After fondling the glock .45, I know why they call it a block! That's EXACTLY what the handle feels like, a plastic block. Seriously, it's like they made a gun out of legos! The grip on the XD is MUCH more comforatble. It's a little smaller than the block too, even in my big hands, the block's grip was too big. The big block grip throws off the position of my finger on the trigger, making it awkward to adjust my hand to fit the gun. I picked up the XD, and my mind was made up. Finger was in position on the trigger naturally, didn't feel like it was too big for my hand. More importantly, the handle didn't feel like a square block that somebody tried to shave the corners off of it to make a gun grip out of it. Never fired a block in .45 (shot a 9mm once) and don't have much experience with them. I'm sure they're good guns, they have a great reputation. Based on the way the grip feels, I'd go with an XD like I did. :grin: