Stumbled upon the shield and fell in love, always figured these little guns would be a PITA and no fun to shoot.  Had a guy let me run a hundred rounds through his and I just flat fell in love.

Mine is brand new so I know as it breaks in everything will feel and shoot better.  Before I go burn up ammo I want to do a week or two of just doing my nightly  dry fire drills.  One thing I am noticing is when the trigger breaks the front sight breaks a little to the right.  What I mean is if my front sight is perfectly centered in the rear sight I notice that it will go right and be half hidden behind the right wall of the rear sight.

This happens when using my standard handgun grip, same grip most everyone will tell you to do, same one that most basic online articles mention.  I am right handed.

What I have noticed is that if I take the pointer finger of my support hand. Not really squeeze, but put that the pad of my finger in-between the first and second knuckle on the front of the trigger guard and the first knuckle sits right on the edge of the right side of the trigger guard.  I then move the middle finger up and it sits right underneath the trigger guard as if it was normally my pointer finger.  

Before I set any bad habits with this little gun is this I guess an "ok" way to hold onto a little gun like this?  Would it be bad to put a little traction tape on the front of the trigger guard?  I don't know why but this just feels natural, if I don't do this my support hand feels like it is way to low on the gun but I don't want to commit something bad to muscle memory.  Thoughts?

If needed I can take picture to explain better.

Also just curious, I don't remember from the other shield I shot, but when the magazines are fully loaded they are almost impossible to insert if the slide is not locked back.  Will they loosen up and become easier to insert and get locked into the gun?

Are you right or left handed?
Does the shield have a long trigger pull(DAO)
If the trigger contacts your finger to far in on a gun with a longer trigger pull it will draw the gun to the right or left depending if right or left handed.
For me (right handed) on my Sig P250 down and left.
If this is the case determined by dry firing there are two things that might help.
Install larger grip straps so your finger contacts the trigger closer to the pad.
Practice dry firing with a smooth continious action. Placing a dime on the slide and being able to keep it there.
Without more detail I am just throwing some ideas out.

The recoil spring assembly and the magazine springs are really stiff at first, but they do break in within a few hundred rounds. Eventually, you are able to seat a fully loaded magazine on a closed slide.

As for the trigger overtravel, I have found that it has little effect in live fire. It isn't any worse than a stock Glock trigger, honestly. The trigger will break in a little after several hundred rounds. I like to dry fire my M&Ps quite a bit. Dry firing and racking the slide helps the break in. I'm not going to say that putting your support hand index finger on the trigger guard isn't a bad thing, though; to each his own. I prefer my support hand wrapped around my primary with the thumbs forward grip. The trigger overtravel is most pronounced when dry firing one handed. With both hands firmly in the gun, you shouldn't notice it much or at all.

Enjoy! It's a great little gun.

The Shield doesn't have extra backstraps to use to change the grip size.  Talons or the slip on rubber grips from Hogue and Pachnayr are the main choices to make the grip a little larger.  The Trigger pull is a typical Striker Fired trigger pull, not a long DAO type of a pull.  There is a good amount of overtravel at least on my trigger and I really need to concentrate on dry firing 1 handed w/o the sights moving, especially if your trigger is new, gritty and fairly heavy.  It does smooth out and lighten up as it gets broken in.  Two handed grip, I can dry fire it with the sights staying put.  However, mine is shooting 2" high at 20' and over 4" high at 30' with all ammo from 115, 124gr, 124+P and 147gr ammo with 2 different sets of sights and different people shooting it, so it's on it's way back to S&W.  Shame, because it is otherwise a nice little carry pistol!

Thanks guys.  I'll will write up a better description and make a little video explaining what's going on.  Think my main issue is I am just flat out used to my browning hi power trigger and the little striker fire gun is a lot different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj4gREb696o

Hope this video is cLear enough to show what my sights are doing.

I try showing my grip but that failed.  Trying to figure out how to better explain my grip but I am right handed.

EDIT:  Fixed link, also the video makes it look like I am jerking my whole hand when pulling the trigger.  I think its just the heavy trigger.

When I hold the gun like this, I notice more front sight movement but I also just feel like my hands are crowded and getting all squished together.  I just don't feel like I have as solid of a hold on the gun.


When I hold the gun like this I don't notice as much front sight movement and too me it just feels better.


Do I just need to use the first picture and get used to it?  I feel like its just the small grip size of the shield is what makes the "correct" way feel so bad.

Try dropping your support hand's thumb down from where it is shown in the second pic to let it rest on the frame just forward of the Shield's takedown lever. Your strong side thumb is fine where it is as shown in the "incorrect" picture. Just make sure it's far enough outboard that it (and/or the web of your hand) doesn't get bit by the slide. That's how I shoot my Sig to avoid riding the slide stop and it works fine.

I found out my phone has a cool hands free photo mode.  This is the most comfortable feeling position for me.  Fundamentally is it bad for the pointer to be on the trigger guard?  I haven't got much trigger time with a shield to know for sure if this will be effective during shooting.

My strong side thumb looks like it's in the way of the slide but it's actually not.  Just bad angle.  With the 8 round mag I can do a normal grip but with the 7 rounder my support hand feels like it is doing more harm than good with the normal grip

I wrap my "strong" thumb over my support hand thumb--that way you never accidentally hit a slide-stop or safety or whatever.
ALSO, I mainly "pinch" the gun between my support thumb and support index finger--and not putting a lot strength into my "strong" hand grip.

I found the SHIELD to be pretty hard to shoot.  I spend the money on the APEX KIT (I shudder thinking about how difficult it was to get the sights off without a pusher) AND the APEX/AFIEK? trigger kit.  That improved my speed a bit, and my groups by 50%, which was good enough for me.

Went out and broke the shield in today.  Shot a little bit of every kind of ammo I could through her.  I tried my finger on the trigger guard and technically my groups were tighter when I took my time but it did not work as well when transitioning between targets. It just did not feel as fluid and comfortable.  

I was worried that the gun would be snappy and uncomfortable.   The gun did snap pretty hard and it's going to take some shooting to get to where I could double tap but I love this little gun!  Overall my first 8 shot group out of the gun was better than anything I have ever shot out of my Browning Hipower.  

Can't wait to get more trigger time behind this little gun and see just what I can do.

Put a hundred rounds of federal 115gr fmj through my shield today also. Even though they're small, they surprisingly shoot like a larger gun. The federal hst 124gr standard pressure rounds are definitely a little warmer than the target rounds, but still very comfortable to shoot and controllable

Get an Apex trigger. Simply amazing.