Good handguns

flashburn

One cool thing about going to the range with the XDm 9mm is that the stock magazines hold 19 rounds (+1 in the chamber). It doesn't really matter for home defense, as you probably won't need that many rounds unless you can't aim for ****, or are defending against an army, but when going to the range it makes it nice, as you won't have to buy as many clips or reload your clips as often.

I'm not sure how comparable it is to other guns, but the XDm is really easy to disassemble and clean.

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370zproject

2 recomendations are better then 1 that all im saying lol

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flashburn

Uh huh, sure...

All this gun talk is making me want to hit up the range. It's been a long time (way too long unfortunately). Nice thing is there is a good indoor range about 15 minutes away from my office, so I can go during a lunch break.

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Red__Zed

The M is nice as well. I like the fact that it can be disassembled without pulling the trigger, if only for peace of mind. I think the grip is a little less comfortable, and it may be hard to justify to extra cost for a first gun, but it is nevertheless worth trying out.

flashburn

Yeah, I forgot how I justified buying the XDm over the XD in the first place. I've heard the grip comfort is hit or miss on the XDm. Luckily it is a good fit for my hand.

I think one of the differences between the XD and XDm was the stock clip size, maybe it was 14 vs 19? Not a big deal, but it was something. I think the trigger was supposed to be better as well.

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Red__Zed

16+1 vs 19+1 for capacity. The barrel is the main benefit of the XDm in my mind, but it's not such a huge difference.

ImportConvert

The barrel doesn't matter as sloppy as the lock-up tolerance is in that pistol. A ten-thousandths of an inch in a barrel isn't going to matter unless the lock-up is perfect to begin with. I had a .22 rifle that was madein the 40's and it looks like the rifling was carved by a blind slave-labor child. It will still hold about 2" at 50 yards with me just leaning up against a tree. That chatter also happens to be in the last 1-3" of barrel, as well. The secret to handgun accuracy is CONSISTANT lock up at the front and back of the hood, as well as the muzzle/slide of a handgun like the XD. Slide/frame lock up is important as well, but only accounts for about 5-10% at most. However, the "M" barrel in the XDm is about like putting Penske adjustable shocks on a mid 90's ford taurus with no other modifications. It's there for marketing purposes...and mabye the .001 smaller group it can get you.

*Note, CONSISTANT lock-up is key. Not TIGHT lock-up. My Wilson Combat had a VERY well fit interface between the lugs/slide, etc. The frame/slide clearance was .002" nominal, as measured with my calipers.

My factory SIG still shot a group that was about the same size using duty ammo. (1.17CTC for the SIG at 25 yards, while the Wilson was .7" at 15 yards. The WIlson shot that group with Ranger T-series, while the SIG was fed GoldDots. bonded bullets are not normally nearly as accurate as conventional jacketed bullets due to variances in the plating/jacket thickness of the bolded bullets, making this even more impressive to me.)

Also, my Les Baer, rest it's poorly made soul, was tight as a drum, to the point where you could barely rack the slide. All this did was cause malfunctions. It didn't do a darn thing for accuracy that the WIlson couldn't match.