Springfield XDs, a little review

My friend recently picked up the XDs. He was on the fence about the Shield and XDs. He had shot our Shield and liked it, but he opted for the XDs. 

The XDs is 4oz heavier than the Shield. They are both 7+1, but the Shield does come with an 8 round mag as well with a little bitty extention. I really like the sights on the XDs. It has white dot rear, and a red fiber optic front. It also comes with more red fiber optic, and yellow in the box in case you want to switch them.

I was worried about the grip since it is pretty aggressive. It feels sharp, and is more square than the Shield. There is quite a noticeable difference in feel. After shooting it with my friend, I didn't notice the grip bothering me very much. It shot really nice, and was comfortable. The grip definitely does let you know that you have shot it. Even though it's really not bothersome I still have the grip impression on my hand, and we were done shooting a couple hours ago. No biggie though. I think if I snagged one, and some day I might, I would pick up some Talon Grips for it.

Even being a little gun, we did a pretty good job of keeping the gun on target. It seems like most little guns, it's a lot easier to pull them left and down than a larger handgun, for right handed shooters anyway.

The trigger is pretty decent. It's probably about the same pull as the Shield, but the XDs trigger is a little wider I believe. It was smooth too. The only thing that I noticed while shooting, is that my finger would slowly find its way down and start to ride along the bottom of the trigger guard. I'd have to adjust my finger now and then to fix that. That's not a major issue, but it did rub my finger annoyingly if I didn't pay attention to it.

We didn't have any malfunctions. We shot probably 200 rounds through it today. It's the second time it's been to the range. I don't know how many rounds went through it the first time.

We shot it mostly at 20 feet, but pushed it back to 40ish feet to see how it shot a bit farther away. I have a few pics of targets. The first two were my best groups at 20 feet, 7 shots each, and the last target was at 40 feet with the same amount of ammo.

Overall I was pretty please with it. I wouldn't mind picking one up sometime. The only thing I would do would be to add the Talon Grips. Other than that, it seems like a pretty decent piece of equipment. 

If you want the specs, you can get them at the link below. It's the model on the bottom with the 3.3" barrel.

http://xdspistol.com/specs.php

Glock with Trijicon RMR and One Source Tactical goodies.

You may be asking yourself, what can be done to a firearm to make it even better. While there are some items out there that are cosmetically nice, they don't really serve a purpose or increase the function of the firearm. I have found a thing or two that work great when put together. Of course, I'm not the only one that has done this.

I was at a class with an instructor that had something very interesting. We all had a firearm there for training purposes. There were six of us there, and most had different guns. The instructor had a Glock, but it was....awesome. I am sure that many of you have already seen videos on YouTube, or read reviews on many different websites, but this is the first time that I had seen one of these. It was a setup from One Source Tactical. They used to sell the whole gun, but now they just sell the slides, barrels and RMR (Ruggedized Miniature Reflex) sights.

This was back in January of 2012 when I first saw his pistol. I know some of you don't like Glocks, but this setup can be done to many different pistols. I know OST makes this same thing for M&P pistols for example. So I have been wanting one of these ever since I saw it. I would visit OST's site quite often and check out videos online.

Here is what the original gun was. Glock 19 with a match grade slide and match grade threaded barrel. On top sat suppressor iron sights, and a Trijicon RM07 RMR. I have links at the bottom for One Source Tactical, and the Trijicon RMR. You can get the RMR, slide and barrel from OST, but they were out of the RM07 when I ordered, so I snagged one from Amazon.

I'll paste a few pictures that I have on the computer. They are from a stretched out period of time from when I received all the parts and started putting it together, up until a couple days ago when I went to the range for a final sighting in.

First, the purchase of the pistol. I went to a local FFL and picked up a generation 3 Glock 19. I had to wait a little while for the slide and barrel to arrive so I went and put a couple hundred rounds through it before the goodies arrived.

Once all the goodies arrived I put them together and came up with this:

When I first tried out the new slide setup, the slide and barrel lockup were very sticky. I knew that having match grade parts would have pretty tight tolerances, but this was a little bit more than I was expecting. After shooting 700 rounds, it was still sticky in the lockup. After minimal shooting the groups would open up, even using a sandbag.

Also the red dot is supposed to co-witness with the iron sights, but it was off to the right when it was sighted in. I just need to move the rear sight a bit, but that won't be a problem.

I took the gun to a local gunsmith (Crusader Weaponry) and had him give it a look. He checked the barrel and slide fitting and realized that there was some extra metal that shouldn't be there. He filed off a little bit at a time and put it back together to check it. After some work it felt much better and wasn't difficult to rack the slide.

I took the gun back to the range on the same night and put another 100 rounds through it. I was able to get it sighted in nicely and it shoots much better. I used a bench rest to test it and set the target at 28 feet and had great results. The picture below is a five shot group.

The One Source Tactical/Trijicon RMR Glock is something that is really fun to shoot. It's very accurate and the RMR makes for fast target acquisition. If you have a chance to get one, I doubt you will regret it.



http://www.onesourcetactical.com/tsdcombatsystems-glock17rmrslide-3-1-1-1-1.aspx#.UvQoHUJdUa4

http://www.trijicon.com/na_en/products/product3.php?pid=RM07

Talon grips range report.

Went to the range with the G26 and G35 to test out the Talon Grips. As posted before, the grips on both of these guns were pretty aggressive and were uncomfortable after a few magazines of ammo were put through the gun. Painful might be a good word to use. My wife needed to use a glove so that she could comfortably shoot the G26.

One hundred rounds were put through each gun. We didn't have any issues at all with either being painful. The Talon Grips did an awesome job of making the guns comfortable to shoot. The rubber grips we chose had a slight tacky feel to them, giving the user a little more grip and control over the gun.

My wife also shot better groups with these grips. Before she was having difficulty keeping the groups tight. We both think that is because of the painful grip. With the rubber Talons, she was shooting faster and more accurately than before. It was pretty awesome to watch.

I would definitely recommend these grips to anyone looking to improve the feel of their gun. They improve comfort on grips that are aggressive, and they helped improve accuracy for at least one shooter. They are worth the money. Go get some.

http://talongungrips.com

Talon Grips

I thought I'd start this off with a little review of some new grips that I purchased for a couple Glocks we have. So here it goes.

My wife has a gen 4 G26. Whenever she shoots it she has to wear a shooting glove because the grip texture is pretty sharp and digs into her hand. The gen 4 G35 we have also has the same problem. I have felt other gen 4's and most don't have that issue, but for some reason, these do. Being a .40 caliber, the G35 actually becomes one with your hand since it's a little bit more snappy in the recoil department. It almost requires another person to help get the firearm removed safely from your palm. Not really, but you get the idea. We really like both guns a lot, and I decided to try out some Talon Grips to see if it would help out.

I've seen Hickok45's reviews a bunch of times, and he always has the Talon Grips on the guns that he owns. I've also heard of others that use them, so I thought I would order a couple and see how they work out.

I ordered them on Monday, and they showed up in the mail today.  :dancing:  We'll call that "lickitty split shipping". They are $16.99 each with free shipping. If you order more than one, they will take $1 off of each set, so both of them cost a total of $33.98.

Applying them is pretty easy. There are videos online, and they also send instructions along with the grips. Inside the envelop comes the grips, instructions and an alcohol wipe. The instructions says that they recommend using more than just the one wipe, so I whipped out a bunch that I have had sitting around since Abraham Lincoln was a mere lad. Give or take a few years.

The grips we bought are made for gen 2-4 Glocks, but the video I watched said that for the gen 4's you need to cut out a little bit of the grip so that they won't interfere with the magazine release on either side of the grip. They also make grips for a plethora of other firearms. It also notes that on the instruction sheet. So I test fit them before removing the backing paper to see where I needed to cut them. I just used a pair of scissors, and it was done pretty quickly. I test fit them a few times to make sure that I had taken enough off. After I used the alcohol wipes, I took some of the backing paper off and started to apply it on the G26, on the left side. Working it around without putting too much pressure on it so that it could be adjusted if needed. It was a nice bonus that when I put them on the G35, I only needed a small part cut off of the left side. The right side didn't interfere at all with the mag release.

When I was all done putting them on and was happy with the install, I turned on the heat gun, as instructed, and heated up the grips slightly so that the glue would adhere better. Once heated, you just massage the grip so that it conforms to the gun. You do this a few times, and make sure everything is down nice and tight, including all of the edges.

They are very thin, and don't add a whole lot of girth to the grip. So that's nice.

The gun feels SO much better. Both the G26 and G35 feel great. The rubber has a slight tacky feeling. Not super tacky as to make it stick to things, but close to what Hogue grips feel like.

Also, there are two different types of grips they have. One is a granulate ( fine sandpaper) type, and the other is a rubber type. I snagged the rubber version. With the granulate grips, there are black and pink, but the rubber there is only black. My wife would have preferred the pink, but didn't want the sandpaper feel.

We haven't had a chance to shoot with them yet, but so far I am liking them quite a bit. I believe they will be much better than the standard pokey grips. There is a little part on the back strap of the G26 on the bottom that isn't covered, so it's still pokey right there, but the rest of the grip has been improved substantially.