Am I now known as the ShieldMan?
By James Nicholas
I am called the XDMAN since I am known for my work on Springfield Armory XD pistols. But in the last two years, it is starting to look like I should be called the ShieldMan. I am not a gun snob and love all shooting and firearms--no matter the brand. A good gun is a good gun. A couple years ago I had the opportunity to shoot the Shield at the Shot Show before the public release. I fell in love. There at the show I made an effort to make sure that I would be one of the first in the country to get my hands on one of these new pistols. After some time tinkering around and learning this new pistol, I made sure to share what I found out about these great little pistols. While the shield is great from the factory, I wanted to make it mine. Since then I have had the opportunity to work on literally thousands of Shields for people. I help to personalize their Shields just for them. It seems though in the roll up for this holiday season, I am seeing M&P Shields 5 to 1 over XD's. The most popular modification is to refinish the slide. Stainless steel KG Gunkote is by far the most popular option followed by Titanium and Leupold brown, respectively. For sights, the new Truglo TFO's are popular but S&W fans also love the XS Big Dots. Below are a couple pictures from a batch of stainless steel slides we did last week. They are now fully cured and just waiting for reassembly. Yes the odd looking slide is an XDM 3.8, so I guess I will still touch an XD for money.
