I put the grip on my M&P Shield, first gen. I suggest watching a YouTube on how to get the grip on without tearing it. I used Windex and heated the grip up with a hair dryer. It's a very tight grip and these can tear if your not careful.

This is my second Hogue grip on a M&P Shield. Recently purchased a new Shield Plus, so I ordered an 18400 Hogue grip for it. None of the Hogue grips are easy to install it, but once installed, they mold seamlessly to the pistol. It never looks like it will fit, but it always does. I used a heat gun for the previous grip. This time, I used hot water. I prefer the hot water method. My advice is to submerge the grip in hot water for say 10 seconds or so. Weapon check, remove the magazine from the weapon. Quickly, get the grip started. Once you have the front and back started and its not working itself off, dip the grip back in the water while seated on the firearm. With a hand towel covering the grip, work the grip up the handle. The hand towel provides a better grip and protects your hand from the heat. Keep doing this until fully seated. I also used a little olive oil inside the grip to help smooth things out.

My only complaint with the grip itself is the additional rubber in the palm swell area. I wish Hogue would reduce the volume about 50% in this area. It makes the circumference around the lower grip too exaggerated from the original handle.

the Beaver Tail Grip by Hogue for multiple firearm applications. I think the design is intentionally undersized to ensure fit on these various weapons and installation is not fun. There are several suggestions on how to install based on heating the grip using boiling water or using a hair dryer.

The package also makes recommendations on cutting parts of the package out to form installation tools to assist. I used the combination of two plastic silverware knives and lightly sprayed the inside of the grip with WD40 which finally allowed me to finish the installation.

Please make sure the grip fits tight against the Beaver Tail of the pistol and also consider making sure that the lower portion of the grip gives you clearance to access your magazine.

Added the grip to my Ruger Max 9 and I followed the steps from Rugers YouTube channel to get it on. Just to try it I initially made an effort to get the grip on without Windex and heating the rubber, but that was a fail. I tried cutting the plastic to make a shoe horn thing, and that was not working. What worked was I first stretched the rubber by hand just to loosen a little, then I put in a pot of water to boil. Before boiling I removed with gloves on and added a few drops of Windex to the grip and inside of the rubber grip. While the rubber was warm from the pot I was able to stretch, slide, and pull the grip onto the firearm handle. It's best to do the beavertail portion of the grip first and then stretch on the front of the rubber grip. Once it's on a little, with some force it can be positioned in place. All that to say, put it some boiling water, and use a little Windex and it will go on fairly easy.

Installed on S&W Shield 9mm. It comes with decent instructions, telling you to warm the rubber in hot or boiling water, then apply an alcohol-based cleaner (Windex) to ease the rubber over the handgun grip. That may all work, but the whole process sounded very wet (and messy) to me. The same instructions also suggest cutting the plastic packaging to create two makeshift shoe horns and using those during installation. I skipped everything they suggested, and did the following:

Using a heat gun on low heat (a hair dryer on high heat would do the same thing), I slowly and gently warmed the rubber. I spent a couple of minutes passing the heat gun back and forth, being very careful not to heat it too quickly, melt the rubber, or heat it unevenly. I was also making sure I applied enough heat to really penetrate into the rubber. Once I though it was plenty warm (the rubber felt almost, but not quite, too warm to pick up), I began stretching the rubber over the handgun grip. It took me 3-4 tries, and I re-warmed the rubber once, but it was plenty stretchy to get worked up and over the grip. In fact, I actually installed it too far up the grip and had to re-position it down just a bit to get it to sit right where I wanted it. A little elbow grease is required, but in all honesty it went on a lot easier than I thought it would.

No liquid, no homemade plastic shoehorns, just some heat. Worked like a charm and took less than 10 minutes, start to finish. Love the grip and it improves the ergonomics greatly. I always found the ratio of depth to thickness of the Shield's stock grip a little annoying. It felt just a hair too long front to back, mostly because it was too skinny side to side. The Hogue grip evens out those dimensions and adds the finger groove at the front. I have smallish hands, but the added grip definitely improves the handling and feel of the gun. All in all, five stars!