First Shots With My New Springfield XD

This past Sunday I went to the gun show to look for another Springfield XD 9mm. I managed to find what I was looking for and was pleased to see that it came with night sites. Since most attacks happen at night, having night sites is an important thing to consider for home defense purposes. The good thing for me was that I spent less money than I did three years ago on this second XD with night sites than I did on my first gun without them.

I didn’t get a chance to go out to the range to shoot it until yesterday. I decided to take both guns so that I could do some comparison. The slide show below will help tell my story. As you see the pictures slide by, put your mouse over the picture and they will pause as a caption appears. All shots were taken at 21 feet.

#1 This picture is a bit blurry, but that is because I was in a completely dark closet. The sights don’t look much different from any other sights in the artificially created light of the flash on my camera.

#2 With the flash off, all you can see are the three dots of the sights. Make sure to pause this picture as the front sight will brighten up a bit.

#3 My fist shot with my new XD. I hit the bulls-eye, but not exactly where I was aiming.

#4 The first five shots still found their mark, but they are a bit too high and right from where I was aiming.

#5 After 50 shots, I am beginning to wonder if my sights are off just a tad. The gun is consistent all right with an nice two inch group, but I adjusted my last 20 or so shots by aiming a little low and to the left.

#6 Here is where it starts to get interesting. Since I was unsure of my sights on my new XD, I decided to take five shots at the top number seven with my old XD. As you can see, my old XD is dead on at seven yards.

#7 Here is a close up of those last five shots. The number seven is small enough to be completely covered by a dime.

That is some pretty good shooting, even if I say so myself! The bad news is, I am not as accurate with my new XD. I decided to do some further tests just to make sure that I wasn’t extremely lucky with my old XD.

#8 I placed a “Shoot-n-see” on the left of the target and took five shots with my New XD. I hit it twice, but missed three times.

#9 I decided to take five more shots, but this time I used my old XD. I wasn’t as accurate with these five shots as I was while shooting at the number seven, but you can still see that the shots with my old XD are a bit closer.

#10 Five more shots at another “Shoot-n-see” with my new XD. All misses.

#11 Five More shots with my old XD. Three hits and two misses.

OK, it is now obvious that I am more accurate with my old XD than I am with my new one. When I got home, I took a closer look at my new XD and noticed the following.

#12-13 Here is a comparison of the front sight on my old and then my new XD. As you can see, the front sight does not sit flush on the top of the slide.

#14-17 The same is true with the rear sights. They do not sit completely flush on the top of the slide.

That would explain my shots being a bit high, but it would not explain why my shots tend to drift to the right. I am a left handed shooter so my shots tend to go right anyway, but how do I explain my dead on accuracy with my old XD and the wider grouping on my news XD? Are the sights really off on the new gun or am I just more comfortable shooting my old XD? I’m open to hearing if anyone has any ideas.

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