Can I alter XD grip safety?

[Owen Sparks]

I keep hearing the same horror story that if the spring in the XD grip safety breaks that the pistol locks up. As you XD owners know, the grip safety must be depressed in order to retract the slide. But what happens if it breaks? You would have a loaded round in the chamber and no way to either fire or eject it. And you can't ship it back to the factory "loaded". Some have said that this problem is caused by people dissembling the pistol and reassembling it incorectly. Some say that this is a myth, it may be. I can see no practical reason for this slide locking feature. If there is a way to deactivate the slide lock up without deactivating the trigger locking mechanism, I would like to know about it.

OS

 

[kingpin008]

Might just be me, but I've never heard of such an incident actually occurring with any XD, anywhere, under any circumstances. Not saying that it's not possible, but a lot of malfunctions are possible with all manner of firearms - doesn't mean that it's likely to happen.

Is this just something you've heard, or have you seen proof of such? Not trying to bust your chops - I'm just curious if there's any truth to the matter. I rather like XD's, and would be suprised if this is anything more than rumor.

 

[Owen Sparks]

No proof, just a third hand story that keeps repeating. Stands to reason that if there was some malfunction of the grip safety, even if it were my own fault, I would have a real quandry. How could you get the loaded round out of the chamber if the grip safety fails?

 

[BitOfGrit]

To tell you the truth, I'm no subject matter expert on this. I can really only give you a bit of wisdom that I was told and some anecdotal evidence. All the failure's I've heard of have been the failure for the grip safety to release (as in, it stays depressed) --and those were all on very old 1911's.

My bit of wisdom is that if this gun were to be used for self defense, you would be opening yourself to quite a bit of criticism for making your gun less safe. I'm sure a good prosecutor could make something menacing of your purely practical decision.

Sorry I didn't answer your original question, though. If you are a hands-on person, check out Springfield's website. If you download the .pdf manual of your XD, you'll see on page 15 of the manual an exploded parts diagram (as referenced in this thread). Hope this helps!

 

[lee n. field]

I keep hearing the same horror story that if the spring in the XD grip safety breaks that the pistol locks up. As you XD owners know, the grip safety must be depressed in order to retract the slide. But what happens if it breaks?

Never heard of anything like that happening. Stop worrying about it.

Stands to reason that if there was some malfunction of the grip safety, even if it were my own fault, I would have a real quandry.

I think if you muck with it you're more likely to be the cause of a grip safety malfunction.

Anyway, let's think about this for a second. The grip safety blocks the sear, and keeps it from dropping. The default position with spring intact and functioning is out, and actuated. Push the safety in, the sear is no longer blocked. If the spring breaks, what's going to happen? Likely the grip safety will stay down -- safety off.