The last BP2/DPS1 class I helped with at KR Training generated a bunch of thoughts in my head. I thought I’d make a small series out of it.

Take a Breath!

This is pretty simple.

Breathe.

You’ll see people on the line, they hold their breath and shoot the whole string without ever taking a breath.

Depriving yourself of oxygen isn’t good. Just listen to the song above. 🙂

This is very understandable. I do this myself. Pressure goes up and the breath gets held. Ideally we should breathe naturally, but when fur is flying, what’s naturally? And note, this isn’t precision rifle shooting, so it’s a different sort of breathing. Really, the goal here would be to just keep breathing and breathing in a natural way.

In an attempt to combat this, in my practice (especially dry fire practice) I make myself inhale deeply on the draw stroke. Even if I end up holding my breath, at least I’m getting a fresh lung-full of oxygen. Plus getting that big lung-full tends to force me to exhale, which tends to force me to inhale, and so the cycle continues. If I don’t do this, often I end up not breathing, which typically ends up on an empty set of lungs and thus already oxygen deprived. No, I’m still not perfect about this, but it’s something I work on.

The last BP2/DPS1 class I helped with at KR Training generated a bunch of thoughts in my head. I thought I’d make a small series out of it.

Gear

For many folks, DPS1 is the first venturing into that world of concealed carry, especially since one thing discussed in the class is not just how to draw your gun but how to draw it from concealment.

So there’s discussion of holsters, clothing, locations, all manner of things.

There’s no way I could write a simple blog posting to cover it all — there’s just too much information out there. But I did want to address one issue: that of changing your gear.

First, you should be willing to change your gear. Pick something and try it out. If you find it doesn’t work, do not be afraid to dump it and try something else. This might be getting a whole new product, or it may just be adjusting the product you have. When I first got my MTAC holster, I went through almost every possible adjustment setting until I found what worked for me. Yes, maybe the first setting was good, but I had to be willing to try setting two, three, four, etc. because who knows, maybe setting five was the best of all. Yes, this can be annoying and expensive, but this isn’t something you can do half-assed. For instance, as I write this I’ve learned the Werner Carry System isn’t working well for me and I’m back to the Uncle Mike’s grips and pocket carry for my snub. I’ve got an appendix holster from Comp-Tac on order to see if that might address the situation for me; it may, it may not, won’t know until it gets here and I can give it a try. But I’m willing to experiment until I find the system that works for me.

Second, once you find your gear setup, be sure to practice with it. My personal opinion is to be reluctant to change from it. I know some people who change what gun they carry and where/how they carry it more often than most people change their underwear. If that system works for you, go for it. I recently read an article where a highly qualified instructor was involved in a realistic training scenario; for the scenario he carried in a manner different from his normal carry. When the fur flew, what did he do? He went for where his gun — but it wasn’t there; he went for his normal carry location, not his new one. Monkey brain kicked in, he dropped back to his ingrained habit, and in the scenario he got killed. Take that for whatever it’s worth.

I grant that we can have different circumstances in a day that may necessitate us to change. Whatever your personal case may be, I’d say the key factor is to be practiced in your circumstances. When the shit hits the fan, you’re not going to think, you’re just going to do… make sure that things are ingrained well enough that you do right.

I like my Springfield XD-9, and while the factory trigger isn’t horrible, there’s certainly room for improvement.

I sent one of my XD’s to Springer Precision about a year and a half ago (wow, has it been that long?). It received what Scott calls a “competition” trigger job with a 3# pull weight. Let me tell you this trigger is great. It’s tight, crisp. There’s as little movement as possible, just that minimal amount needed to still allow the gun to function. No, it’s not a gamed-out 1911 trigger, but it’s still pretty darn sweet. Compared to a factory trigger? It’s a monumental improvement.

I’ve wanted to get a trigger job done on another of my XD-9’s, but I must admit the cost is a factor. It’s $175 for the trigger job, then nearly $100 in round-trip shipping costs. Ouch! Thus if you want to send a gun to Springer for work, you get a lot of work done and get it all done that one time. Please understand that Springer Precision does excellent work, it’s only my ability to afford it that is the issue here.

But lo… Springer Precision sells a trigger kit. From their website:

The kit includes a polished sear, sear spring, trigger spring, and trigger bar. The results of the kit is a shorter, lighter, crisper trigger pull. This is the kit gunsmiths are using, and does require minor fitting of the trigger bar and very minor fitting may be need to fit make sure the sear move freely. (see the videos in our VIDEO section for fitting details.) Don’t be fooled by cheap kits that only reduce trigger travel, if you want a serious upgrade, this is what you are looking for.

$130 and a little of my time? I figured to try it. I ordered the trigger kit, some punches (yes, get the #3 roll pin punch), some extra roll pins, and a few other odds and ends from Springer. Shipping was timely, and it sat on my desk waiting for a time to install it.

That time is now! (well, last night)

The install process was not difficult, and anyone that’s good with their hands and a bit of a mechanical mind ought to have little problem with this. Springer provides numerous videos that are a big help. As well, the XDTalk forum has a great number of resources, such as this posting with TONS of detailed pictures. Let’s not overlook the old HS2000 step-by-step disassembly instructions. I’m also to understand that if you are stuck, you can phone SP for help. It took me a few hours to complete the task, only because I went really slow. I watched the videos all the way through so I knew what to expect. Then I’d replay them as I worked, pausing and rewinding as necessary. The fitting of the trigger bar took the most time, because I took my time and did not want to shave off more than was necessary.

After I got it all back together, I spent some time dry-firing and everything seemed to work OK. I figured, now was a time to compare the first trigger job with this second trigger job.

There is no question, the second trigger job is a big improvement over the factory trigger. However, the second trigger job is not as good as the first. In terms of weight, the second job is certainly less than the factory but slightly more than the first job (which all stands to reason and is as expected). The second job has a tiny bit of take-up whereas the first job is tight and “right there”. Both feel like they break about as crisp and at about the same point. The second feels like the travel back for reset is just a hair longer… it’s the sort of thing where I dry fired the first job a bunch then dry fired the second and my finger would have the sensation of “OK, this is where the reset is, start pulling again” but I hadn’t yet heard the click of the reset. I roughly measured it looks like the overall travel distance is about the same… just a slightly different feel and reset.

So the two triggers feel slightly different — and the first certainly feels better. But this is me sitting here, working each trigger a lot, trying to feel every nuance, going slow and detailed. I hypothesize that when I’m actually shooting the guns on the range I’ll not notice the difference. We’ll see.

My conclusion?

I have mixed feelings about the second trigger job, tho overall I’m OK with it. It’s not the same trigger as the first, which I would have liked. But I went into this expecting it wouldn’t be exactly the same because it’s a kit and not being hand-tuned by Springer himself. I am curious if the trigger bars are different (a disassembly of both guns would tell me that, but I’m not in the mood to do that right now), and if the difference is due to slightly different kits and/or how I fitted the second. Still, I think the trigger is good and certainly a big improvement over the factory trigger: it doesn’t feel as spongey, the travel and reset are vastly improved. It’s still a good trigger. For the money, I think I did alright. Furthermore, I have never disassembled my XD to this level and it was a good educational experience.  So I do think it’s a good buy and certainly and improvement. But if you really want the best trigger and you can afford it, send it to Scott and let him work on it directly.

A few other things:

• Do be mindful when you take the back plate off the slide. That striker spring is under a lot of pressure and things will go flying.
• Do order extra striker retainer roll pins. I had a dog of a time getting mine out, and when it finally came out it was broken. I don’t know if I broke it while trying to remove it, or if it was already broken. On one of Springer’s videos he mentions that the pins do break if you do a lot of dry fire because without a snap cap the striker is being stopped by the roll pin… so I very well could have cracked it long ago. Roll pins are cheap… order a handful to keep on hand. And yes, order the special #3 punch for them too.
• Be patient. Go slow. Those videos are a big help.
• Consider this also a good opportunity to do a deep cleaning on your gun. Don’t forget to lubricate everything as you put it back together.

Can’t wait to get to the range to give it a try!