Springfield XD vs S&W M&P

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  • jawn

    YOU TROLLIN!
    Feb 10, 2011
    2,884
    INTARWEB
    Pick one you like shooting the most. When I was getting into handguns I was down to the XD, M&P, and the Glock. I ended up going with a Glock because of how I shot them, not based on some spec list. All of the specs in the world don't mean a thing, if you don't like shooting it. I ended up liking the Glock and XD more than the M&P, but you may be different.
     

    pop-gunner

    Ultimate Member
    May 8, 2008
    2,270
    Lots of good opinions but a little bad information here.
    The M&P is double action.
    The XD is single action.
    Please don't ask me to argue the merits of each pistol or debate why this is.
    If you are in doubt of these facts ask the ATF.
    I did...
     

    demmo

    Active Member
    Apr 26, 2009
    167
    I have both an XDM and a M&P full size and I will take the M&P any day over the xdm. The trigger is easily fixed if you do not like the M&P trigger.
     

    tball

    Ultimate Member
    May 20, 2010
    2,135
    St. Augustine, Florida
    I really like my XD9. My wife and daughter can shoot it very well. I've shot at least 5K rounds trough it and it eats anything I feed it. I have an XDM 5.25 in 9mm on layaway. I can't wait to get it. I've shot a friends XDM and it is very accurate. You have to like the 3 19 round magazines that it comes with.

    If you wanted to come down to shoot at the AGC, you would be welcome to try mine out.
     

    retrorichard

    Member of Team Awesome
    Dec 24, 2009
    922
    Rockville
    I own a regular xd40 (non M) and a m&p45. For me, the M&P feels better out of the box. The interchangeable backstraps make a huge difference. For my xd to get it to
    "feel right" I ended up putting on a hogue grip, and a heavier recoil guide rod. Now it feels pretty darn good.
     

    joppaj

    Sheepdog
    Staff member
    Moderator
    Apr 11, 2008
    46,451
    MD
    My limited experience tells me that what you just described is pretty common. I know folks that shoot the S&W and Glock well. I know folks that shoot the XD and the S&W well. I don't personally know anyone that shoots the XD and the Glock well. I tried the XD and flat hated it. The slide height just felt wrong to me.
     

    sailskidrive

    Legalize the Constitution
    Oct 16, 2011
    5,547
    Route 27
    I have both and would suggest taking a look at the Walther PPQ instead. The XD has a high bore axis making it feel slightly unbalanced and the M&P trigger leaves alot to be desired unless you're willing to buy the APEX kit. I feel Smith and Wesson did a nice job on the M&P slide but the frame itself seems very unrefined and the internal components look the cheapest of the three. Mine actually has two nubs from the mold which were never trimmed at the factory. The XD of course comes with the "starter kit" of gadgets.

    Who said the M&P is DA only???
     

    A. Wayne

    Ultimate Member
    May 28, 2011
    1,912
    Wayne, you could have shot my M&P pro when we were at the range.
    Thanks- didn't think about it, was catching a cold that day (still got it) and my heart wasn't really into shooting that day. On the bright side, I am headed up tomorrow for orientation and membership, so hopefully I'll catch you up there again.:)
     

    tdt91

    I will miss you my friend
    Apr 24, 2009
    10,810
    Abingdon
    Thanks- didn't think about it, was catching a cold that day (still got it) and my heart wasn't really into shooting that day. On the bright side, I am headed up tomorrow for orientation and membership, so hopefully I'll catch you up there again.:)

    Thats terrific that you are signing up. Sorry to hear about the illness and that explains why you didn't seem interested that day. I was wondering if it was the way I smelled or something. :lol2::lol2:
    Hope you feel better soon, don't forget to support the local Pizza shop. :D
     

    Redcobra

    Senior Shooter
    MDS Supporter
    Jan 10, 2010
    6,422
    Near the Chesapeake Bay
    I have a M&P9 and a M&P45. Trigger pull is fine (for me) on both after break-in. Like them both. Sold all my other semi-autos, but kept a few revolvers. When I fired the XD it just didn't feel as comfortable as the M&Ps. YMMV.
     

    sixfivesavage

    Active Member
    Jun 30, 2011
    854
    Jarrettsville
    Full size bi tone xd 45 was my first pistol. Liked it for what it was. Never ever had a single issue with it, and honestly, I abused the hell out of it. Once I got my first HK, I started abusing the xd worse just to see if it would fail. It never did. Pm me if you want to know further on that...

    I've since traded it on another HK and that's all I'm running from now on out, except for my nighthawk.
     

    RobMoore

    The Mad Scientist
    Feb 10, 2007
    4,765
    QA
    I chose the M&P for the grip shape and the lack of any external safety. I didn't like the feel of the grip safety or trigger on the XD.

    My MP9fs has a Dan Burwell carry trigger job.
     

    smokey

    2A TEACHER
    Jan 31, 2008
    31,412
    Do you really need me to answer that again?

    technically you're both wrong. Striker fired guns aren't double action or single action. The m&p is surely not double-action by any sense of the word since the trigger pull doesn't even draw back the striker before firing it, it just see-saw's the sear to drop it out of the way of the pre-cocked striker resting on it.

    1)Are they both DA only?
    2) What are trigger pulls on these like?
    3) I've heard some bad things on Smith semi's?
    4) I've also seen some info that the XD's have a tall barrel axis, more flip?
    5)Apparently the XDM is the compact version, any particular issues with this?
    read this first before continuing below...
    http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=23142
    1) As mentioned above, they're neither double-action nor single-action...they're striker fired. It essentially means the trigger pulls will be consistently around 4.5-6 lbs(depending on striker fired gun) every press of the trigger. When you chamber a round, the striker gets hung-up on a sear. When you press the trigger to the rear, the sear is dropped out of the way of the striker, allowing it to be pushed forward by the spring around it and light off the primer. As you press the trigger to the rear, a tab on the trigger bar also presses a striker safety block up into the slide and clears it out of the striker channel, allowing the striker to move forward in a little bit without being blocked by a chunk of steel in its way. Your finger also disengages a passive safety on the trigger. The xd series has a similar trigger safety as the glocks and ruger sr's, the m&p has a hinged lower section that rotates on an axis pin to move a trigger block out of the way of the frame.

    The gun fires, the recoil pushes the barrel and slide rearward. At a certain point, a cam on the bottom of the barrel hooks on a locking block and pulls it down to unlock the barrel's locking lugs from the slide's ejection port. The slide continues to the rear, while the barrel stays put...compressing the recoil spring and slowing the slide's rearward movement. The extractor grabs the casing and pulls it out of the chamber, the ejector protrudes from the left side of the breech face and knocks the casing out the right side of the ejection port.

    The slide continues until it moves out of the way of the next round sitting in the magazine. When the slide is to the rear, it also bumps the trigger bar out from under the sear(on the m&p..the xd's are slightly different in design, but the same thing basically happens) allowing the sear to pop back up to catch the striker as the slide moves forward again. The breech face pushes a round forward out from the top of the magazine and in to the feed ramp. At the feed ramp, the cartridge noses up until it hits the top of the chamber and is forced to cant back down and move forward. This is also where the rear of the casing slips up and under the extractor claw. This is why some people contour the bottom of the extractor to allow the casing to slide in under it more reliably.

    At this point, the striker has already hooked on to the sear as the recoil spring finishes pushing the slide forward. At this time, the barrel's lug cams on the locking block to force it back upwards to lock in to the slide's ejection port again. The lug also slides up and on top of the locking block to keep it from being allowed to move down.

    This is where you now release the trigger to reset it. By allowing the trigger to move forward, you allow the trigger bar to slip back in front of the sear. Once it slips back in front of the sear, you can press the trigger to the rear again to drop the sear and start everything over again.

    2)trigger pull on xd/xd(m):
    Imagine someone replaced the trigger with a light switch on the gun and you're most of the way there. It's got a weird clunky feel as you press it rearward and as it resets. There is a good amount of overtravel, and the reset is pretty long. It doesn't feel heavy though, and breaks fairly crisp. It is relatively flat on the face, and feels solid since it's metal and not polymer. I don't like the blade safety on the front. It makes it easy for people to push or pull to the 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock positions on a target if your trigger control isn't good. To make the best of it, do this...
    http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=14076

    trigger pull on m&P:
    It's fairly light and crisp from the factory, but lacks any real reset feel and has a good amount of grit to it. I'm going to post a message I sent in a PM now to describe the apex trigger kit....which makes the m&p's trigger VERY VERY good for a striker fired gun.
    i had this installed:
    https://apextactical.com/store/produ...php?pid35.html
    and this..
    https://apextactical.com/store/produ...php?pid44.html
    The apex kit it essentially a drop-in burwell trigger job. The new striker safety plunger is radiused more hemispherical and has a lighter spring. This allows the tab pushing it up to ride up more gradually instead of having to overcome the ridge on the more cylindrical factory plunger. It's also polished all the way around to limit the grit as the tab runs along it and as it's pushed in to the slide. being hemispherical and polished makes the trigger instantly smooth and lightens the first load of pushing it upward. The lighter spring means less force in necessary to push it upwards and reduces the trigger's weight.

    It also comes with a hard sear. The hard sear is cut to slightly different geometry. Look at where the trigger engages with the stock sear. On the apex kit, that engagement surface is cut back a little and matches with the engagement angle of the trigger bar ramp. By being cut back, it delays when the trigger starts see-sawing the sear down out of the way of the striker. This has the effect of limiting overtravel...but it also has the effect of shortening the trigger pull length. if you have longer fingers, increasing the size of the trigger stop behind the trigger inside the trigger guard with epoxy and part of a bic pen pocket clip... and then filing it down till the sear releases reliably....will also limit overtravel without shortening length of pull.

    The hard sear is polished much better than the factory sear and is another place you'll instantly lose some of the factory grit, especially in the engagement area between the sear and the trigger bar.

    The RAM is absolutely essential. It took away my biggest gripe about the m&p's trigger, the lack of any indication of when it reset. Glock's have a great feeling reset, but the m&p has nearly no natural feel of when it resets. On the factory m&p, the trigger bar rides back, see-saws the sear by the trigger bar ramping up the engagement surface with the sear...from here, the gun fires and a bump in the slide pushes the trigger bar over to the side of the sear's engagement area. When you release the trigger, the trigger bar eventually slips back in front of the sear from the side...that's the reset. The apex reset kit has the effect of pulling the trigger bar over against the side of the sear with more force, allowing it to slap against the sear when it resets back in front of it...which is what the audible and tactile click is you feel. It's worth noting here that the hard sear's different engagement angle also allows the trigger bar to slip back in front of the sear earlier(because some of the material that would delay the reset is removed)...so the delay of trigger break doesn't actually cause a longer reset...it just resets further back, again for a shorter length of pull.

    Areas to polish when everything is apart are the striker face, and the trigger bar. Look at the face on your striker where the sear engages with it to hold it back. If it's like mine, it'll have a big overcast line running right down the middle of it. I stoned mine and polished it with some compound on a leather belt till it is now mirror smooth. Even before Dan put the dcaek in, it made a huge difference by removing some of the grit at the very end of the pull as the sear drops away from the striker.

    When you remove the locking block in the rear and up front, take it as an opportunity to completely polish the trigger bar. A lot of grit also comes from the trigger bar rubbing on things with all those nasty, rough edges. By polishing anything sharp and smoothing anything rough on it, your trigger will dramatically improve. Pay close attention to the tab that pushes the striker block upwards and polish the engagement surface, and the ramp that engages with the sear. The sides of the trigger bar should be smooth to slide past the frame without grabbing anything.

    3) People say bad things about every single gun ever. Smith m&p's are very solid guns. They are extremely reliable and ergonomic. They use a different mixture of polymer than glock, which is more rigid and acts more similar to a metal frame. They also tie the front and rear locking blocks together with metal bars running along the inside of the frame. This aids in making it feel very solid. The gun itself is very adaptable and user friendly. The magazine release is interchangeable. You can flip it from the left to the right side. The backstraps are the best on almost any gun available. The add to the length of pull, but also add width to the entirety of the grip. The xd(m)'s grip panels feel kind've dumb. They're limited in what they can do because of the grip safety. The grip safety prevents the xd from really adding length anywhere but to the bottom rear of the grip. The m&p has a very low bore axis. They really undercut the frame well at the rear and extended the beaver tail. this gives the shooter the ability to get an incredibly high grip, with excellent control over muzzle flip. The m&p is one fast-shooting sumbitch.

    The main ligitimate criticism is the accuracy of the m&p compared to the xd(m). From what I've gathered, they redesigned the rear of the barrels on the m&p's in the lock-up area for the m&p compact models. Supposedly, when they started making the different barrels for the compacts, they cut the full-sized barrels to the same lockup dimentions. This had the result of crapping up the accuracy of the full-sized m&p's. If you need/want more than 5" or so at 25 yds, you may have to get an aftermarket barrel fitted to the m&p. The xd(especially the m) will probably have better accuracy out of the box. Of course, you've got to be a good enough shooter for the weak link to be the gun for it to make any real difference. Also, there've been plenty of people getting much better than 5" @ 25 yd accuracy out of their m&p's..so you may be a lucky one to get one of the more accurate ones.

    4) The xd's really do have a pretty tall slide. It's like they took a glock and somehow found a way to make it look MORE like a brick. They jump up a little, but the slide is so damned heavy that the recoil is pretty tame. Especially if you're shooting 9mm, you should have no problem controlling it. What points they may lose in muzzle flip, the (m) line gains back in capacity.

    5) The (m) line is the (match) line. xd's are actually IM metal's hs2000 from croatia. xd was springfield's way of jacking up the price a bit and naming them the eXtreme Duty line...XD=Xtreme Duty. They are a good and pretty reliable design. The xd(m) line was their attempt at improving the xd design. The (m)'s have interchangeable grips, a slide with slightly different aesthetics and a newly designed frame. They enlarged the grip a bit and crammed a few more cartridges in the magazine. They also changed the takedown lever to drop the sear out of the way of the striker to allow the slide to come off without pulling the trigger. They supposedly have a "match" barrel

    While the (m) line has compact models(most recently, their xd(m)-45compact...which i kind've dig), so does the standard xd line. My favorite is the xd45tactical compact. It's got a compact grip, but 5" slide. It prints less with the shorter grip, but gives full-sized sight radius, velocity and control. It's cool.
     

    Maverick0313

    Retired and loving it
    Jul 16, 2009
    9,183
    Bridgeville, DE
    I have the M&P Pro 9mm.....I like it almost as much as my Sig 226. It shoots like a dream. Did not like the feel of the XD. I think it is just a matter of choice....plus, I am left handed and like the ambidextrous capability on the S&W. Shoot both, then decide.
     

    pop-gunner

    Ultimate Member
    May 8, 2008
    2,270
    technically you're both wrong. Striker fired guns aren't double action or single action. The m&p is surely not double-action by any sense of the word since the trigger pull doesn't even draw back the striker before firing it, it just see-saw's the sear to drop it out of the way of the pre-cocked striker resting on it.

    Nope...
    Only one of us if wrong and it's not me.
    Smokey, you remember I'm a M&P armorer don't you?
    Smith and the ATF say the M&P is double action.
    GLOCK and the ATF say GLOCK is double action.
    I dunno what Springfield says but the ATF says the XD is single action.
    All 3 of these are striker fired guns but 2 of them have enough rearward movement of the striker that they were classified as double action .
    When the HS2000 was originally imported the ATF gave it zero points for being double action making it single action.
     

    sailskidrive

    Legalize the Constitution
    Oct 16, 2011
    5,547
    Route 27
    Nope...
    Only one of us if wrong and it's not me.
    Smokey, you remember I'm a M&P armorer don't you?
    Smith and the ATF say the M&P is double action.
    GLOCK and the ATF say GLOCK is double action.
    I dunno what Springfield says but the ATF says the XD is single action.
    All 3 of these are striker fired guns but 2 of them have enough rearward movement of the striker that they were classified as double action .
    When the HS2000 was originally imported the ATF gave it zero points for being double action making it single action.

    Only one of us if wrong and it's not me.
    :rolleyes:

    I simply asked "who said it was double action?"

    ... and I thoroughly enjoyed Smokey's unambiguous explanation. :thumbsup:
     

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