When the Shield Arms S15 magazine came out I was beyond excited. Getting 15 rounds in a gun as thin as the Glock 48 was a no-brainer to pursue. I did my research (while waiting for them to come back in stock) and found that I also needed to order the metal Shield Arms magazine catch to prevent wear problems from developing. When I got them I put it all together and took it to the range. In my first 100 rounds I had several failures to feed but chalked it up to "newness." It would surely break in, I figured.
Many rounds later, I was still seeing failures to feed - I would get a jam whereby the slide would start to pick-up the next round but it would seem to get stuck before the case rim slipped fully under the extractor tooth. A whack on the back of the slide would put it into place. I was getting those as often as once every 2 or 3 magazines or so.
I contacted the folks at Shield Arms. They were great, they were responsive and they seemed genuinely interested in doing whatever they could to help. I must say that their customer service impressed me. They had me ship the two magazines back to them for a check. They returned them a bit later with a note that they couldn't find any problems but replaced the springs just in case. (Again, great customer service.)
The problem is that I still had a few instances of the same problem. It happened less often after the new springs (maybe about 1 out of every 50 rounds) but I judged that too frequent for "carry" reliability and I put my G48 in "timeout" until I figured out what was next. Then, about a week ago I found another contender in the market: Palmetto State Armory has a 15 round magazine for their "PSA Dagger Micro" which is essentially a Glock 43X knock-off. Best of all, with that magazine, you can use the factory magazine release. The magazine is a hybrid construction - thin metal like Shield but a polymer cover on just the front where the magazine catch is. Using the factory catch eliminates one more factor that could be causing my problem.
I purchased one of these: PSA Dagger Micro 9mm 15 Round Magazine to try out. I switched my magazine catch back to factory and tried it out at the range on Sunday. I first shot 100 rounds with factory magazines just to establish a baseline with no alterations. Zero problems. I then shot another 100 rounds with the new magazine. Again, zero problems.
It seems to be an enigma with the Shield Arms S15 magazines: some folks never have a single problem and some folks never have total success. I must have been in the second cohort for some reason. I really hope the Shield folks can find and work-out all the kinks for "the second group" of us because they seem like swell folks. In the meantime, I am very happy with the new PSA mag. So far so good.
Many rounds later, I was still seeing failures to feed - I would get a jam whereby the slide would start to pick-up the next round but it would seem to get stuck before the case rim slipped fully under the extractor tooth. A whack on the back of the slide would put it into place. I was getting those as often as once every 2 or 3 magazines or so.
I contacted the folks at Shield Arms. They were great, they were responsive and they seemed genuinely interested in doing whatever they could to help. I must say that their customer service impressed me. They had me ship the two magazines back to them for a check. They returned them a bit later with a note that they couldn't find any problems but replaced the springs just in case. (Again, great customer service.)
The problem is that I still had a few instances of the same problem. It happened less often after the new springs (maybe about 1 out of every 50 rounds) but I judged that too frequent for "carry" reliability and I put my G48 in "timeout" until I figured out what was next. Then, about a week ago I found another contender in the market: Palmetto State Armory has a 15 round magazine for their "PSA Dagger Micro" which is essentially a Glock 43X knock-off. Best of all, with that magazine, you can use the factory magazine release. The magazine is a hybrid construction - thin metal like Shield but a polymer cover on just the front where the magazine catch is. Using the factory catch eliminates one more factor that could be causing my problem.
I purchased one of these: PSA Dagger Micro 9mm 15 Round Magazine to try out. I switched my magazine catch back to factory and tried it out at the range on Sunday. I first shot 100 rounds with factory magazines just to establish a baseline with no alterations. Zero problems. I then shot another 100 rounds with the new magazine. Again, zero problems.
It seems to be an enigma with the Shield Arms S15 magazines: some folks never have a single problem and some folks never have total success. I must have been in the second cohort for some reason. I really hope the Shield folks can find and work-out all the kinks for "the second group" of us because they seem like swell folks. In the meantime, I am very happy with the new PSA mag. So far so good.
