handloader357
Member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2010
- Messages
- 156
I used to like mine and wish I still could. Also let me add that I love my XD45c and it's my go to handgun for things that go bump in the night. I'll try to keep this brief as possible, but it's a long story...
April of 2013 - Purchased a black on black XDs 45. Ran roughly 400 trouble free rounds through it between April and August. Factory hardball, LSWC handloads, berry's 230 grain plated handloads, Tula, Winchester PDX and Federal Hydrashocks using 5 and 7 round magazines. When I mean trouble free I mean 100% perfect trouble free. Strong hand, weak hand.. I tried to get the gun to malfunction and could not.
Sept 2013 - Thoroughly cleaned and sent in for recall.
January 2014 - After Springfield had my XDs for roughly the same amount of time I did, I got it back and gave it a quick cleaning. Trigger was terribly heavy but not crunchy like some people had. 1st time out I had several problems of not returning to battery accompanied by off center light strikes. Also had light on center strikes with the gun in battery. Had occasional feed issues as well.
Went home a bit disappointed with the situation - but determined to figure out the problems. Upon removing the striker assembly, I found a ton of goo and what were seemingly polymer shavings in the channel. Problem solved, so I thought....
Feb 2014 - Back to the range and same problems. Fail to feed, fire, and return to battery. Went to see my local smith who inspected the gun and found some more shavings and junk in the trigger assembly. He did a detailed clean for me. The gun was now spotless. Went back out the next day and had the same problems that seemingly got worse, not better. Luckily, this gun had a davidson's warranty and for a small shipping fee, they swapped me out for a brand new shiny post recall XDs.
March 2014 - Did my swap with Davidson's... They are a great company to work with. Got my new XDs, cleaned and went to the range. Hardball in a 5 round mag worked great! My POI was a bit low, but was more concerned with function. I could not feed hardball from the 7 round mags. I had failures with the nose coming up too high, nose dipping down to far or the slide cycling and never stripping the next round. No problems with the same ammo from 5 round mags, my LSWC handloads work perfectly in 5 round mags as well. 7 rd mags went out to Springfield, they said they were defective and I received 3 new ones back from them. These new 7 round mags are still terribly unreliable but they only have the nose up feed problem - some improvement at least. Lastly, the trigger was 9lbs 9 oz so I had my local smith install the PRP kit and put a PRP grip on the gun. Was a great improvement.
April 2014 - Time to try some hollow points - what a disappointment. PDX1 and Hydrashocks do not feed from the 5 round mags. LSWC and ball ammo is fine. Also, my Hornady XTP 230 grain handloads work just fine. I call Springfield and they do an RMA. Per their directions I sent the gun, both 5 round mags and the original springs. I enclosed a detailed letter with a packing list. I get the gun back a week later, filthy, and they say no problem found. Also, I only got one mag back and no springs. At least they changed the rear sight so my POI is now pretty much dead on.
After a run around and some phone tag, I get a call from the tech who 'tested' the gun who tells me that I never send the additional mag or springs and basically accused me of lying to him. He claims he never got the letter/packing list either. When I asked him why he changed the rear sight then he had no response. He damn well got the letter and packing list, I think he just misplaced my additional mag and springs. After some more run around, they say they can't find my original packaging mag or springs and they will not replace them. A few more rounds of phone tag and they finally agreed to send me a 5 round mag but the springs are "restricted".
Now I've lost patience... Here's my most recent email to Springfield. Supposedly they have escalated to upper management but I haven't received a response as of yet......
------------------
You can disregard the portion about sending a tracking number. I received one earlier this afternoon.
-------------------
Even though you were not able to resolve 2 out of 3 of my issues, I wanted to again thank you for all the time and effort you put into our conversation earlier today. I wanted to also take this opportunity to document and recap our conversation regarding my 3 outstanding problems.
1. Springfield is unable to locate the springs that accompanied my pistol to the repair shop. Springfield will never be able to find them and is unwilling to replace them. I will not be compensated in any way, shape or form for this.
2. Springfield is unable to locate the additional magazine that accompanied my pistol to the repair shop. Springfield will be sending me a replacement 5 round magazine. Please send me the tracking number for this at your earliest convenience.
3. Springfield is unwilling to fix the problems with the feed ramp in my pistol. This should be a factory repair at no cost to me - but Springfield is unwilling to do the requested work even if I pay. I will have the problem repaired locally. Springfield will not compensate me for this in any way, shape or form.
I find the resolutions to items 1 and 3 unacceptable. At this point I want to extend my hand to Springfield one last time to either make an offer to address these issues, or to escalate within your organization to a higher level of management or your custom shop for resolution. If items 1 and 3 remain unchanged, I will take action from my end which will include correspondence with the BBB and the BATFE.
Finally, below is something I wrote on a message board today where several of my XDs owning peers have been battling a similar feed problem. The following message describes in great detail the problem I am having. There is no user error here as you implied on our conversation earlier - this is basic physics regarding the feed ramp. I offer this information both to justify my position and to hopefully get this data to your engineers. If the right people actually read this (unlike the last guy who obviously did not read the letter I enclosed with my pistol) I think we can all benefit.
"I bit the bullet (haha...) and went to the range today at lunch time. The new 7 round magazines Springfield sent me fixed the nose down feed issues, however I still have the nose up feed issues with any type of ammo in the 7 round magazines. I have the same nose up failure running Hydrashocks and Winchester PDX ammo from both 5 and 7 round magazines.
So far the only reliable combinations of magazine/ammo I have found for my XDs is:
5 rd mags -
230 grain ball (WWB, CBC, Federal and Berry's Bullets handloads)
200 grain LSWC handloads
230 grain Hornady XTP handloads
7 rd mags - Nothing feeds reliably.
The portion of the feed ramp that resides in the frame seems to be at too steep of an angle causing the nose of the bullet to get hung. Being that 7 round magazines sit about .010" lower in the magwell this problem is exasperated causing the angle to steepen that much more. This is why some people have so many and varied nose up problems depending on bullet shape and how well the magazine fits. The lower ramp needs to be cut and polished. I was able to duplicate this problem 8 times during the course of firing 21 rounds (7 rounds x 3 mags). If you hold the gun at just the right angle you can see where the wall of the case is wedged right up against the lower ramp and the nose is firmly planted in the top of the mouth of the chamber.
Hornady XTP HP bullets have a tapered nose which allows the upward force of the round to push the nose against the top of the mouth of the chamber. The same goes for the LSWC bullets. If you rack them in slow-mo you can see this happening. The tapered nose acts as a lever and pushes the round into place to properly chamber. This is why these hollow points work, but the more round/flat nosed shaped bullets no not. The hollowed portion of the non XTP bullet crashes into the chamber squarely enough to cause a stoppage.
Ball ammo works because the bullet passes the center of the circumference of the nose allowing the bullet to 'roll' across the mouth of the chamber and fall down into place like it should.
The tolerances are so close, that when you add the extra depth with a 7 round magazine between the bottom of the ramp and the top of the magazine that the angle is just right to get the nose of the 230 grain ball bullet to pitch itself perfectly into the tip of the mouth of the chamber which is why they jam like hollow points in the 5 round mags.
A few thousands of adjustment to the ramp would have a huge impact on the angle at which the bullet approaches the chamber and correct both of these issues."
Again, despite our lack of resolution I appreciate the time you have invested in dealing with these problems.
So that's my XDs story... That's why I hate this little gun and Springfield for their lack of support. Hindsight being 20/20 I wish I never sent my original XDs in for the recall. I'm thinking about taking my chances on doing the feed ramp myself. I did the ramp on both my 1911's and throated one of them. Those guns run like a champ, so I guess I did a decent job.
I really do want to like this gun again, but I'm out of patience. If you add what my time is worth, the cost of gas, ammo, range fees and such I'm sure I've spent more than the gun is worth trying to make it run right. If you guys have any words of wisdom, I'm all ears and would greatly appreciate it.
Disclaimer: With full power 230 grain ball in 5 round magazines this gun runs 100%, once you deviate from that combination is when all the problems happen. Therefore, if someone wants to blame this on limpwristing, I'll meet you in an alley to show you what my hands can do
