Smith & Wesson Shield EZ 30 Super Carry

July 13, 2022
For law enforcement, the S&W Shield EZ 30 SC has applications for special assignments and as a backup gun.

I know I’m always telling everyone that I love my job. I get to spend time on the range with new products, and talk about them. This month, I tested the Smith & Wesson Shield EZ in 30 Super Carry.

The Smith & Wesson Shield EZ

Smith & Wesson designed the micro compact Shield EZ models for personal protection for the millions of new shooters in the U.S. It has features like an easy-to-rack slide and easy-to-load magazines, which take some of the hesitation away from first-time firearm purchasers. I believe that the unexpected bonus is the fact that this design is so user friendly, it added to the carry comfort and safety for experienced users. You are seeing this review here because this gun is an excellent choice for a backup, and it belongs in a vest holster.

The other part of this review involves the new cartridge for which this Shield EZ is chambered: 30 Super Carry. I’ve had my fun cracking jokes about this cartridge. Now, let’s get serious: The current availability notwithstanding: The 30 Super Carry is a viable duty service round, and I’m going to affirm the reasons it was designed in the first place. It is easy to shoot. It has the numbers to suggest that it will have combat effectiveness. It allows for lighter and higher capacity than 9mm cartridges.

Before you start thinking that this article is an extended infomercial, both the Shield EZ and the 30 Super Carry have their drawbacks, but the benefits vastly outweigh them, and, if I could have them both, I would be carrying them now, discarding my EDC. Unfortunately, I only could get a limited number of cartridges, and borrow the Shield EZ for a while.

The 30 Super Carry Shield EZ weighs 21.6 oz unloaded and comes with two 10-round magazines. It has a polymer frame and an Armornite coated slide and barrel. This model does not come with an optic cut yet, and the gun comes standard with white 3 dot sights. Rather than using a striker system, the Shield EZ is internally hammer fired.

The internal hammer, coupled with the grip safety, is probably one of the first noticeable features of this package. Using a grip safety insures that the gun can be carried safely. Some hammer fired mechanisms have crisper triggers than striker fired ones, if the striker is the kind whose pull of the trigger cocks the striker before firing. Many have designs where the striker is partially cocked when the gun is placed in battery, then fully cocked and released when the trigger is pulled.

With a hammer fired gun, the trigger can just be a trigger. The crispness of both the trigger and the mechanical reset made the Shield EZ live up to its name. The overall feel of the gun will help most shooters get their bullets on target. Generally, hammer fired mechanisms take up more space, often in the beavertail area of the grip, if it has an internal hammer. The Shield EZ shrinks the firing mechanism down, which surprises people to discover it is a hammer mechanism.

I don’t have any logical explanation why the slide is easy to rack. It uses a flat-coiled captive recoil spring, typical for what is on compact guns. The slide seems to have an average amount of mass, and the lockup engagements are typical. The truth is, it is just great engineering.

The EZ part also includes the fact that it does not need a loading tool to get that last round into the magazine. These are the easiest loading magazines in the business.

One thing that we noticed was that the slide release was a little stubborn. When the magazine is in, it actually engages higher on the notch in the slide then when it is out. This is normal for most semi auto handguns, because of the feature that locks the slide back on the last round. However, it was so stubborn that it was hard to drop the slide on a freshly inserted magazine, without drawing the slide back a bit. I found I had to “slingshot” the slide in order to get it to drop on a newly loaded magazine.

Some schools teach shooting to slide lock, followed by an emergency reload, which is not a bad approach, provided it is integrated into a system. Almost all of us teach dropping the slide by using the shooting hand thumb, for a right-handed shooter. In owner’s manual, it looks like the illustrations use the slingshot method. However, this is a new gun, and breaking it in felt like it was loosening it up a bit.

The trigger is crisp, and it has a moderately short reset for a combat gun. Several of the local competitive shooters use M&P 2.0 models for IDPA and other events. I was admiring the ergonomics of the Shield EZ and wondering how it would do smacking steel plates. When I shot a couple of the 30 Super Carry guns at the SHOT Show, I was wishing this round was as common as 9mm. It was as easy to shoot as .380, with the effectiveness of a duty round.

The texturing on the grip is not particularly aggressive, but the ergonomics, including a grip angle it has a very natural point, makes it very comfortable to shoot. The light texture also makes this gun a candidate for IWB carries against the body. It doesn’t yank a tucked in shirt out, nor does it abrade a rash into the wearer.

There is something to be said about the 18° grip angle. A Glock handgun is about 22 degrees, measured from the flat of the slide. Since its inception, it reportedly fit most shooters. The 1911 style grip is about 18°. Glock handguns generally “point high” for 1911 shooters, and vice versa. However, we have reports of plenty of first-time shooters picking up the Shield EZ variants and shooting well with them. The evidence suggests that Smith & Wesson is on to something. In any case, the Shield EZ grip fits many hands well without any type of grip enhancements.

The Shield EZ certainly has the full package: It sports a generous front rail, and a subtle set of press-check serrations. It has enough weight for recoil management, but is light enough for EDC. In this design, the single stack keeps it slim. Without the manual safety, my preferred way to carry it is 1.06” at its widest point, which is only .01” different than a Glock 43.

30 Super Carry

Before I shot the 30 Super Carry, I read everything I could about it, including the patents, history and specs. I have a specific motivation here: I want to reload this cartridge. My separate hobby is reloading cartridges, and the 30 Super Carry will be a challenge. A +P 9mm cartridge generally runs around 38000 PSI chamber pressure. The 30 SC chamber pressure runs around 50000 PSI. I am intrigued by a deliberate design that runs a chamber pressure this high. This is part of the reason why the lighter bullet of the 30 SC has similar performance specs, when it comes to foot pounds of energy (fpe).

However, all things considered, the math that makes the 30 Super Carry hype, compared to a 9mm, does not exactly line up. First, during the initial launch, it was reasoned that the 30 SC will give two extra rounds for the length/width of a 9mm 10 round magazine. Side-to-side, 10 rounds of 9mm is 3.56”, and 30 SC would be 3.12”. This means that the length would be the difference of a single .44” bullet.

The bullets are lighter, and therefore they decrease the weight of the EDC setup. I really don’t notice much difference in the recoil impulse, but this is a subjective measurement. Having said this, the Shield EZ makes shooting the 9mm easier than most other guns, and it was very easy to get the 30 SC on target. That is, in the Shield EZ, almost any cartridge would be easier to shoot.

Did the 30 SC perform in gelatin? It did extremely well, actually. Although we had limited cartridges for testing, the Remington HTP (High Terminal Performance) 100 grain cartridges completely outdid most 380 defensive cartridges, and rivaled the performance of the 9mm. 9 mm bullets are generally a little heavier, but the difference in diameter is really nominal. The Remington HTP bullets went more than 150% in expansion and right around 15.5” in penetration.

The approach with 30 SC is to drive a lighter bullet to much higher velocities, which raises the potential energy transfer in foot pounds of energy. Considering the lightness of the cartridge, I’d like to see it offered in .380-sized pocket guns. I’m not sure if this would sway me away from my Kahr CW9, but it is a compelling solution to small guns with a big bite.

What is down the road? I don’t expect for agencies to adopt the 30 SC wholesale, nor do I expect it will ever displace the 9mm market, unless an entire military unit adopts it. Maybe someone needs to enter a 30 SC subgun into a military trial somewhere. I do, however, expect that many will adopt this as their EDC cartridge.

Will it ever be a duty cartridge? The designers of the 30 SC wisely approached Nighthawk Custom Firearms, who designed a 1911 Super Carry gun. It has a reduced grip circumference, and, of course, the quality of a custom gun. I shot one. It was the first thing I noticed about the 30 SC: It has a quick cycle time without the shooter getting beaten up by a heavy slide movement. I would definitely carry this gun for duty.

I expect great things to come from the Shield EZ market. Its design will encourage first-time buyers to practice with their guns more frequently. For the law enforcement market, it is something I would issue to an agency for their special assignments, and backup guns, especially for M&P users. It is enough gun for agents in the field to carry without being weighed down, and a good tool for winning an off-duty gunfight. 

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