My local gun range added one of the XDm-5.25 competition guns to the rental gun case, and I thought I would try it out.
Overall, the gun seemed very well made. The finish was uniform and did not feel gritty. The slide cycled very smoothly, the grip felt very comfortable, and there were no malfunctions during 100 rounds fired.
The trigger reach was fairly short, and the gun feels very slim to grip. The grip serrations are very positive, and the backstrap shape felt comfortable to me. It has a very nice trigger on it; short, crisp, smooth. The gun was also very accurate. I didn't have a rest to really wring out the accuracy potential, but I did shoot a surprisingly tight group with it at 20 yards.
The magazine release was easy to manipulate, and had a very positive feel to it. It is also ambidextrous and worked well that way too. The magazines looked to be well made and ejected positively. They were easier to load than the Ruger SR9 that I borrowed last week.
There is no magazine safety, which I like, and the loaded chamber indicator is, while I feel unnecessary, at least unobtrusive and small. The grip safety was also very easy to depress, and did not annoy me the way they do on some 1911's. The grip safety completely "disappears" when depressed and does not interfere with the feel of your grip.
The slide serrations had a very positive feel to them, but the gun did not really have any sharp edges to it, other than on the large adjustable rear sight. I really hate that I was shooting in a fairly dark indoor range that did not do the fiber-optic front sight justice.
If I were going to use this gun, I would have to adjust my grip slightly, because my straight-thumb-grip rode up on the magazine release. This caused the slide to fail to lock open on the last round. Pointing my shooting thumb up a little fixed the problem. I did notice that in trying to find a new position for my thumb, I found a couple that would cause the slide release to hit my thumb on recoil. Not really painful, but not something I'd want to continue doing for several hundred rounds either.
The gun points more like a 1911 than a GLOCK and I found that when I was just "throwing it out" to aim, my front sight naturally ended up a little high, and I would have to spend a split-second pulling it back down. Again, this would be simple to fix by simply spending hours drawing and dry firing this particular gun at home.
I was very impressed with the gun. I would like to shoot one of the regular duty sized XDm models next, since I'm not really that into competition guns, just to see if the quality is comparable. If any of you have shot both, let me know how they measure up.
Overall, the gun seemed very well made. The finish was uniform and did not feel gritty. The slide cycled very smoothly, the grip felt very comfortable, and there were no malfunctions during 100 rounds fired.
The trigger reach was fairly short, and the gun feels very slim to grip. The grip serrations are very positive, and the backstrap shape felt comfortable to me. It has a very nice trigger on it; short, crisp, smooth. The gun was also very accurate. I didn't have a rest to really wring out the accuracy potential, but I did shoot a surprisingly tight group with it at 20 yards.
The magazine release was easy to manipulate, and had a very positive feel to it. It is also ambidextrous and worked well that way too. The magazines looked to be well made and ejected positively. They were easier to load than the Ruger SR9 that I borrowed last week.
There is no magazine safety, which I like, and the loaded chamber indicator is, while I feel unnecessary, at least unobtrusive and small. The grip safety was also very easy to depress, and did not annoy me the way they do on some 1911's. The grip safety completely "disappears" when depressed and does not interfere with the feel of your grip.
The slide serrations had a very positive feel to them, but the gun did not really have any sharp edges to it, other than on the large adjustable rear sight. I really hate that I was shooting in a fairly dark indoor range that did not do the fiber-optic front sight justice.
If I were going to use this gun, I would have to adjust my grip slightly, because my straight-thumb-grip rode up on the magazine release. This caused the slide to fail to lock open on the last round. Pointing my shooting thumb up a little fixed the problem. I did notice that in trying to find a new position for my thumb, I found a couple that would cause the slide release to hit my thumb on recoil. Not really painful, but not something I'd want to continue doing for several hundred rounds either.
The gun points more like a 1911 than a GLOCK and I found that when I was just "throwing it out" to aim, my front sight naturally ended up a little high, and I would have to spend a split-second pulling it back down. Again, this would be simple to fix by simply spending hours drawing and dry firing this particular gun at home.
I was very impressed with the gun. I would like to shoot one of the regular duty sized XDm models next, since I'm not really that into competition guns, just to see if the quality is comparable. If any of you have shot both, let me know how they measure up.
