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This is a pretty big step for me, since my upbringing involved zero firearm experience and a large amount of knee-jerk, "guns are bad" influence from loving parents who just didn't know any better. To put it another way: when I was a kid, it was explained that people who had guns were either in the military, in the IRA, crazy, or farmers (which in fairness was not that far from the truth in 1980s Britain). But as it happened, I turned out to be the kind of person who wanted to understand the unvarnished truth of a thing, so I've spent quite a bit of time since then unlearning what I learned.
Fast-forward a few decades to today and I made a trip down to the Sportsman's Warehouse in PDX and walked out with a Smith & Wesson Shield EZ in .380 ACP!
It was a really interesting experience, made all the more surreal by the current COVID situation and consequent scarcity of models on offer. But I went in thinking the Shield was likely to be the one and after checking out seven or eight different options - in both .380 and 9 mm - it did indeed turn out to be the one. But man, I never expected it to take about as long as buying a car! On the plus side, though, it turns out that being boringly law-abiding, having an unusually-spelled name and being a naturalized citizen grants you a fast lane through the background check - mine came back clean in a few minutes. (The poor guy next to me was something like #4587 on the list and said he'd probably have to wait a week to ten days to complete his.)
Anyway, first impressions of the gun: very positive! The weight is good, the general "hand fit" is very nice and it turned out to be the only gun I tried where I could easily reach the mag release and the slide stop with my shooting hand. (I don't have big hands!) Also, the recoil spring is very forgiving and the takedown is about as easy as it could possibly be. The trigger is great too: a short, smooth pull up to very definite "wall" and then a crisp release followed by a short reset. Felt recoil is, apparently, quite a bit less on this model than on most .380's, since it's not a simple blowback design. I'm looking forward to trying it out on a range next week and signs are good that it'll be fun to shoot.
Now I just have to find the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow who's been hoarding all the ammo. These two boxes aren't gonna last long!
Fast-forward a few decades to today and I made a trip down to the Sportsman's Warehouse in PDX and walked out with a Smith & Wesson Shield EZ in .380 ACP!
It was a really interesting experience, made all the more surreal by the current COVID situation and consequent scarcity of models on offer. But I went in thinking the Shield was likely to be the one and after checking out seven or eight different options - in both .380 and 9 mm - it did indeed turn out to be the one. But man, I never expected it to take about as long as buying a car! On the plus side, though, it turns out that being boringly law-abiding, having an unusually-spelled name and being a naturalized citizen grants you a fast lane through the background check - mine came back clean in a few minutes. (The poor guy next to me was something like #4587 on the list and said he'd probably have to wait a week to ten days to complete his.)
Anyway, first impressions of the gun: very positive! The weight is good, the general "hand fit" is very nice and it turned out to be the only gun I tried where I could easily reach the mag release and the slide stop with my shooting hand. (I don't have big hands!) Also, the recoil spring is very forgiving and the takedown is about as easy as it could possibly be. The trigger is great too: a short, smooth pull up to very definite "wall" and then a crisp release followed by a short reset. Felt recoil is, apparently, quite a bit less on this model than on most .380's, since it's not a simple blowback design. I'm looking forward to trying it out on a range next week and signs are good that it'll be fun to shoot.
Now I just have to find the leprechaun at the end of the rainbow who's been hoarding all the ammo. These two boxes aren't gonna last long!