EDIT: If you have no interest in addressing the issue I'm describing, please do not read or respond. I'm really not interested in the obvious or predictable. Thanks.
I usually only lurk here on XD Talk and read as I usually don't have much to add, and far more to gain from the depth of experience here. I had a conversation with a buddy on Facebook about the often maligned grip safety on the XD family of pistols. He had, apparently, more than one instance of failure with the baseline XD where the grip safety had caused not a failure to fire, but where he was unable to drop a mag and clear a round in the pipe. I've been lots of different places looking for an explaination for this and can't seem to find a duplication of what he describes. Maybe you all can say. I'll post the convo:
Him: "Only one I dont care for is the XD line with the wierd grip safety that never works right."
Me: "Never heard of an instance like that. I have 2 of that family w/ 100s of rounds. No malfunctions yet. It's no different from a 1911 grip safety."
Him: " I've had 2 get stuck on me, when they get stuck with a round in the chamber and a magazine you cannot clear it without actually going through the whole magazine."
Me: "Are you sure that was the issue? The blowback mechanics, extractor and the slide stop are totally independent of the safeties. The bolt face doesn't lock forward into the breach regardless of whether the firing pin blocks are engaged."
Him: "No it was a rental gun a few years back, I went to go put it down and clear it, and I couldn't get the slide to pull back, so I put it on the table and the safety was still in. I didn't really mess with it after that. I went and got the range guy and he picked it up fired off the last few rounds and it worked fine after that. A few months later I took my brother fun shopping and the same thing happened. I heard that this was a problem early in the xd line and has since been fixed. But I just can't seem to get past it."
Me: "I have heard of a few issues of the grip safety not engaging properly - for whatever reason - thus not allowing the gun to fire, which makes sense to me. That yours fired tells me it can't be the same issue. On the XDm and the XD, (Not so with the XDs) unless you have that safety depressed properly you will not be able to rack the slide back, though on mine it's possible 3 times out of 10 to still cock the firing mech w/o. Moot if the pin is already cocked from firing, one still won't be able to rack the slide unless the safety is pressed. You've got me intrigued. I could see a dirty rental w/ a high round count developing wear and tear issues, but that the issue crossed over to another gun (?) is strange. I assume you could still drop the magazine? There's nothing holding that in except the button. It's even more independent of the process. I might've dropped the mag, emptied it on the bench, reinserted, then locked the slide back using that last round in the tube."
Him: "No, that's the problem, the safety was fully depressed, I could not manually pull the slide back (but it would fire and would slide back) and the magazine would not release."
So that's it. I'm at a bit of a loss. I'd love to provide a rational explaination, but it sounds like there's more than one or even 2 things going on here. I have no reason to believe my buddy is full of it, nor do I have reason to believe he is in any way incompetent. Anyone heard of this?
I usually only lurk here on XD Talk and read as I usually don't have much to add, and far more to gain from the depth of experience here. I had a conversation with a buddy on Facebook about the often maligned grip safety on the XD family of pistols. He had, apparently, more than one instance of failure with the baseline XD where the grip safety had caused not a failure to fire, but where he was unable to drop a mag and clear a round in the pipe. I've been lots of different places looking for an explaination for this and can't seem to find a duplication of what he describes. Maybe you all can say. I'll post the convo:
Him: "Only one I dont care for is the XD line with the wierd grip safety that never works right."
Me: "Never heard of an instance like that. I have 2 of that family w/ 100s of rounds. No malfunctions yet. It's no different from a 1911 grip safety."
Him: " I've had 2 get stuck on me, when they get stuck with a round in the chamber and a magazine you cannot clear it without actually going through the whole magazine."
Me: "Are you sure that was the issue? The blowback mechanics, extractor and the slide stop are totally independent of the safeties. The bolt face doesn't lock forward into the breach regardless of whether the firing pin blocks are engaged."
Him: "No it was a rental gun a few years back, I went to go put it down and clear it, and I couldn't get the slide to pull back, so I put it on the table and the safety was still in. I didn't really mess with it after that. I went and got the range guy and he picked it up fired off the last few rounds and it worked fine after that. A few months later I took my brother fun shopping and the same thing happened. I heard that this was a problem early in the xd line and has since been fixed. But I just can't seem to get past it."
Me: "I have heard of a few issues of the grip safety not engaging properly - for whatever reason - thus not allowing the gun to fire, which makes sense to me. That yours fired tells me it can't be the same issue. On the XDm and the XD, (Not so with the XDs) unless you have that safety depressed properly you will not be able to rack the slide back, though on mine it's possible 3 times out of 10 to still cock the firing mech w/o. Moot if the pin is already cocked from firing, one still won't be able to rack the slide unless the safety is pressed. You've got me intrigued. I could see a dirty rental w/ a high round count developing wear and tear issues, but that the issue crossed over to another gun (?) is strange. I assume you could still drop the magazine? There's nothing holding that in except the button. It's even more independent of the process. I might've dropped the mag, emptied it on the bench, reinserted, then locked the slide back using that last round in the tube."
Him: "No, that's the problem, the safety was fully depressed, I could not manually pull the slide back (but it would fire and would slide back) and the magazine would not release."
So that's it. I'm at a bit of a loss. I'd love to provide a rational explaination, but it sounds like there's more than one or even 2 things going on here. I have no reason to believe my buddy is full of it, nor do I have reason to believe he is in any way incompetent. Anyone heard of this?