Who would you go to for XD accuracy work?

[IHAVEGAS]

Really like the XD platform but of the three I have purchased one (a 4", made back when the guns were supplied with a test target) is a tack driver since day one, one I gambled on and had a new barrel installed (came out well but I don't know if I just got lucky), and the other one I'd like to get made more accurate.

I've tried the usual suspects for match barrel installation and I figured it would be like getting accuracy work done on a CZ for example, they tell you what you can expect and supply a test target to verify results either for free or for a fair fee.

I tried Springfield, they do not check their work after barrel install, could not tell me what accuracy they would guarantee ("groups sizes are generally about 1/2 what they were") and had the cahones to suggest a $100.00 fee if I wanted a test target. Tried Springer Precision next, similar response except I got the feeling that they do not even have the ability to ransom rest test the gun.

I hate to give up on getting the work done, but I hate to spend significant money with any vendor who can't tell me what I'm getting for the money and who won't specify any sort of criteria for acceptable work.

Any suggestions on who might be able to install a match barrel & verify performance to a reasonable specification?

[fishsticks]

Have you tried calling Springer Precision?

[dapribek]

He did try Springer.

[cletus9mm]

Could try canyoncreek. Rich made an xdm for my wife that shoots very well even though ive never bothered to quantify its performance with a test target. He welds the frame up to remove some of the play in the slide. He does a fantastic job. The 2 xdms ive felt that he did (his 4p guns) feel and shoot very well.

[racingjoe27]

I would recommend Rich at Canyon Creek too but he is not accepting work at this time and I'm not positive he does sample targets?... Whats your timeframe for having this done?

Any gunsmith who can weld up and refit the rails and propperly fit barrels should be able to do the work, but ransom rest testing with a sample target may be harder to come by. You may have to try and get someone out of their wheel house to do this (i.e. get a 1911 or CZ smith). The problem being that if its a foreign platform to them they may be inclined to charge more

[IHAVEGAS]

I would recommend Rich at Canyon Creek too but he is not accepting work at this time and I'm not positive he does sample targets?... Whats your timeframe for having this done?

Definitely looks like 1 for the short list. Thanks folks!

Time frame is sometime between now and next spring if possible.

[Loves2Shoot]

We know better than to ransom rest a XD and we explained this previously. Rich will tell you the same thing. We have fit barrels for some of the top competitors at the Bianchi Cup using the XDM 5.25 and our barrel fitting is good enough for them. We can provide test targets at 25 yards (that is were we test them) on request with our match ammo on request. Rich would do a great job for you as would Barsto and Springfield.

[IHAVEGAS]

We know better than to ransom rest a XD and we explained this previously. Rich will tell you the same thing. We have fit barrels for some of the top competitors at the Bianchi Cup using the XDM 5.25 and our barrel fitting is good enough for them. We can provide test targets at 25 yards (that is were we test them) on request with our match ammo on request. Rich would do a great job for you as would Barsto and Springfield.

An explanation somewhere about the ransom rest sounds like a good chance for me to learn something, perhaps it was explained somewhere on this forum?

Otherwise, when I enquired previously via email request what I got back from SP was "We don't offer any kind of accuracy guarantees." and then later after I questioned this the response was "We can not control the ammo you shoot, the conditions, or your shooting skill." If there is confusion about what I asked or was told and I could help by resending the complete emails, please feel free to pm me.

If test targets and some reasonable guarantee of results are available this is what seems reasonable to me and what I was looking for.

I have no wish to fuss at SP or anybody else, just looking to see if I can get some accuracy work done and know for sure what I'm paying for. I understand that pretty much all manufacturers do some impressive work for some top shooters but I'm guessing that their is an extreme level of scrutiny that is associated with those guns, how much if any of that transfers to average Joe Blows gun probably varies quite a bit based upon manufacturer and circumstances (or at least to me that seems like a reasonable assumption).

[Loves2Shoot]

We can not possibly give and X% improvement guarantee, as there is no way to know what the starting point is for your particular pistol. I've had factory barrels that group incredibly well and you might have a negligible gain in accuracy. The XD/XDM is service type pistol and there is slide and frame play and the polymer grip does not lend itself well to testing in a fixture, even if you tighten them up, which has side effects also. We went away from the accuracy guarantee years ago, because it was more of a headache than anything else with people who did not use the ammunition or have the skill to realize the improvements. An accurate barrel doesn't mean that you will shoot a better group, it just means the bullets will go more precisely where you tell them to go. We fit every barrel to the same standard and we only use Barsto barrels, so the average Joe gets the same care as any big name shooter, and I don't think that is unique to use for the people I recommended.

[IHAVEGAS]

We can not possibly give and X% improvement guarantee, as there is no way to know what the starting point is for your particular pistol. I've had factory barrels that group incredibly well and you might have a negligible gain in accuracy. The XD/XDM is service type pistol and there is slide and frame play and the polymer grip does not lend itself well to testing in a fixture, even if you tighten them up, which has side effects also. We went away from the accuracy guarantee years ago, because it was more of a headache than anything else with people who did not use the ammunition or have the skill to realize the improvements. An accurate barrel doesn't mean that you will shoot a better group, it just means the bullets will go more precisely where you tell them to go. We fit every barrel to the same standard and we only use Barsto barrels, so the average Joe gets the same care as any big name shooter, and I don't think that is unique to use for the people I recommended.

Ok, the horse is still dead .

For what it is worth, I don't think that the typical customer will be looking for an "X% improvement guarantee" . I think a lot of us are looking for something like what you get from outfits like CZ custom and Les Baer & etc that will tell you what the gun can do at X yards when they are done with it (under controlled conditions of course).

[cletus9mm]

I held back most of my opinion from my first posting of this thread but since the discussion has started ill add to it. It is if my opinion that an accuracy guarantee is largely meaningless with most pistols and even moreso with a "service pistol" like an xd or any number of variants like it. The first reason being what springer mentioned. There are too many variables to control. Ransom rests are far from an end all be all quantifier of accuracy. The rest itself imparts variables that arent precisely repeatable. There are various arguments that can be found through searching the web. When it comes to practical shooting there are other factors that lend themselves to shooting a pistol accurately vs shooting an accurate pistol. The trigger being one of the biggest factors im referring to. Again, without quantifying hard numbers ill shoot a pistol better with average accuracy and a great trigger vs a gun with an average trigger and great accuracy. Im all for having some sort of guarantee when i shell out my hard earned money but the guarantee in this game comes from the reputation of good companies and good gunsmiths that make a gun more accurate in the hands of practical shooters. Unfortunately that is hard to quantify with numbers. All the best.

[IHAVEGAS]

I held back most of my opinion from my first posting of this thread but since the discussion has started ill add to it. It is if my opinion that an accuracy guarantee is largely meaningless with most pistols and even moreso with a "service pistol" like an xd or any number of variants like it. The first reason being what springer mentioned. There are too many variables to control. Ransom rests are far from an end all be all quantifier of accuracy. The rest itself imparts variables that arent precisely repeatable. There are various arguments that can be found through searching the web. When it comes to practical shooting there are other factors that lend themselves to shooting a pistol accurately vs shooting an accurate pistol. The trigger being one of the biggest factors im referring to. Again, without quantifying hard numbers ill shoot a pistol better with average accuracy and a great trigger vs a gun with an average trigger and great accuracy. Im all for having some sort of guarantee when i shell out my hard earned money but the guarantee in this game comes from the reputation of good companies and good gunsmiths that make a gun more accurate in the hands of practical shooters. Unfortunately that is hard to quantify with numbers. All the best.

Absolutely a valid way to look at things I think and a ransom rest is certainly not the only way to verify accuracy. I guess deep down I'm a Reagan man, "trust, but verify" .

[RJH]

I understand what you are wanting, you want, "When we are done with this pistol it will be capable of 2 inch groups at 25 yards, and here is the target we shot with it." (Correct me if I am wrong) To me this seems reasonable, especially if a shop is doing "accuracy" work. Good luck in your endeavor.

[d_striker]

There's a guy named Bill Springfield that works on all sorts of firearms. One of the services he offers is putting a spot weld on the bottom of the barrel lug and fits it to improve the lockup.

I've never had him work on any of my stuff but I hear he does great work.

http://www.triggerwork.net/springfield-armory-xd---xdm-pistols.html

[cletus9mm]

I understand what you are wanting, you want, "When we are done with this pistol it will be capable of 2 inch groups at 25 yards, and here is the target we shot with it." (Correct me if I am wrong) To me this seems reasonable, especially if a shop is doing "accuracy" work. Good luck in your endeavor.

Is it reasonable? Sure. Is it meaningful? Again, its just my opinion but no. A company or gunsmith can shoot as many groups as they like with as many different brands of ammo as they like to print a fancy group on paper. They can shoot a x inch group at x yards and call it an x shooting gun. People with rifles do it routinely saying they have a quarter minute rifle because they shot a quarter minute group at x yards once. That does not make it a quarter minute rifle. It means that rifle shot quarter minute once. Shoot that same rifle with meaningful number of groups and the size will grow. It will grow because of whatever variable you wish to look at. It will grow because of ammo, shooter, wind, fatigue, whatever. It ultimately doesnt matter. There are companies that guarantee a certain degree of accuracy. In my experience those guns can be so tight that you need to contort yourself, and or have extrordinary grip strength just to manipulate the slide and get a round in chamber. Can it shoot a quantified group? Sure. At what expense? I would argue that most manufacturers with any skin in this game can make a gun accurate enough to be competitive right out of the box bone stock. Companies that massage these pistols make them more capable of being shot accurately and also likely, more accurate . I believe there to be little benefit for a company to say the guns will do x at x yards, because they dont have control over variables once their work is handed over. Its merely an invitation for an argument if someone cant replicate results that they could. There is absolutely a reasonable expectation of performance when people pay for upgrades, but to expect those upgrades to be guaranteed with an absolute number is tough for me to agree with because of the variables involved. Ive had my share of stock guns and custom guns and shot more of each than i can recall. I shoot the "custom" guns better without question. Not because there is a guarantee behind them, but because they are greater than the sum of their parts. You simply cant quantify it.

[RJH]

Cletus, I think you missed my point. If you send a gun in for an "accuracy job" for lack of a better term, then wanting to know that the gun is capable of a certain amount of accuracy should not be a problem. Notice I said the gun is capable, not the shooter. Many companies both large and small offer accuracy guarantees that state the gun is capable of a certain amount of accuracy in controlled conditions, it is not an unheard of event really. Olympic rimfire shooters will send their rifles in to be fired with different lots of ammo to get the best possible accuracy, so saying that this pistol can shoot x size group in our hands with y ammo doesn't seem a stretch. Also if you were a gunsmith fitting a match grade barrel, it would seem firing a group for reliability and accuracy proof would be good idea so that the customer who happened to be a bad shot, shooting crap ammo, could not reasonable complain about the guns lack of accuracy after spending money on it.

[IHAVEGAS]

Is it reasonable? Sure. Is it meaningful?

If it is reasonable, and if it something that many the customers use as a spend - look elsewhere criteria, that can be meaningful.

The other side of it, if there is no quantification of performance that is not a good thing for quality control or any learning and continuous improvement. You can measure aspects of the process but if you do not know the end result, well, you just do not know. Even if there was such a thing as a perfect process which was immune to time and personal change, components are suspect from piece to piece (metalurgy and casting temperature variance for example) and over time (tooling wear for example). I think there is a thread in the XD forum about a batch of Barstow barrels breaking lugs in XD's or XDm's, again, as a for example (did not look up the thread to get a refresher on details).

I don't know percentages, but a lot of shooters place importance on quantifying how well their gun shoots. I think in Enos's book he said he would not settle for worse than 2" at 50 yards. My guns that group well on the bench are also the guns that I can shoot best free hand or in competition, so comparing bench group size is an important evaluation tool to me.

[fishsticks]

He did try Springer.

Oops, I guess I should have read more carefully.

[Loves2Shoot]

I can count the number of people that have asked for a group size guaranty on one hand in the last 10 years. We've fit over 1,000 barrels in that same time. Here is the question that I would pose to you: If you know that many guns will group between 1.5" and 2.5" at 25 yards with a properly fit barrel, maybe 40% being 1.5", 40% 2" and 20% between 2.1 and 2.5" would you say, lets grantee a 3" group just to be safe or 2" knowing that 20% might be a tad over it? What value does that really have?

Honestly, some people get it. It is more of a hassle to deal with guaranteed worth than any return we would get. I can also count the number of people who have returned barrels because they didn't shoot straight enough for them on one hand. Our work is based on referral and word of mouth, so if we don't do a good job, it is up to us to fix it or refund the customer, so not doing a good job means we lose money instead of make money.

If we have a fixture that could print every barrel, we would offer that, but since we must rely on the skill of our shooters, it is subjective to some degree, even though we nave some very accurate shooters. Getting the bullets where you want them to be and having the gun run reliably are both important and a properly fit Barsto barrel does both well.

Edited July 18, 2015 by Loves2Shoot

[IHAVEGAS]

Here is the question that I would pose to you: If you know that many guns will group between 1.5" and 2.5" at 25 yards with a properly fit barrel, maybe 40% being 1.5", 40% 2" and 20% between 2.1 and 2.5" would you say, lets grantee a 3" group just to be safe or 2" knowing that 20% might be a tad over it? What value does that really have?

From a buyers perspective, a minimum performance guarantee is the difference between knowing what you are paying for and not knowing. To me that is of great use in every buying decision. The more data the supplier provides the better. If you tell me 3" worst case with an 80% chance for significantly better performance then I now have at least something to think about and use to decide if your service would be the right option to pursue.

As a supplier, what you establish as acceptable pass/fail limits on quality and what services you offer are going to be driven by hard and soft costs & data & competitor practices & customer satisfaction & etc.. Not hard to understand.

Edited July 18, 2015 by IHAVEGAS

[Loves2Shoot]

Here is the question that I would pose to you: If you know that many guns will group between 1.5" and 2.5" at 25 yards with a properly fit barrel, maybe 40% being 1.5", 40% 2" and 20% between 2.1 and 2.5" would you say, lets grantee a 3" group just to be safe or 2" knowing that 20% might be a tad over it? What value does that really have?

From a buyers perspective, a minimum performance guarantee is the difference between knowing what you are paying for and not knowing. To me that is of great use in every buying decision. The more data the supplier provides the better. If you tell me 3" worst case with an 80% chance for significantly better performance then I now have at least something to think about and use decide if your service would be the right option to pursue.

As a supplier, what you establish as acceptable pass/fail limits on quality and what services you offer are going to be driven by hard and soft costs & data & competitor practices & customer satisfaction & etc.. Not hard to understand.

Well, that is what I tell folks. You just happened to contact us while the person that typically answers those questions is on the beach in Hawaii. I've had stock barrels shoot sub 2", so we can not guarantee and increase in performance without testing a pistol first. How much more accurate will the barrel make my pistol is the #1 question people ask, not what group size should I expect. I can tell when I fit a barrel if the first is right or not, shooting it is just a re-verification of what we already know. Apparently, our customers are OK with trusting us to do a good job without a certificate. The ones that aren't are free to chose someone else.

[IHAVEGAS]

Well, that is what I tell folks. You just happened to contact us while the person that typically answers those questions is on the beach in Hawaii. I've had stock barrels shoot sub 2", so we can not guarantee and increase in performance without testing a pistol first. How much more accurate will the barrel make my pistol is the #1 question people ask, not what group size should I expect. I can tell when I fit a barrel if the first is right or not, shooting it is just a re-verification of what we already know. Apparently, our customers are OK with trusting us to do a good job without a certificate. The ones that aren't are free to chose someone else.

"In God we trust, everyone else needs data"

Author Unknown

[cletus9mm]

I have no dog in this fight but i tend to agree more with springer in this discussion. Im looking at this more from the uspsa game. These guns simply dont demand super accurate guns save perhaps for the highest level of competiton. Guns that are slightly more accurate than the next dont make the difference between winning and losing in this game. The people putting these guns out have little to gain by quantifying a group size. There are disciplines where this would be more relevant but uspsa shooting isn't one of them in my opinion.

[Forrest Halley]

I hate to say it, but the pro is right here. The OP sounds like he wants a Les Baer accuracy guarantee from a vendor on a used polymer frame gun after a rebarrel job. Everybody jump at the chance and make sure you give him your personal cell number.*rolls eyes*

I believe Enos shot 1911 variants where the type of fitting needed to achieve 2" groups at 50yds is possible, but many shooters cannot realize that degree of accuracy. Polymer frames are not as tightly controlled in tolerance.

Personally I'd like to see an honest group from any of the three mentioned pistols at 10 yards. Let's us know exactly what we are dealing with.

[IHAVEGAS]

I hate to say it, but the pro is right here. The OP sounds like he wants a Les Baer accuracy guarantee from a vendor on a used polymer frame gun after a rebarrel job. Everybody jump at the chance and make sure you give him your personal cell number.*rolls eyes*

It would be nice, and I think it is a big reason why Les Baer guns are typically guns that you have to order and wait for, but as you have pointed out perhaps not a lot can be expected from the polymer guns?

What the OP really was looking to find is the opportunity to see what accuracy was realistically available and have a chance to decide if it was worth the cost to him. I do the eye roll at "we will take your money but won't promise any results" , but if other folks are happy with that , aok.