diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrPluginUtils.java b/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrPluginUtils.java
index 3a20d117274..6aedd296a10 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrPluginUtils.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/solr/util/SolrPluginUtils.java
@@ -659,7 +659,7 @@ public class SolrPluginUtils {
    * @see QueryParser#escape
    */
   public static CharSequence partialEscape(CharSequence s) {
-    StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
+    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
     for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
       char c = s.charAt(i);
       if (c == '\\' || c == '!' || c == '(' || c == ')' ||