What say you?

I currently own one. It was acquired with the intent to teach a young lady how to shoot - and she loves it. Incidentally, she is also deficient in hand/arm strength and she can operate all the controls by herself with minimal effort. At this point she has expressed interest in buying the gun off me. According to her, the gun is everything she was looking for.

The gun is easy to rack with easy to load magazines compared to a normal magazine and has minimal recoil. Additionally the trigger is more than acceptable. The grip safety is not overly cumbersome to depress, but a proper grip is required to activate it since the hinge is towards the bottom of the grip. It has great 3-dot sights that allow for good accuracy, but to be fair I haven't really wrung out my example to see how good it can really shoot (yet). It is very similar to the regular M&P lineup in terms of overall construction and features.

In short, I would highly recommend this gun for someone such as your wife. Heck I'm thinking about getting another for myself!

My wife has one for the same reasons as your wife. She loves it. Shoots really well and has been 100% reliable so far.

doubleh said:

I don't know anyone that has one, has shot one, and in fact have only seen in the flesh.

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Ha! That's kinda funny - at least it made my wife laugh when I let her read it.
You see, a S&W 380 EZ is what she carries, and it was recommended to her by our oldest daughter. That's what our daughter carries as well.
I don't think our daughter practices with hers as often as my wife, and probably not as often as she should. But my wife's gun has been 100% reliable since she learned to grip it higher than she was used to gripping a handgun.
Last summer we both completed the Idaho "Enhanced" Concealed Carry course, and my wife used her Smith 380 EZ to fire the required 98 rounds. She had no failures of any kind, and after the smoke cleared (pun intended) the instructor told me, "I wouldn't make her mad if I was you." There was nothing but a big hole left in the middle of the silhouette target's "bad guy" chest, as well as his forehead.

doubleh said:

My wife is interested in one as she has almost no arm and hand strength.

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My wife's problem with carrying a small, more powerful handgun is not so much a lack of arm and hand strength as it is arthritis in her thumb joint. Which equates to lack of strength I guess. She would rather carry something more powerful, but she can't. It's not lack of experience either; she sent tens of thousands of bullets from full-house 44 Magnum loads down-range in IHMSA competition in her younger years. And that probably contributed to the arthritis in her thumb joint.
So now she just deals with it. We do have an advantage though in the fact that our "range" is a county gravel pit about 2 miles from the house. We can, and do stop by there and pop off a dozen or so rounds any time we want - we did that on the way home from church today. A dozen rounds through my wife's Smith 380 doesn't trigger a flare-up of her arthritis, and a dozen or so rounds through my Sig 9mm doesn't have my tendonitis elbows scolding me the next day.

Nothing else on the market compares. It's the only pistol that was designed to be easy to operate by someone with hand strength issues. It's a fantastic pistol for that purpose & a very good pistol for anyone else.

You need another gun in a different caliber because.380 is marginal for self defense.

I recall an extensive article in the NRA magazine in the past year or so in which they hosted a gathering of female shooters and had them all fondle and shoot a number of firearms and pick the best one.

IIRC, the S&W was the top choice. Might be worth looking up the article and checking it out..

The problem with the Pico is (AFAIK) it is not designed for person who are less strong to operate. In that sense, the 380 Shield EZ is not designed for higher-volume and experienced shooters such as yourself or me. It is essentially a specialty gun geared toward the infrequent shooter and/or those who do not have the strength or dexterity to operate normal (small) handguns.

OP, I forgot to add earlier, the slide release is also easier than most other pistols to operate. I have found that many newer shooters struggle with releasing the slide by either common method, so I thought this was a nice feature.

I'm still a spry young (well, late middle-age-ish) fellow, but I bought one to have on hand for my declining years. It's everything the marketing says it is, easy to operate, low recoil, a pleasure to shoot, reliable, and 7-yard accurate. Really a great pistol for it's advertised function and purpose.

I always get a chuckle out of the idea the 9mm is ideal, and .380 is not effective. It's just pretty hard to tell the difference in any way except looking at the headstamp.


Mrs farmer uses a lcp with extended mag as her personal weapon. She has normal hand strength so no problems with the slide. However, my friend's mother tried to chamber a round in my well-broken-in lcp, and was unable to rack the slide.....not even close.
FYI my friend's mother is quite proficient with her Henry. 22 Goldenboy.

I know of 3 people carrying a 380 EZ, two are smaller women and the last is a guy with pretty bad arthritis in his hands. All 3 are happy with their choice.

I found the article I was referencing and I was totally wrong; they didn't even include the S&W in their lineup. Pfft...

https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2017/8/21/the-american-rifleman-ladies-pistol-project/

My wife's arthritis was hampering the use of her G19C to where she stopped carrying all together.

We picked up an EZ when they were released and now she is back to carrying a gun routinely.

I've shot it several times and concur that it is everything its claimed to be.

My wife had to give up her 357 Magnum revolvers after she lost most of her grip strength following hand surgery. In January, she saw a 380 EZ in a LGS, tried it out, and bought it on the spot. She enjoys shooting the EZ because it is large enough to maintain a solid grip, its recoil is not painful, and its light recoil spring makes it easy for her to rack the slide.

My wife tried the EZ and liked it, but found the controls and grip of the Sig P238 to be better for her, and slide racking easier on the Sig too. (Runner up was the Glock 42, EZ was her third pick.)

Trunk Monkey said:

You need another gun in a different caliber because.380 is marginal for self defense.

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.44 mag at a minimum.

In the real world a .380 is about as effective as other calibers.

Paul7 said:

.44 mag at a minimum.

In the real world a .380 is about as effective as other calibers.

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Anything smaller than this really doesn't impress me.



And I don't know if you read the OP closely or not but he specifically requested don't suggest a different gun, don't suggest a different caliber, don't tell me that .380 is suboptimal.

My response was a joke