Springfield XDs 9mm failure to RTB

[wanneroo]

I've been researching this today but haven't hit upon a definitive conclusion yet as to the cause of the issues we ran into yesterday, so I thought I would ask here and see if anyone has any clues.

Yesterday was shooting someone else's Springfield XDs 9mm that is a few weeks old and has probably run 150-200 rounds through it. No issues on several occasions with a variety of ammo previously. No issues either the first couple magazines of the day.

I then went to shoot it from a bench support as a back to back test with another pistol. Loaded it up with Winchester white box 9mm 115g FMJ, racked it, fired the round, casing ejected, went to fire the second round and got a click. Waited a second in the event it was an ammo issue, checked the magazine seating and then went to rack it when I noticed the gun was out of battery by a millimeter or less.

I ejected the round and it had a long gouge down the size from the bullet down to the end and a light primer strike off center.

I said OK, I'll change up the ammo to Aguila 124g. Ended up with the same sequence of the events, only this time no primer strike.

Changed it up to Remington UMC and gun fired fine.

Looking on youtube so far this seems to be a common thing, but I hear a bunch of different possible reasons.

Any wisdom anyone could share on this would be appreciated as I don't have much experience with the XDs. It's a concern as this is someone elses carry gun and it needs to be reliable.

[XavierBK]

I remember hearing about this issue a lot when the XDs 45 came out. The general consensus was that it happens due to limp wristing. From what I remember is seems to become less prone to happen as the gun is "broken in."

[GsTaurus]

This is my understanding of the xds9 malfunctions. (limp wristing). I own am xds9 and have 200 or so rounds through it and mines been like a sewing machine....100% prefect so far......

GREAT shooting little pistol btw....very accurate for it's size...i absolutely love it.

[iamtommyboy]

I would have to agree with previous suggestions of limp wristing. I have the XDs .45 and haven't had any issues with it while I have shot it. My wife however, that's a different story. She had a number of FTE and such when she tried to shoot it.

[wanneroo]

In this case there was no limp wristing going on. Although I can see with some that would be the case as it is a top heavy gun and short/small.

I was reading up on it more last night and a lot points to lack of tolerances with the extractor and breech face.

We had no problem running Fiocchi and Remington through it so far, but it choked on Winchester and Aguila. I've existed in a world of Glock for a while, so I'm just used to the Glock shooting anything, anytime.

In Springfield's PR they have described this as the greatest thing to hit the market in the small pistol segment, so I find it a big troubling how finicky it is and that so many others have issues.

[savagemod11]

My first guess was limp wristing, but since its confirmed and ruled out, I never ever had any luck with winchester ammo, and will not buy ANY more. Ive personally lever shot Aguila ammo, but have heard both good and bad about it. Could be break in, couldnt tell you as my XDs 9mm hasnt made it to the range yet, but If I have any issues i will be sure to post. Also, did you try calling Springfield? They do have a warranty, and im sure they will be more then willing to help.

[wanneroo]

My first guess was limp wristing, but since its confirmed and ruled out, I never ever had any luck with winchester ammo, and will not buy ANY more. Ive personally lever shot Aguila ammo, but have heard both good and bad about it. Could be break in, couldnt tell you as my XDs 9mm hasnt made it to the range yet, but If I have any issues i will be sure to post. Also, did you try calling Springfield? They do have a warranty, and im sure they will be more then willing to help.

I have found Winchester white box to be middle of the road. A bit smoky as well but never had any issues with Glocks eating it. Aguila, same as the Winchester, not my favorite but OK.

Remington UMC I have found to be inaccurate and not my favorite, but this gun did not have any problems with it.

I have watched a number of youtube videos about this and read up some and it's seems Springfield's approach to this common problem is to soak the gun in lube until it is dripping out of every pore and then send the gun back to the owner.

Owners have also reported the slide can easily get pushed back in a holster and then it locks and stays in place about 1mm out of battery. It would be easy to miss in a stressful situation if you have to produce your weapon to defend yourself. A click is not a good way to start a fight.

I think what we will do next is clean it, shoot it some more and see what happens.

[harold63]

I think what we will do next is clean it, shoot it some more and see what happens.

Good start...and shoot it like the dude here in the first couple minutes of the vid. I've shot a couple of them. They are not forgiving, but how many pocket rockets are? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPEWaKevY8o

FWIW, there's no way I could say how many thousands of rounds of WWB I've shot out of a number of different handguns. I also use it if someone is having trouble with their gun and they don't have Win ammo. I can't think of one time I've ever had an issue with it...not even a misfire.

[SirStefan32]

Maybe this will help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEuQz3fTjtw

Having said that, I had this happen to me once. After not getting a single malfunction for several hundred rounds, one day, it kept doing the very thing you described. I tried shooting my girlfriend's gun (same gun- .45 XDS, but bi-tone) and that one did the same thing. Went back to the range next weekend, and it worked great.
The best I can tell is that my hand was sweaty after an hour at the range (90-ish degrees) and it was causing my grip to be less than perfect. It doesn't take much for that grip safety to kick in.
Not sure if you are experiencing the issue described in that video, but in my case, it was 100% user error.

Hope that helps.

[wanneroo]

So, amazingly the gun wasn't touched until today and has been sitting since. Always a lot going on in summer I guess.

Anyways I ended up cleaning it and what I found was the frame rails on the slide were filled with copper lubricant that has mixed with carbon/oil/grit and there were little balls of that crap in the rails along with the rest of the goo. From the get go I always found racking the slide to not exactly have resistance but it certainly wasn't smooth in my opinion. Went through a bunch of patches with a plastic pick and cleaned all that crap out.

I also found the rest of the gun was relatively dry with little or no lubrication.

Cleaned the rest of the gun, lubricated with gun oil as described in the instructions and went out and shot it. When you rack the slide now it feels much smoother.

Fired 28 Winchester WWB, 14 Fiocchi 147g JHP, 28 Aguila 124g and 14 Geco 124g.

No failures to fire, return to battery or any other issues. I think it's plausible all this gunk in the rails was giving it issues combined with the lack of lubrication elsewhere. The owner should have cleaned the gun when they got it. I think it's a good idea to break a gun down when you buy something just to make sure everything looks A-OK.

Tomorrow I'll run some Sellier and Bellot and some Blazer Brass through it and see how it goes then clean it again and see how it looks.