I've been carrying a Shield 9mm for a few years now, and I've been very happy with it. Over the past few months, though, I've been considering going back to .45 acp for carry. I've got nothing against the 9mm, and I've carried it for years. No plans to get rid of my 9s. Still, we've had several caliber wars lately, as well as .45 acp discussions, and that fired up my old brain to go to thinking about it again.
I do tend to believe that all other things being equal (which they never are), bigger holes in bad guys are better holes in bad guys. I've always shot my .45s better than my 9mms, and actually preferred the recoil impulse of the .45, but those may be a function of the pistols as much as of the calibers (5" 1911 vs G19 or 9mm Shield).
In any event, one of the things that I've said for a long time was that if someone would build a single-stack, polymer, .45 acp pistol, roughly the size of a G19, I'd be all over it. And then.... I discovered the
Smith and Wesson Performance Center M&P 45 Shield 2.0, 4" barrel. Being the massive overthinker that I am, I sat down and ran the numbers on the PC Shield with the G19 and the G36. It's awfully close to that "single-stack, polymer, .45 acp pistol, roughly the size of a G19" that I mentioned above.
I can rent a Shield 45, and intend to, but I can't locally rent a Shield 45 with the 4" barrel. So, does anyone have one of these? Do you like it? How's the recoil? Can you tell me how these stack up against other pistols in your safe? I assume that it takes standard Shield 45 magazines?
My wanter is in high gear, but I can't really afford it. But maybe if I sold a couple of shotguns and hustled a side job, I could scrape the $$$ together... It just
had to be a Performance Center pistol, didn't it?