Range Report

Some of our regular readers may recall that I purchased a Springfield XD40 Tactical pistol a few weeks ago. I haven't had time until this past weekend to start shooting it and I thought a report was in order.

Shot a local IDPA match Saturday, and ran 200 rounds through the gun at the match. Gun ran flawlessly with my home brewed minor pf loads - a 185g Precision (moly coated) bullet, being pushed by a whopping 3.3g of Tightgroup and a Winchester small pistol, magnum primer. Dropped a lot more points than I'm used to but didn't feel too bad about it as the recoil impulse and timing is very, very different from what I've been shooting lately. The load was very soft, and very easy on the hands. I suspected at the time it would easily make power factor (velocity x bullet weight must equal at least 125,000). About the only issue of very minor concern was that the brass was not ejecting very far, and was just falling within about 1 foot of the gun. I'll fix this shortly with a lower pound recoil spring which will be a good adjustment for the minor pf loads I'll be using in this gun.

Took the XD out to the range today for a little practice session and ran another 200 rounds through it. Again, using the same load, the gun ran flawlessly. Ran some simple drills to acquaint me with the pistol - triple 6's, 20 Alphas, some reload drills, and wrapped it up with some bill drills. Triple 6's are 6 rounds from 5 yds, 10 yds, and 20 yds, with a par time. Only A's count! 20 Alphas are 4 strings of 5 shots from 20 yds; par time again, and only Alphas count! Getting used to the pistol and as I progressed through the session, my hits were getting better and better. Last set of triple 6's I only dropped 1 pt, and the last set of 20 Alphas I only dropped 3. Times were within about 1/2 a second of where I am shooting my Limited gun and I wasn't pushing hard at all. More than the gun, shooting from a production rig is going to take some getting used to.

I think the only thing other than the recoil spring change will be a different set of sights - I'll put a pair of Heinies on it and call it a day. Can't stand the 3 dots that came with the gun and I've already blacked out the dots but I'm still not 100% happy with the sights.

Once JR overcomes my computer illiteracy and posts the short video I sent him, you can see the XD in action running a bill drill at about 7 yds in just a bit over 2 seconds with all Alpha hits. With some more practice with the production holster I feel pretty confident I can get the bill drill down to well under 2 seconds.
Here it is: Catfish shooting the Bill Drill...