Springfield XD
My newest acquisition.
I decided yesterday that I wasn’t going to pick the gun up until tonight, when I was planning to go to the range with a friend, anyway. But, being me, I couldn’t wait. And since I didn’t have any more work to do, I decided to cut out an hour early, buy the gun, shoot a few (yes, a few) boxes of ammo, and call it a night.
I have to download the manual, because whomever had it before didn’t include it, but that’s not a huge deal. Then I can field-dismantle it and give it a thorough cleaning, rather than the piddly once-over I gave it last night.
Sorry for the crappy picture. There are more on my Flickr page. You can go check them out if you want, but they’re not much better. More photos will follow after range/cleaning time tonight.
🙂
August 16th, 2007 at 10:35 am
If I recall, one of the nice things about the XD is you don’t have to dry fire the trigger before you can disassemble it. The Glock leaves little room for it’s user to be stupid 🙂 I’d be interested to see how the XD looks inside. I never have had the opportunity to clean one.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:37 am
I’ll take photos. 🙂
August 16th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Unfortunately, you do have to dry fire the XD before you can fully disassemble it.
It’s a very simple process though – lock the slide back, flip up the disassembly lever (front-most lever on the left), release the slide, double/triple check that it is unloaded, point in safe direction, pull trigger. The slide will then come off, you take out the guide rod/spring (depending on which model you have they may be one unit or two separate pieces), and pop out the barrel.
Field strip complete – only 4 or 5 pieces:
Slide
Barrel
Frame
spring/guide rod combo or spring and guide rod separate
August 16th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Something is wrong with your gun, I can’t really put my finger on it though.
Oh wait, that’s it! There’s no cylinder! Don’t tell me you got one of them new-fangled “semi-automatic pistols”.
Little known fact, but polymer pistols are actually hewn from the bones of the ravenous undead. It’s no joke, I read it on the internet.
😉
August 16th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
That is the one thing I hate about my Baby Eagle… it is positively annoying to get the slide release lever pin out of the body to disassemble it. Only complaint so far, though.
Nice purchase there, Squeaky… definitely take pictures as you disassemble it. Once I get free of this liberal Mecca known as “Kalifornistan”, I have a XD .45 Compact on my list as my concealed-carry pistol.
August 16th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
As Dave noted, you have to pull the trigger to take down an XD.
But, unlike a Glock you have to lock the slide back making a ND highly unlikely even if you decide to stuff a cartridge in the chamber after locking the slide back.
On a Glock you only have to pull the slide back about 1/8″ to release the takedown lever. This gives you the opportunity to fail to clear the chamber. Have a friend who almost lost his ability to count to 10 fully dressed because he did that. Not the gun’s fault, just a thing it lets you do. That’s why I have an XD.
Of course, the ever-indulgent wife’s getting a G26 but what the heck. As long as I stick with proper procedure it’s not a problem.
Squeaky
Here’s a tip I picked up on another forum: With your new gun, or one you’ve thoroughly cleaned, get a fresh new boresnake and a bottle of Mili-Tec 1. Saturate the boresnake with the Mili-Tec just in front of the first set of brushes (that part makes the best contact).
Pull it through the barrel, then fire one round. Repeat this for 20 rounds.
Mili-Tec 1 is one of the modern lubes that seals into the pores of the metal. Mili-Tec 1 requires some heat to do this (it doesn’t take that much – you can use a hair dryer). By doing the ‘Mili-Tec 20’ you get a nice, slick, hard coating on the inside of your barrel. In a class I put over 500 rounds through my XD-45 – all cheap Winchester White Box. Barrel looked pretty cruddy right afterward but still not too bad. One pull of the boresnake and it looked pretty clean. Two pulls and it was mirror-shiny again. Took a bit longer to get the rest of the gun clean.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
“Mili-Tec 1 is one of the modern lubes that seals into the pores of the metal. Mili-Tec 1 requires some heat to do this (it doesn’t take that much – you can use a hair dryer). By doing the ‘Mili-Tec 20′ you get a nice, slick, hard coating on the inside of your barrel. In a class I put over 500 rounds through my XD-45 – all cheap Winchester White Box. Barrel looked pretty cruddy right afterward but still not too bad. One pull of the boresnake and it looked pretty clean. Two pulls and it was mirror-shiny again. Took a bit longer to get the rest of the gun clean.”
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Sweet! Nice to know Steve, thanks.
Try a XD out Ahab and you may decide that “them new-fangled semi-automatic pistols” aint so bad. 🙂