It’s Just Too Small…

I’ve been complaining about the thumb safety on the S&W Shield since it was first released, and now having owned it for a couple weeks, I feel comfortable saying that it’s too small.

In the above picture, you can see that it even has a lower profile than the slide stop. (Safety on the left, slide stop on the right)

Why would they do this?

I can only think that making the safety lever smaller than the slide stop would be so that the people looking to carry the pistol with the safety in the off position won’t be concerned about it getting bumped into the on position.

Unfortunately for me, the fact that the pistol has the thumb safety, I feel like I need to use it, and practice swiping it off every time I draw the pistol. I don’t trust leaving it in the off position and hoping for the best. Making the safety so small makes it really hard for me to swipe it in a hurry and in my dry firing, I’ve found that every now and again I’ll miss it on the draw stroke. This is unacceptable, and I’m either going to have to modify the current lever, or make a bigger one.