can search google images to see the internal structure. Do you think Sig machined the ridges on the solid pins? I don’t.

I do not like the idea of MIM being used in high stress areas like strikers, firing pins, or hammers.

I've read plenty about various companies using substandard MIM, from various manufacturers, but not as much lately. Like any process, when done cheaply or on parts that are not a good fit, the results are less than good. I've had the same experience with plating and anodizing. Cheap suppliers are an endless headache, and the good ones don't have those problems but cost 2-3 times as much. It takes a lot of scrap and missed shipments to make purchasing see that the cheap vendor is false economy.

The fracture surface looking like a broken Kimber MIM part does not mean both parts are made by the same process. If all the Sig solid pins have the same knurling on the end like the one I linked, that feature was not formed in a MIM die, as the knurling is radial (no undercuts in cheap MIM). The part I linked had the ridges formed by a knurling tool in a lathe. Anyway, the offer stands to cut and polish any parts you (or others) want to know about.

[Toonces]

They don't have 150 years worth of established knowledge base on making polymer frames, either, but it's my understanding they do that in house anyway. I base that on not first hand knowledge but an earnings call where the CEO (Debney) stated they had some excess plastic molding/casting capacity. It was after the stock market shat itself in 2018, and he was talking about alternate streams of revenue. I don't remember which quarter, but it stuck out in my mind.

So, I asked the question at the bottom of page 1 and I guess I'll ask it again: It's my understanding that S&W does (or at least did) manufacture it's own MIM parts in house. Does anyone know for sure whether or not that's correct?

I assume so. That jibes with the fact they still run their own drop forging operation for handgun parts and even manufacture some parts, like their AR-15 detent pins, in house that a lot of shops outsource. The company culture overall seems to be very geared toward things made in house rather than outsourced. Though they do, obviously, use outside vendors for some things. Springs come to mind.

So the provenance of the outsourced MIM Shield EZ hammer is interesting. Maybe it's a matter of "some" and not "all". Which would explain some things. Like why the 642/442 is so damn cheap compared to anything comparable in the product catalog. I assume the trace amounts of scandium and titanium studs in the 342 don't account for the $500 difference in price.

I can see the plastic frame thing, good point. I would guess the frames being serialized/controlled would tilt the scales to favor of doing it in house.

Maybe the in-house MIM crew objected strongly enough to the inappropriate geometry of the EZ hammer that it is outsourced? Maybe it is at a top-shelf MIM producer. Either way, it's still seems like a poor candidate to produce in MIM.

[farscott]

I was a Sig LE armorer for many years (I'm retired now). The P228 used roll pins. The P229 at some point was switched to a solid pin.
Sig has a checkered history of using substandard Indian MIM. Sig actually went back to the roll pins after these solid pins breaking. The fracture of my pin looked like a broken Kimber MIM part. You can search google images to see the internal structure. Do you think Sig machined the ridges on the solid pins? I don’t.

I do not like the idea of MIM being used in high stress areas like strikers, firing pins, or hammers.

Yet S&W has been using the MIM process for hammers and triggers for revolvers for close to twenty years with great success. SA uses many MIM parts, including the hammer and slide stop, in 1911-pattern pistols, including the SACS FBI "Professional" once adopted by the FBI, DEA, and other federal LE agencies.

If the part is suited for the MIM process and the process is well controlled, MIM parts are as good as any other part. Blaming the process for poor control by a manufacturer or for the manufacturer choosing the process for a part whose geometry is not well suited for it throws out the baby with the bath water.

[luckyman]

The majority of S&W customers do not want to pay for the QC that would consistently catch 2 bad pieces out of a shipment of 5,000. Some PF members might, but when it's time to vote with cash, even many PF members are tightwads. It's one of the reasons why guns like an 870 Wingmaster are no longer common. It's why the 870 Express is getting clobbered - A similar gun from a foreign manufacture with less QC is 30 bucks less at WalMart and selling like hotcakes.




How much manufacturing experience do you guys have? This is like when people say "Cops should shoot the gun out of the bad guys' hand", without understanding much about being a cop. I love vertical integration in manufacturing, but it's unlikely that S&W is going to become a better SME on MIM than a MIM manufacturer. So outsourcing makes sense on a process that S&W doesn't have 150 years worth of established knowledge base. If S&W made that part in house, it could (probably would) be worse.



It's hard to believe that something as important as the hammer can be sold by a third-party vendor for $10.49. How many companies have made profit on that part, and it's still 10 bucks? Unless MIM has advanced a long ways in the 10 years since I dealt with people in that industry, that is a horrible geometry to make in MIM. I suppose those ejector pin intentions visible on the side view could be from the die that makes the wax patterns for investment casting, but at that price I doubt it.



Even if they did 100% NDT, based on a LOT of experience with customer returns of 100% inspected parts (or 200% or 300% inspection - 100% inspection multiple times), unless it's robotic/automated, it's still only about 90% effective. That's why when customers care, they specify and pay for automated/robotic inspection on critical parts.


Are you sure that's MIM? The pics at the link show tooling marks from a lathe, and that geometry lends itself to a bar fed lathe or screw machine. It could have been made from bar, but overhardened enough to become brittle. If you still have the broken parts, send them to me and I'll section them and post pictures of the microstructure(I'm a Metallurgical Engineer).
https://www.midwestgunworks.com/page/mgwi/prod/pin-6

This.

You can’t inspect quality into a product. You need to be working constantly on improving your manufacturing processes over time. Non-automated 100% inspection can end up with worse results smart focused sampling inspection.

And contracting processes out that aren’t your specialty isn’t necessarily downgrading quality, although it introduces a new set of risks.

[fixer]

It's hard to believe that something as important as the hammer can be sold by a third-party vendor for $10.49. How many companies have made profit on that part, and it's still 10 bucks? Unless MIM has advanced a long ways in the 10 years since I dealt with people in that industry, that is a horrible geometry to make in MIM. I suppose those ejector pin intentions visible on the side view could be from the die that makes the wax patterns for investment casting, but at that price I doubt it.

[/URL]

MIM has advanced....Looking at the hammer it does spike my spidey senses on the limit of MIM complexity.

However you can still get a bad part if the process isn't right (pressure, temperature, die design, etc, etc)