BungeeeMan

I only own a 5.25 in 9mm, so I haven't tested this personally, but I've been told by several knowledgeable people that both the 9mm and .40 guns ship with the same 18# recoil spring. In my experience, the Wolff replacement springs have a slightly different spring rate than the factory, but I'm sure an 18# would work just fine for .40

My first batch of factory XDm 9mm mag springs lasted for about a year of competition use, which in this case was probably ~12,000 rds between 7 mags in USPSA and IDPA. At some point my gun went from being 100% reliable to having what looked like a double feed malfunction about every 100-200 rds. I only saw it in matches, and my first response was always to clear it and finish the stage, so I never stopped and looked at it thoroughly. After making sure the extractor was fine, I replaced the mag springs, since they were somewhat compressed anyway, and the problem disappeared. Now I'm a little paranoid about keeping them fresh, but it's cheap insurance in the grand scheme of things.

I haven't really used the dawsons, since I shoot production exclusively, but a friend of mine ran them for a while when he was shooting 9mm limited minor (for fun). They seemed to work well and come off quickly with no tools.

The TTI basepads look pretty slick, but if they don't end up making them for the XDm, or you just don't want to wait, the dawson 140mm basepads are a good choice: https://www.dawsonprecision.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000076-1388517804

I love the international's holster body, I think it's generally molded better than the blade-techs, and the paddle mount rocks for IDPA. The one downside for USPSA is the DOH hanger, which is kind of floppy and gets in the way of my thumb on the draw (like most DOH hangers, including the blade-tech). I recently got my hands on a boss mount from Ben Stoeger's shop (http://www.benstoegerproshop.com/BSPS-BOSS-DOH-Holster-Hanger-p/bsps-hanger.htm) and mounted my international to it. It's by far the best production setup out there.

It's absolutely legal, since there are no altered external parts (like the trigger itself). I've been running one for a while and it's great.

I think the lesson here is that leaving a little tolerance on the overtravel stop is always a good thing. Nobody loses matches because they have a hair too much overtravel...

Without revealing any secret tricks, what parts are you altering/swapping out in the XDs's to improve the trigger pull?

do you think they will make an ssp trigger? The PRP trigger system depends on some altered trigger geometry and a hard over travel stop built into the trigger, so they have to replace the OEM trigger to really improve it over the factory system. I kind of doubt they'll change, seeing as they obviously think that's the best way to do it, and the hard over travel stop is nicely adjustable to get as much travel out as possible. The Springer Precision system uses a different trigger bar to control travel, so they keep the stock trigger and thus it's an SSP legal system. It's got a different feel from the PRP system, though they are both pretty amazing for plastic gun triggers. I lean towards the Springer system anyway, it's got a little crisper break than any of the PRP triggers I've tried, but if you want to shoot SSP it's your best option.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this trigger thing is an example of where Springfield has gone wrong on supporting the XDm. I firmly believe you should be able to buy any breakable part of the gun as a spare, but their insistence on replacing things for you, like extractors and now the trigger, is a giant pain when I could do it myself in a few minutes. I love the XDm and will continue to shoot one for a long time, but I don't want to be without my competition gun for a few weeks just so they can replace a part and "protect themselves from liability."

The PRP triggers are production legal, but as you said, not SSP legal in IDPA.

The PRP triggers are legal for production since Springfield lists them as an OEM part and sold enough of them, although I prefer the Springer Precision setup anyway. I bought my gun from Scott's shop and had them build the trigger and put on a narrower dawson front sight (0.100" w/ red fiber). You can play with the guide rod if you want to add a little weight within the 2 oz. margin, either by switching to solid SS, or Springer sells a little tungsten weight you can add to the hollow guide rod that just makes it in terms of weight. Otherwise the gun doesn't need much done to it, the factory barrels are awesome and it doesn't really need any tuning to run.

Love my desert acadias. I've done horrible things to those boots, but they just seem to get a little nicer every time I wear them.

Temple did switch their 3rd Sunday IDPA match to USPSA, and it's been awesome. Austin is pretty heavy on IDPA clubs in the area (copperas cove, capital area practical shooters in liberty hill, temple, etc.), but all the clubs I mentioned put on really good matches. There's been some growth in USPSA though with ALSPPC and the fact that Temple started doing it. San Antonio is more of a USPSA town in general, but if you're not too picky about what you shoot, there are matches all the time.

I'm with Scott on this one, a lot of grip tape on the backstrap does more harm than good. I like to be able to slide my hand down into the beavertail when I draw, especially from surrender. I was playing with Bob Vogel's glock 34 during a class and I thought it was interesting that he had just a spot of grip tape as an index mark at the very bottom of the backstrap and the rest was clean, for the same reason I mentioned.