Smith and Wesson released an announcement for a New M&P Shield Plus on March 15. The statement describes the new Shield designed for concealed carry as the most advanced M&P Shield pistol to date. The first new feature mentioned is an increase in magazine capacity from 8 to 13 rounds of 9mm Luger for the extended magazine. S&W still considers it a micro-compact frame. The new line will also include Performance Center models.
The other two prominent new features are a flat faced trigger and a new optimized grip texture. The two included magazines in 9mm are the 13 round extended and 10 round flush fit.
The new magazines are considered double stack and are wider to accommodate the larger capacity. Consequentially the grip is wider than the original and the M2.0 Shields, but only about a tenth of an inch.
There are aftermarket options for increasing the capacity of original and M2.0 Shield magazines. While I chose to leave the original 8 round extended magazine in the gun when carried. I supplement that with two 7 round magazines that have extended base plates to increase the capacity to 9 rounds. Increasing the starting load from 8 to 13 and getting a flat face trigger is enticing.
The first Shields offered a better shooting experience than the similarly barreled Kel Tec PF9 by including the extended magazine to allow a full grip. It didn’t take much to widen the magazine to accept 13 rounds in the new Plus models, so I wonder if there were internal discussion at Smith & Wesson about that when the prevailing market in 2010, 2011 was toward the thinnest gun possible.
There is a trend for competitors to mimic the success of their competition, to keep their products in the same conversation as their competition. By increasing magazine capacity in the M&P Shield Plus, S&W stays in the conversation with the Springfield Hellcat and the Sig P365 for capacity.
Full disclosure, I like the Smith & Wesson M&P Shield firearms. I’ve had the original in both 40 S&W and 9mm. I have two Shield M2.0 models in 9mm now. A Shield has been my concealed carry of choice since 2016. I think you can figure out what it replaced.
The MSRP is set at $553 for the base model SKU 13248, no manual thumb safety. The most feature laden model SKU 13253 has an MSRP of $925 and includes a 4″ ported barrel, ported and optics ready slide, fiber optic sights, Performance Center tuning and a 4 MOA red dot sight.
The announcement and Smith & Wesson web site only indicate changes to and in the frame. Other than the change in the roll mark from M2.0 to Plus, there is no mention of changes to the slide.
NASDAQ SWBI is trading in the $17 range today. That is up from the $10 to $11 range in June 2020 when Smith Wesson Brands Inc was spun off. Over three million Shield firearms have been sold since their introduction in 2012 through the M2.0 phase which started in October 2017. With desirable features in the current market I don’t doubt S&W will be able to sell all they can produce.
I’m still looking for S&W to push to market a modular package with their M&P line that features a removable serialized chassis. I envision two versions, one full size for sidearms with .9″ wide rails and 1.1″ wide slides. The second for concealed carry with .76″ wide rails and .9″ wide slides. Full size using .875″ wide magazines and the sub or micro compact with the new Plus size magazines at approximately .75″.