Rob Leatham’s Shooting Blog

Just finished practicing with a friend of mine from Mexico.  We were both shooting Tactical XD9s.  I am becoming more and more impressed with how easily shooters are able to adapt to and benefit from the trigger on a tuned XD.  I switched halfway through the session to a Custom Shop 1911 9mm operator with a 1-lb. trigger, fully expecting to obliterate the scores I shot with the XD.  Wrong!  As I become more familiar  with the workings of the plastic wonder, I am liking it more and more.

I am old school and love the 1911, but it took me several runs to get up to speed and then I only beat the XD score by a couple tenths of a second.  I must confess that I am getting pretty good results from my latest trigger tuning experiments, and while it is some times 2 steps forward and 1 step back, my knowledge of what the mechanism can and can’t do is getting better.

There are now several folks I have personal experience with and can recommend to do trigger work.  

My personal guns are from the home of the Custom XD, The Springfield Armory Custom Shop.  Dave Williams runs the place and Jeremy and Jason, who do the bulk of the work on my guns, can give you just what you want; A trigger job that is light, clean and reliable.   Order a set of sights, have the barrel fit tightened up and you are ready to win in production class.

Springfield of course has an advantage over the rest because we make the XD and know more about the gun’s ins and outs.  Another plus is you do not void your warranty when we work on your gun.  Of course, they can do more than just a trigger job!  No matter how far you want to go, The Custom Shop will take you there.  I have seen some pretty exotic stuff come out of those doors and the quality and service is the best in the business.  My shooting career is testament to the performance they can put into a pistol.  

Marty at Accuracy Speaks Gunsmithing is doing triggers for many in our area and he is getting very proficient.  Plus he is a really nice guy, but don’t tell him I said so.  Ask him about his non-slip grip, it is awesome!

Rich Dettelhouser at Canyon Creek is one of the XD pioneers and also on the “approved” list.  Rich does XDs from mild to wild and can definitely deliver what you need.

If you have your XD work done by any of these guys, I know you will be happy with the results.

Springer Precision is making quite a few parts for the XD now and the quality is outstanding.  They are worth a look for sure.  

A part I am now testing in one of my guns is from Powder River Precision.  They call it an XD striker safety lever kit and it will reduce your trigger travel and trigger reset distance when properly installed.  I  see he has kits available for the XDM and I am going to try one in my .40 soon.  The M already has a shorter trigger movement than the standard XD, so I am excited to test that out.   

All custom XD work needs to be done by someone who knows the mechanism!  While experimenting with the XD I have ruined about every part imaginable, so save yourself the grief and only allow work on your gun to be performed by those who understand its function.  If in doubt, send it to The Springfield Custom Shop.  Rob

I have a new past time; watching my daughter play soccer.  Her team, the Strikers, plays in the Gilbert Youth Soccer Association, and is she a stud!  If you have never had the pleasure of watching your kid play sports, you do not know what you are missing.  Now, if you do not have kids, this would be the most boring thing you could subject yourself to, but when it is your kid, it is more exciting than any pro sport I have ever watched.  I wish I could keep up with them little monsters, but they are getting fast.  Plus they are always trying to kick me in the head with the ball when I play goalie!

It is entertaining to watch the coaches trying to get the kids to work together.  Sometimes it is like trying to herd cats, it just ain’t gonna happen.  They are playing great, though, and it is immensely fun for me to see my daughter get in there and mix things up!  She is very aggressive sometimes!  Where does that come from? Probably her mom….

World Shoot XV in Bali is over!  Team USA won gold medals in: Open, Open Lady, Open Junior, Standard, Production, and Modified.

They also won a bronze medal in Standard Senior.

Individual gold medal winners are: Travis Tomasie for Standard, Athena Lee for Open Lady, KC Esubio for Junior, and JoJo Vidanes for Modified.

Congratulations to all of the winners and all the U.S. Shooters who made the journey to Bali. I look forward to getting reports about the match.

I am glad to see Travis kept the gold for standard division here in the States. Following up his Nationals victory with the World Shoot crown is sweet! Makes me feel better about not being there.  He is a good guy and should win regularly now that the ice has been broken.

I especially want to congratulate JoJo on his modified win.  He is just about as nice a guy as I know and the modified division guns are really cool.  They are what open guns should have developed into.  In the states we do not have the category very often, but  they are the most hi-tech guns being shot and I would love to compete in that class some day?!  I have some pretty cool ideas for the gun.  Maybe I should get Springfield Custom working on something just in case!…   Anyhow, way to go JoJo.

Again to all the US shooters, thanks for being there and doing such a great job of representing our United States of America!

Rob

I have on my #1 XD9 production gun a Warren Tactical rear sight with green fiber optics.  On the front is my standard .100 wide and .205 tall Dawson Precision front with red fiber optic tube.  I have been shooting this setup for a few months now and I am really liking it.  The rear has a huge rear notch that is  round on the bottom corners instead of square as is customary.  The notch is also very deep which works really well with the tall front. At first, I did not like the shape of the top and sides of the non fiber optic sight as it had too short of a horizontal surface for me.  All that is gone with the fiber optic version, as I am using the dots more than the notch for fast aiming.

More to come as testing continues, but you can check these sights out at Warren Tactical.

Rob

Well, I am still trying to get that magic sub sonic light recoiling load for minor.  I am trying 125 and 115 grain bullets loaded close to the power factor. The issue is the speed of sound. The 147 grainers never get close, but the 115’s have to run right near to get the gun to work and make minor. 

Speed of sound is 1130fps at 70 degrees F and I need a minimum velocity of 1087fps to make minor power factor. If you run that average up to about 50 fps over you are at the S.O.S. So it looks like the next test will be with 125 grainers which will only need 1050fps to make minor comfortably. I hope I can find a bullet that shoots as accurately as the 115’s when running the right speed. 

Of course shooting here in AZ all summer where the temperature is 100 degrees plus, the S.O.S goes way up and I can shoot the 115’s without these issues. 

Rob

I have a curious thing going on with my ammo for production class.  I prefer to shoot heavy bullets going slow with fast powders, but am now having trouble getting the accuracy out of this setup in 4 of my 5 XD9’s?  I like the 147-grainers feel but they just are not shooting that well loaded down to 900 FPS.  115’s shoot great out of all the guns regardless of barrel manufacturer but are especially accurate out of the Bar-Sto in my oldest gun.  Problem is I want to stay subsonic and I have to go too fast with the 115’s to make minor.  The search continues …

Rob

I am now trying bullets in the 125 range to see what happens.

I am shooting a little sporting clays these days.  The Rio Salado Sportsman’s Club has a very nice Sporting setup that is a blast to shoot.  I split my shooting between my Beretta 390 and Krieghoff K-80. I have a set of 34″ barrels at Briley getting ported and choke tubed for the K-80 and look forward to shooting those.

My scores have been O.K. thus far but I am still missing  easy shots regularly.  I used to shoot the Sportsman’s Team Challenge with my pal’s Mike Voigt and Arnt Myhre and was shotgunning regularly, but a few years have passed and I am a little bit rusty!

It is quite a bit different than pracrical pistol amd so are the shooters.  One thing is consistent though, all shooters are gadget freaks!  We all want to find a piece of equipment that can help us shoot better.  I think I may have to break down and buy ammo so I can practice more and may even seek out a a little advice from someone better than me to make that next step.

Rob

Marty at Accuracy Speaks Gunsmithing has been doing some really nice trigger jobs on the XD. He has found a way that allows the trigger to stay at the normal position forward at rest and reduce it’s travel rearward for a longer length of pull.  The method I am using  basically moves the trigger rearward to take out the pre-travel.

He has also found the mix to get the triggers as light as any I have seen that actually work.  I can recommend this work for any of you XD fans out there with long fingers.

Rob

Well the DMSC Nationals is over and it was a complete success.  I want to thank all who worked on it, especially the RO’s, Match Director Mickey Darren, Range Master Scott Durkin and Polle Blanton on stats.

My wife Kippi worked on this event day and night leading into the week of the match and without her each year this event could not happen.  She is off to Mesquite NV. with her girlfriends R and R’ing but I want her to know that I truly appreciate the effort she puts in to make this event run so smoothly.  The scores are up on the Drillmaster Web Site.

I also want to thank the participants who came out to shoot.  There were absolutely no protests or problems that I know of, and this is due to the shooters and the staff working together.  Thank you all.

I promise to make the drills for the IDPA targets a little less confusing next time, so you won’t have to shoot so much weak hand over no-shoots!  Sorry, it seemed like a good idea at the time!

Anyway, thank you again for those who attended and worked and I will see you at the next monthly.   We have a makeup drill to shoot so there will be two this month.

You can see me shoot one of the drills here.

Later,

Rob