SAgun13,
mikedeanellis and [/b]Sod Farmer[/b], you've all done some excellent self-troubleshooting.
After ruling out software issues (swap to an experienced shooter of this particular platform), mag issues (swapping to other mags, swapping to a new mag), and ammo issues (swapping to ball or premium defensive hollowpoints [yes, I've seen a gun choke on ball, but feed premium defensive hollowpoints just fine - i was a 1911, go figure!!! WTF!?!], swapping manufacturers, swapping from reloads/remans. to new), logic would dictate that what remains is a problem with the gun.
mikedeanellis, that little pin directly above the magazine release is what's holding the magazine catch/release mechanism together. It's the "magazine catch pin," and if it's backed-out far enough, it will cause the magazine catch to do funky things ("twist up" on one side) and cause your magazines to not seat properly:
^ That's the Springer Precision video in which they show disassembly/reassembly of this area, and you can see that their gunsmith drives out the pin half-way in order to accomplish the upgrade installation.
The longest I've gone without touching that area (swapping out for that Springer Precision extended unit) is ~32,000 rounds (
New XDm9 from Cleveland - POA POI magazine questions Page 3 XDTalk Forums - this was from when I went to a 6-day course, and my experiences there were in-part what drove me towards an extended release), and I luckily did not have that pin walk out on me. My carry gun is currently around 10K rounds with the factory release, and I still haven't seen a problem. This is not to say that such a problem cannot happen, rather, it's just that
typically, it's not a concern with these guns.
Has that pin ever walked again on you?
If it did it once, I'd be worried about it doing it again. Maybe you have a pin that's just slightly under-sized for your frame (i.e. that each component could be on their respective "wrong" side of the tolerance spectrum, yet still be in-tolerance)?
Sod Farmer, I wonder if your problem was associated with either that pin (not walking out - maybe somehow [freak occurrence?] breaking?) or maybe that area (spring mis-seating itself on the catch? maybe the catch itself breaking?). It's really too bad that SA did not detail what they did to solve your problem. Regardless, I think you did good troubleshooting!
SAgun13, I really liked your logical progression in self-troubleshooting.
The only thing I want to add is to address your and
mikedeanellis's questions about service-intervals for some of the more common springs.
With the recoil spring, to the best of my knowledge, we (as a community here on XDTalk) have never received a consistent line from SA. Various members here have either written or called-in to SA with this question, and have gotten a spectrum of answers when it comes to an actual cycle/round count, and the range has been anywhere between 3K to 10K. [WTF?!] However, one
consistent mention (in addition to the "we test the springs out to 25K" line that SA has been known to give) has been to simply keep an eye on how far your spent casings are ejecting - and that when they start going noticeably farther out than usual, to switch out the recoil spring.
My 4.5-inch XDm9 hit just over 17K rounds when I finally decided to change out the recoil and striker springs. Nothing was wrong with the way the gun was working, just felt that it was (finally) time to stop the abuse. Shortly after the replacement, I attended the class I referenced above, which saw somewhere around probably 3,200 to 3.5K rounds on the gun through nearly 5 straight days' worth of shooting, and I definitely did not have any recoil-spring related issues.
I swapped the recoil spring assembly and the striker spring from my then-new range/training-only XDm9 3.8 Compact to my carry 3.8 Compact at a time when the carry had just under 8K rounds on it. On that set of springs, resident in the range/training copy, I saw at least 13K's worth before I decided that enough was enough and it was time to call the abuse-test and swap it out for new.
Not that I'm advocating such long cycles - it's just that I've had the luxury to be able to really abuse my range/training copies, and I thought I'd share what little experience I have.
Also in that vein, while the magazines for the XD/XDm line have been pointed out as a "minus" for this platform, I've actually had very good luck. Of the 8 training magazines I have had for this gun since "day one," I intensively use four of them for live-fire training, with another two serving as backups that I'd bring along for most classes (two more [that's good math!] serve as dry-fire-only mags, with blue tape on the baseplates to help make doubly sure for safety). Do the math with just that 6-day class I've referred to (about 4K rounds), and that's anywhere from 33 cycles per mag (assuming 6 magazines, at 20 rounds per mag instead of the actual capacity of 19) to 50 cycles (assuming 4 mags only) per mag (remember that I used the same mags for the entire class - I did use my 3.8 Compact for one day, but that gun used the same mags). Again, that's just for 6 days' worth of use.
Four years and 60K cumulative rounds on my three XDms - you can do the math in terms of how many mag-changes that is. How many times I've dropped the mags on the concrete of an indoor range or on a rock or in the mud outdoors - how many times those base-plates and feed-lips may have banged against something. You can do the math on how many times I've cycled those springs. To-date, I've yet to have any magazine-related feed issues, and even now, those same magazine springs push up on the plastic followers hard enough to engage the slide-stop each and every time. Also to think about is the fact that during the weeks I spend between classes (and moreso during the winter, where I sadly/embarrassingly sometimes may go a month or more without shooting due to family responsibilities), I leave the mags fully loaded (so there's also no evidence, yet, of magazine-lip spread).
Please don't get me wrong.
Please don't take my post/information as some sort of boast of the XD platform.
Rather, again as I mentioned before, I am very lucky to have the luxury to be able to really abuse my range/training copies, and I thought I'd share what little experience I have.
mikedeanellis, you're absolutely right in your thinking about magazines. How I look at mags is that they're just like brakes or tires for your car: they're absolutely vital to safety and performance - so I'll get the best that I can afford - but they are indeed wear items and completely disposable. I keep a few vetted "defensive" magazines (for all of my guns) loaded with premium defensive ammo, and for the few times a year or years that I may actually test them out, I baby the heck out of them. The separate stash of "training/range" mags get abused and treated like the tools that they are supposed to be. If they break or otherwise start showing with problems, I'll just note them as being problem magazines and even then still throw them back into the training mix - after all, spontaneous malfunctions are an excellent training tool!
So, hopefully, this gives y'all at least some data-points to go on.
Overall, what I am sad about is that there's not sufficient "professional" usage of the XDm for anyone of-repute to have stepped forward to give us citizens and "casual" users some hard specifics on the critical routine maintenance item of critical small-parts refresh/change points. Look at this excellent resource authored by Greg Ellifritz with respect to Glocks (
Glock Pistols- What Breaks and How to Fix It Active Response Training and also compare our relative ignorance on this subject to the plethora of information and knowledge of the 1911/2011 platform, and, heck, even the Beretta M9 and its civilian counterparts.
