Problem with M&P Shield 9

[wilafur]

Went shooting today with buddies and came home to clean my Shield. The recoil spring assembly is sticking out about 1/2" and I am unable to lock the slide back nor manipulate the takedown lever.

Any idea what is going on and how I can field strip the handgun now so that I can see what happened internally?

Please see picture below:

[ElDub1950]

tagged

[KrisDSA]

Did you unlock the safety?

[alks207]

Does the guide rod move freely? Are you able to take it down by pulling the trigger with mag in?

[SkyHawk]

Grab the exposed end of the recoil spring - are you able to pull on it? If so you may be able to manipulate it (blind) back into the correct position against the barrel.

Did you rotate the yellow lever down like in this video:

[vintagearms]

From the magwell, push down the yellow lever. You should now be able to pull back the slide and finish disassembling the pistol.

[SocomM4]

CA model?

[FUBAR]

Most likely the guide rod moved a little to one side possibly catching on the slide. Try pulling the slide back a little and rotate the guide rod then release the slide. Hopefully, that will reseat the guide rod correctly. It might take several attempts. Good Luck.

[Legasat]

I've had this happen. The rod is not seated correctly against the barrel. Mine was not pointing straight ahead, it was pointing off to the side. I grabbed the rod and with a pulling and twisting motion, popped it back into place. If you can't do it with your fingers, put some masking tape on the jaws of a pair of pliers, and use those to do it....carefully. Not too hard to do.

Now everything was normal. Good luck!

[wilafur]

Thanks fubar and legasat.

The guide was indeed misaligned and a few pull and twists popped the guide back in place. The misalignment cause extra tension so it was basically impossible to rack the slide all the way back and also locked out the takedown lever.

Thanks for all the help CG'ers!

[FUBAR]

When you field strip, take a look at the recoil spring assembly. If the spring looks uneven, kind of lumpy, then the spring is twisted up a bit. Rotate the spring around until it looks straight. This should prevent further issues like this one.

[dvs762]

sounds like a design flaw to me...

[xrik]

Happened to me once too. I had to work the slide to finally remove it. Good luck.

[CK_32]

Wtf lol

[ColdDeadHands1]

I have 3 different M&P's and have never had this problem. So, is something broken on your gun or did you install the recoil spring assembly incorrectly? Honest question OP... I'd like to know what you think happened.