BungeeeMan

I agree that shooting cheap 9mm is a great place to start, but ultimately that argument makes more sense if you say people should start in a division where they're not penalized for it, like production. The 10-round mags in single stack minor at least let them shoot stage plans like the production guys, which is often beneficial at multi-division matches, though not matches oriented towards single stack where every position has a 6-8 round array. They can also compare their hit factors to the production shooters pretty easily (and there's never a shortage of them). L10 with a minor gun just seems more likely to frustrate new shooters, because they really are at a disadvantage, any manliness concerns aside...

Yep, it's radioactive hydrogen in a small vial with a phosphor that leads to the color. If you crack it, you'll get yourself a nice whiff of radioactive stuff and it won't be visible. Radium paint would work, but it's nasty stuff, thus the fact that it isn't really manufactured anymore. You could get some tritium vials and drill out slots for them in the sights, but that would be way more of a pain than just buying tritium sights.

Obviously, some people don't like titegroup, but a good, basic minor power factor load is 3.2 gr of titegroup with a 147gr RN bullet (I use plated bullets from xtreme) and 1.150 overall length. I know a lot of people that use similar loads, or go to about 4 grs of powder with 124gr FMJs (like from precision delta). The 147's are a little softer, and shoot very well in most of the firearms I've tried them in. If you want something a little cleaner, you could try vihtavuori powder (my friend uses 3.1 grs of N330 if I remember correctly), but I'm not sure it makes all that much difference.

Though the PRP trigger changes the geometry a little bit to get the feel they want, I think having redundant over travel stops on both the trigger and the bar is more likely to cause problems than benefit you. I remember Scott springer saying somewhere that it was possible to get them to work together, but that it's not a great setup. The two trigger kits result in a different feel, and work just a little differently, so pick which one you like and go with it.

The 0.1" extended mag release is fine since springfield sold a bunch of guns with them. I had a springer precision version on mine, and PRP sells one too.

I'm not the expert on this, but I've been told that the PRP trigger is legal in production because Springfield's shop has sold enough of them with it to make it an OEM part as far as USPSA is concerned. I bet there's info about this all over the forum, but I doubt you'd have to change it out. Both systems are pretty cool, and though I lean towards the springer setup, I wouldn't go to the trouble of switching if I didn't have to.

The over travel stop is one of the main reasons I like the trigger Scott built for me. The PRP bump-stop on the trigger has caused more problems on XDm's that I've seen than anything else, because nobody wants to take enough material off that it still works when the gun isn't pristinely clean.

Tungsten guide rods are also a popular addition to add a little weight to the front of the gun. I think canyon creek makes one that fits the 5.25. Even going to a solid stainless one will add almost two ounces.

The accuracy will probably be about the same with plated HPs. A lot of people shoot hollowpoints in matches, and they're legal for all 3 sports.

Same here, it's an easy preventative maintenance step. I knock out the pin and clean the striker channel and everything else in the slide assembly once in a while, and just put in a new pin afterwards. I've never actually never seen one break though.

I also recommend the ghost 360 pouches. They're cheap (especially compared to DAA race masters), super simple, and have a good combination of retention and ease of release. I use them angled 90 degrees outward from the belt for USPSA, but they come with two bodies you so can either do that or have a more traditional parallel setup. They also don't take up much real estate on the belt, so you can clump them close together. The Ben Stoeger pro shop sells them if you're trying to track some down. A lot of 3 gunners use the safariland 773 with ELS clips because they're easy to swap out with other things, and they aren't bad pouches at all. When I ordered some a while back the safariland people told me to get the wrong size (it fit a slimmer XD-9 mag), but I'm pretty sure the glock 17 size works well, though hopefully someone else could weigh in on that. The DAA race masters are very cool, as are the cheaper racers, but obviously they're pricey and I've heard some complaints about the adjustment ball moving around and the pouches not staying rigid. They're also pretty tall, so there's not as much mag to grab onto, although it's probably better if you're using 140mm basepads. I haven't used them enough the verify any of that, but I've seen a few people switch away from them for production division.

Ammoload is just the brand name they use to headstamp their brass cases, and I think they also make commercial loading machines under the same name. I've heard the company is manufacturing brass for other companies with their names on it, and they sell plated bullets under the x-treme bullets brand name. If you buy reloaded ammo from them you'll get about one of every head stamp known to man in a box, which doesn't seem to matter, but all the new ammo I've seen from them came with that ammoload headstamp.

The box is 8 ¾” x 6” x 1 5/8”, most IDPA clubs make one themselves and keep it around at local matches so you can check your gun. It's also popular to have a stage where the gun starts in the box, just as an easy way to check all the competitors. You can't put a magwell on the gun in SSP, but in ESP it's legal assuming the gun still fits in the box. The dawson ice magwell (usually with +0.1" basepads) and the pistolgear operator magwell (with trimmed 0.25" basepad bumpers) fit in the box on a 5.25, but I know there are several models that don't (often because they're too wide). You can take a ruler to the gun and make sure the dimensions are ok, just make sure you have an empty mag in it.

I've shot up a bunch of the freedom ammo, both 115 gr and 147 gr FMJ's in my XDm 5.25 9mm, and it's generally been very good. Their reloaded ammo has always functioned flawlessly, but I did have a bad batch of newly manufactured ammo (in their house ammoload cases) from them once. The bases were slightly convex, so I had a few ignition failures because the striker didn't put a deep enough dent into the primer to light it off. This happened with maybe 1% of the rounds, but after I told freedom about it, they replaced the whole case of ammo (even though I had shot about half of it up in a class) and the new batch of ammo (still in ammoload cases) has functioned perfectly. Their ammo is probably on par or better accuracy-wise with American Eagle (I haven't shot all that much AE, but I don't remember it being stellar), and I've used it for quite a few club matches over the last year or so.

There's no mag length restriction in IDPA, but no matter what, your gun (with an empty mag inserted) has to fit in the idpa box, which is 8 ¾” x 6” x 1 5/8”, so the 140mm mags won't work. In SSP division, you can use extended basepads provided they don't add more than 1 oz. of weight to the magazine over the factory setup and they still fit in the box. In ESP the rule is similar, but you get up to 1.5 oz of extra weight for the mags. Since you don't get to use the extra capacity, the 140mm extensions are kind of pointless, but there are some legal choices for slightly extended basepads if you prefer them, or you're shooting ESP with a magwell and you need some more length to seat the mags. Springer precision makes a +0.25 basepad that should be ESP legal, dawson precision also makes stock length and extended basepads, and some people use the stick-on pistolgear rubber bumpers to extend the length. With an XDm 5.25 9mm I think you can squeeze a gun with +0.25" basepads into the box but any longer than that won't fit at all. As for guide rods, the heaviest thing you can use is a solid stainless guide rod, check springer precision for that.

All other things being equal, the XDm is the way to go. They're both good platforms, but for a competition gun the XDm is pretty hard to beat out of the box. I carry a 4" XD, which I've owned since they first started selling them and It's a good size, but I shoot an XDm 5.25 9mm for everything else.

I got the same impression when I went to the 16lb Wolff. I've only got about ~1000 rounds through it since and it still doesn't seem lighter than the stock spring. The gun runs fine though, even with the puffball 147gr 9mm loads I've been shooting through it lately and the heavy Wolff striker spring. I may bump down to the 14lb. and see how that goes.

I don't use grip tape much anymore (just baseball rosin), but I do really like the Springer rubber tape cutouts. It's a pretty good middle ground between the stock plastic and full on sandpaper.

I was debating whether I should look into the Hornady LnL instead of a dillon, but this thread pretty much killed that plan. Time for another blue press.

I haven't played around with that, but it makes a lot of sense considering the finish on the catch isn't exactly pristine

I'd love a .22 conversion. It might actually motivate me to shoot steel challenge once in a while...

I have a trigger built by Springer in my 9mm 5.25 ESP/SSP and production gun, which made sense because I wanted a pretty light pull weight (2.75#) and I like they way their triggers break. The best advice I can give you though is to try and find someone with a PRP kit in their XDm and one with the Springer parts and just try them both because they are pretty different. I like narrower front sights so I have a Dawson 0.100 fiber front on it. You don't necessarily need to go that narrow, but the stock front sight is too wide in my opinion (I think it's a 0.125). Aside from the trigger parts, sight, and a 16lb Wolff recoil spring, the gun is stock, because it really doesn't take much to be competitive with an XDm.

I tried some of my friend's test load (he shoots a glock 34 with a storm lake barrel) in my XDm 5.25 and they ended up around 132 PF. He's using X-treme 147gr HPCB's (we got a bunch for cheap to try) with 3.0 gr titegroup and CCI small pistol primers. I think the OAL is 1.150. It feels pretty similar to the Atlanta Arms and Ammo 147gr load I had with me, which is very soft. The accuracy didn't seem so great though, so I'll tweak the load and report back. I don't have any previous experience with the X-treme bullets but I'm worried they're the problem, so I'll weigh some out and see how consistent they are. The gun cycled fine with a 16lb wolf spring though (but I may go to 14 for this load anyway).

I ran the Springer extended release for almost a year and that was pretty easy to release compared to stock. I've since switched back now that it's lightened up a bit, but I wonder if anyone has plans to sell a slightly lighter spring...

It'll probably still run with the stock spring, but Scott's right, 14# is a good choice for a load like that. I shoot all sorts of stuff, mostly factory 124gr, so I'm running a Wolff 16#. I get mine from Springer, which is also a good source for other XDm springs.