The XD40 in the field: Springfield Armory's latest import is an exciting addition to the world of defensive auto pistols

Guns Magazine, June, 2002 by Massad Ayoob

Somebody in Croatia knows how to build a handgun. If the Archduke Ferdinand had been carrying a Springfield Armory XD4O when his assassin approached, WWI might have been averted, at least for a while.

Charlie Petty gives you the hardware and design particulars elsewhere this issue. The editor asked me to report on the XD40's user-friendliness and "shootability." In a word -- I like it.

Feel

A good deal of ergonomic thought has gone into this pistol. It is light and well balanced, but that's common today. The upper backstrap of the frame has been "niched out" to bring the web of the hand in deeper, meaning you can get more finger on the trigger. The hugely-popular Glock appears to have been sized for the hand of an average adult male, with the pad of the index finger on the trigger. On the XD40, such a hand can reach the trigger with the palmar surface of the index finger's distal joint. This is the point the old revolver masters called "the power crease," and gives you more leverage on the trigger.

The grip safety is well placed. I for one like the feature on a gun of this type. When you shove a striker-fired pistol into its holster in the dark after a fight or some other strenuous activity that might have had you rolling around on the ground, you never know if a too-thin safety strap or a twig your body picked up from the ground might find its way into the trigger guard. With an outside hammer gun, a thumb on the hammer stabilizes that part and prevents an accidental discharge. Not so with most striker-fired autoloaders. With the XD40, a thumb in the same place -- right where it will feel the protruding pin that is the cocking indicator -- pulls the web of the hand away from the back of the grip-frame and "locks on" the grip safety. This will prevent an accidental discharge in the scenario just outlined.

Some sort of manual safety also eases anxiety when you have to shove a striker-fired pistol into the waistband, loose, without a holster. I carried the XD40 that way for a day, and the peace of mind was indeed there.

Firing

Recoil was mild, even with the hotter .40 loads. There was more muzzle jump, however, than with the similar-size Glock and Sigma with the same ammo. It's simple physics: the slide and barrel of the XD40 ride distinctly higher above the hand than the Glock's, and consequently, the recoiling pistol has more leverage with which to lift its muzzle against our grasp.

The trigger stroke is sweet. A long, easy pressure comes to a firmer resistance, and then suddenly releases. It is conducive to a surprise trigger break once you've made the decision to fire, and that always helps good shooting. Indeed, the trigger might be a little too easy for high-stress "threat management" applications when you're taking felony suspects at gunpoint. In such moments, our bodies experience vasoconstriction, redirecting blood flow away from extremities like the fingers and into major muscle groups and internal viscera. This is probably the main reason that our dexterity turns to crap under stress. If the finger has migrated to the trigger, none but the coolest and most experienced hands may feel that the trigger is inching backward. I would like to see this pistol offered with an analog to Glock's excellent New York (NY-l) trigger option, which gives a firm resistance to the trigger finger from the very beginning of the stroke.

Sharp edges? The slide grooves were just right, even the ones in the front that some people can't seem to live without, but which some of us consider extraneous. The rear sight edges were sharp, which could be a problem doing malfunction clearance drills with the overhand method, though not with the slingshot (Israeli) method. The only sharp edge I found disconcerting was at the lower rear of the slide stop lever. When firing right-handed with a straight thumb, I found that it would dig into the thumb upon recoil. Not enough to lacerate, but enough to irritate. If I was going to take a class or shoot a big match with this gun, I'd take a file to that corner. Shoot with the right thumb curled down, and it's no problem. It will bother you not at all in left handed shooting, and in fact, the XD40 is very southpaw friendly.

An element of that in point is the ambidextrous magazine release. If you're a right hander, as a generation of HK P7MS and USP shooters have come to realize, it's faster to hit the lefty's thumb release with your trigger finger than to get your thumb around to the one they put there for you. I have always worried

about ambi mag releases dumping the mag unintentionally when they get bumped, but that never happened when I was carrying the test XD40. The designers have wisely built up the polymer grip frame around the release buttons to keep that disaster from happening.

At no time did the pistol malfunction in any way. Reliability was 100 percent. The gun was shot entirely with carry-type hollowpoints.

Accuracy

Testing outdoors on a literally freezing day, I tried the XP40 with four loads, representing the most popular bullet weights for the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge. All would easily stay on the head of an IDPA target from 25 yards. Big, clear sights helped. A distinct, square sight picture was visible even to this geezer's myopic dominant eye, even without corrective lenses. The fixed sights had been reasonably well registered at the factory, being right on for windage and hitting just enough high that a 6 o'clock sight picture put the shots on the money at 25 yards. This was the distance at which accuracy testing was done, with the gun hand-held at the bench.