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.

I've seen a handful of XDm's with metal triggers, but all the newer ones, including all the 5.25s have plastic ones as far as I can tell. Honestly, it never really seemed liked a big deal, I had never seen a factory one break, until now....

Trophy shops are good, otherwise find a friend with a laser engraver and offer to bring the beer.

The Amp 37's look awesome, but $1150? I could buy another gun for that. Even the passive Pro 37's are listed at $135.

I have to imagine that Walther will at least get the 5 inch M2 added to the list once they sell more of them. When I played with one at the NRA show last year they told me all about how they want to sell it to the competition market, seeing as other companies have had a lot of success with out-of-the-box competition guns.

Honestly, it's not used on any factory XDm's, so IDPA's rule actually makes sense on this. Springfield has OEM parts numbers for the PRP trigger because their custom shop uses it and they wanted their guys (mostly Robbie) to be able to shoot it in USPSA production, but if they installed them on a mass-market gun in the states and actually sold enough of them it would be fine, regardless of whether the Croatians use it. You can definitely build a good trigger in an XDm without changing the trigger part itself, you just have to use the Springer Precision parts...

If only that were possible Springfield Armory will replace the broken trigger . . . even pay shipping both ways. And, you can't beat that! But. they would not send me a new trigger, even if I were to send them the broken one first. Can I just buy a new trigger outright? No, she told me . . . that creates a liability issue for Springfield. Well, my open XDm is missing all those inner safety part thingys, so . . . what to do? I swapped the trigger out with the trigger in my factory stock XDm, and sent them that gun Silly people! What XDm owner has not completely disassembled their lower? I do it twice a year! Oh well, they do pay shipping both ways, as I said. That's why I buy aftermarket trigger assys and carry all the factory stuff with me as a spare. You carry the factory trigger parts around? Is that something you would swap out at a match? I only carry 4 parts, in my range bag. (1) extra recoil spring, (2) the slide / striker spring pin, (3) a spare Carver mount / trigger assembly bolt and (4) a second gun. If the first 3 parts do not fix the problem, I go directly to the backup gun. I won't disassemble my gun any further, on a safe area bench. Too many stinking small pieces-parts to keep track of. I am nursing thoughts of purchasing an after market trigger. But then, would there be a problem installing it in a Springer built gun? Then there is this fact . . . 3 XDm's, with the oldest one 5 years old now, and this is the first timer ever a part has failed. Having a second gun (and maybe a third) is absolutely the way to go if you can, but I still keep a plano box full of every part I can in my shooting bag for big matches. I've got basically one of every spring in the gun, retainer pins, trigger parts, etc, just in case. I'd rather swap guns than fix something between stages, but for multi-day matches I usually tear the gun down and check it out each night and I want to be able to replace anything that looks like it might cause a problem. This is totally overkill of course with an XDm...

The PRP triggers in SSP question has popped up several times before, and it might be worth a call to HQ, but I think the consensus was that all their kits are illegal in SSP because they replace the trigger itself with an externally visible, alternate part. You can replace any of the internal trigger parts (bar, springs, sear, etc), which is how springer builds their triggers, so those are definitely legal. Other than that, you can change internal parts like the recoil spring and put some skate tape on it, that's about it.

Ouch, I'm starting to think I should keep a spare in my parts box.

The blade tech holsters are pretty solid, but I tend to prefer the comp-tac international. The tradeoff is that the comp-tac drop offset hanger isn't as good, but considering I switch back and forth between IDPA and USPSA, I just wear my holster in the same place for both sports so I don't have to alter my draw. I actually have the paddle mount on mine, which works really well when clipped onto a DAA belt.

You're right, it's not worth buying a new gun just to switch divisions, and in this case, single stack minor makes a lot of sense and isn't as much of a handicap as minor might be in other divisions anyway. I meant more as a general rule, if people haven't already bought other gear, it's nice to start them out with 9mm in a division where it's competitive.