~ --

I

'I

Now I'll admit that the XDm isn't for

everyone. If a 125 at nearly 1,300 fps, or aIlS

over that is "coo puny" for you, then you'll just

have to move on up. But for those who feel

they can deal with anything except armored

cars and Hind helicopters when armed with

a 9mm, the XDm tops the list.And with

19-round magazines, loading up the XDm9

and putting a spare mag on your belt leaves

just enough ammo from a box for someone

from a capacity-fearing state like California to

load up. If you fill the Springfield-provided

magazine belt pouch with tWo spares, you willhave exceeded the ammo found in a standard

retail box. If you find yourself in a "social"

situation and have need of more ammo, you

really should have left your itinerary with

your secretary so she could coordinate on-call

artillery support.

As with a number of handguns I've

received lately,the XDm was on my doorstep

before I knew it was on the way. (Sort ofIike

some relatives, but the firearm was met with

much greater enthusiasm.) The box con-

~..~,.. . .."" r ... .r.:

Fieldstrip simplicity: The XDm 9 reduced toits main components. The 9mm breech face(inset) is indistinguishable from that of the.40 S&Wversion.

tained the cased XDm and a fistful of spare

magazines. The standard case for the XDm

line is a special Pelican case in which the

foam insert has been cut to store the pistol,

tWoextra mags, spare backstraps, the holster

mag pouch and the magazine loader. Oh, and

the now-ubiquitous lock that the governmentsaddles us with. As a bonus, the foam insert is

paired: one side is for the pistol and mags; the

other holds the holster and mag pouch. If you

want, you can swap oUt the holster side and

cut the foam for more magazines, a cleaning

kit, or whatever you can fit into the case.

In shooting the XDm 9, I found it was

quite accumte. Long-gone are the days of

9mm pistOls being considered mere bullet-

hoses-good for blasting cheap surplus ammo

into the dirt. Now they are expected to be,

and are, asaccumte asany other pistOl or cali-ber. And so it is with the XDm 9.The match

.barrel provides as much velocity boost for the

9mm asyou can expect, shon of going up to a

bigger pistOl (but one ,vith less capacity) like

the 1911.The match barrel is mmped and

... ,---.-

At 32 ounces unloaded, the XDm isn't petite,but ifs quite packable.

Large, fast acquisition sights with luminousdots have become the industry standard. At19+1 capacity, this is at the top of the hi-capcrowd.

fully suppons the case, so regular use of +P or

+P+ ammo will elicit a yawn from your XDm

9.That is, ifan inanimate object can express

sentiment "that all you got?" The Melonite

treatment of the slide and barrel produce a

surface so hard and dumb Ie,you would have

CHRONOGRAPHI ACCURACY RESULTSBullet Average Velocity 25-yard Avg.Group

Bullet Weight (gr.) (fps) (in.)

Cor-Bon FMJ 147 896 3.0

Cor-Bon JHP+P 125 1,245 3.5

FiocchiFMJ 115 1,229 3.0

PMCFMJ 115 1,106 3.5

Armscor FMJ 124 1,087 3.5

Black Hills JHP (red box) 115 1,261 3.0

3-D Blue JHP 147 985 3.5

W-W RangerFMJ NATO 124 1,244 4.0

Hornady JHP/XTP 115 1,130 2.5

Hornady JHP/XTP 124 1,182 2.5

Hornady JHP/XTP 147 1,003 2.5

want to, bUt you aren't makingit harder.

In my customary new gun

ritual, I took the XDM 9 apart

and checked it over, cleaned

it off and ran a patch downthe bore. I then lubed it with

Gunzilla, a new product here

This action shot with the Viridian laser mounted XDm 9 testi- at Gun Abuse Central. In thefies to the low recoil. And the laser never missed a beat modem world of non-petro-

leum chemistry, Gunzilla has

come up with a plant-based

lubricant that lacks not only petroleum, but

water. I figured I'd give it a try,and apply it tothe XDm 9 before I then ran a whole bunch

of ammo through it.

Along with the XDm, a new laser sight ar-

rived. Viridian makes green lasers, and green

has several advantages over red. First, our

eyes are a lot more sensitive to green than

red light. Second, when the sun is out, theflood of other colors can overwhelm the red

of standard lasers, and make them appear

dimmer than their measured outpUt. Green

also appears (at least in my testing) to show

up better against a variety of backgrounds. If

green is so good, why red? Simple: red was

the first, and easiest color to manage

Once I cleaned the XDm 9, I bolted the

to exceedallcommonsense in reloading(likeusing your brother-in-Iaw's loads) to stress

it. BUt please don't. The reloading manuals

have an upper limit for a reason. The slidecomes in either matte stainless or stainless

with a blackened finish. I imagine someone,somewhere will send their XDm oUt to have

the slide hard-chromed. Fair warning: when

you do that, you will be plating your slidewith a material softer than the surface of the

slide itself Saying Melonite is harder than

sin is like saying a Ferrari is faster than a Ford

Fiesta. The Melonite process creates a hard

surface with greater lubricity.A cheap file

might be in the upper 50s on the Rockwell .

"c" scale. A good file will be mid-60. The

Melonite process creates a surface that can

be in the upper 70s in hardness. Plate it ifyou

Hot off the R&Dloading benchesof Winchester is the new Bonded

PDX1ammo, designed to satisfy theFBIballistic protocols. , -~,':-~' "'" "",<, "....

The"bonded" inthe name shouldbe a :;\., "-::.?~,

c',c

,

,'::

,-':~ =='''''''''"-'~

"~-

" "'IIii3','~

,..,1\ ,. /-;"'~-'. ",,¥.'/':~

clue. The lead core is essentially welded !~S

l

r~l~~~~ca, <"':;~j'/J,

il};:;~IfiVG:;;E5Z'

,

~,

'~to the jacket, so when the hollowpoint ::'s ~NC/f;eMIi§ ~rv.~:'<:\~uP~- .Q!:.'~~~

expands the two remain attached. Having :;! ~ ~6~ § - ~.t~~~ ~punchedmorethana fewbulletsthrough I," ~ 0-='

auto glass in ballistic testing, I can tellyou that jacket-core separation is a badthing for terminal performance.

The hollowpoint is a six-petaled gaping maw of an opening that promises lots of terminalballistic performance, and its expansion does not disappoint Adding reliable feeding to theround is a nickel-platedcaseor cases, as the PDX1lineis goingto start out in six loads infour calibers.

Testing new ammo is tough when you have to practically snatch it off the R&Dloadingbenches to test That's how early in the process G&A,and my test guns, had sample ammo.In fact, the only ammo available in any quantity for our deadline was .40 S&W.But it didnot disappoint I tested it in three ditfurent pistols, and the velocities were right up there. Inthe gun with the 4.5-inch barrel, the 180-grain bullets clocked 977 fps. Out of the 4.75-inchbarrel, they managed a dead-even 1,000 fps, and from the 5-inch gun, 1047 fps. Yowza!Thatmeans a Power Factor of 188, making Major even in the dinosaur days of IPSe. You'd reallyhave to be grumpy to refer to such a load as "Forty Short-and-Weak."

Performance was everything you'd expect of a load the FBIis receiving as Iwrite this:Fullexpansion, with the average of the first five round being .615, and full FBIpenetration,averaging 15 inches of gelatin. This is not ammo for the faint-of-heart Launching a 180-grainbullet in the close vicinity of 1000 fps takes work, and your hand will realize that But if it isperformanceyou want,this ammo delivers.

The plan for ammunition at the moment is this: .38 Special +P (130 grains), 9mm+P (124

grain and 147 grains), .40 S&W(165 and 180 grains), and .45 ACP (230 grains). Really,whatdoesn't that cover?

38 GUNS&AMMO February 2009

. -\

,jj'"

The ramped, match-grade barrel yieldedexpected results using the laser. It can handle+P and +P+ with no extra strain. Photos:Patrick Sweeney.

PDX1bullets pulled from FBIprotocol testmedia: .38 Special, 9x19mm and .40 S&W.

Viridian Universal XS laser/tactical light on,

and left it on while I subjected the XDm 9 tothe ammo at hand.

In doing what high-volume endurance

shooting I could on a cold, rainy pairof

weekdays, I worked over the club's steel plates

pretty thoroughly, and spent altogether too

much time plinking at the 100yard line.At no

time did I have even the brief impression of a

malfunction. The XDm 9 ground through theammunition I had on hand with IRS-like im-

placability.The sights came zeroed, so I didn't

have to do any adjusting. The laser didn't lose

its zero, and the light worked despite the recoil

and my dropping it once in the cold rain while

checking the fit. I can report from practical

field testing that dropping a ViridianX5 onto

a concrete pad, and then kicking it 15 feet to

hit a 4x4 post when trying to pick it up, has no

adverse effects. It didn't lose zero, the light still

works, and the buttons all perfoun as designed.

Once I'd finished a couple of thousand

rounds, I took the XDm 9 apart, and found

that I could easily wipe the bulk of the

powder residue off the parts with a cleaning

cloth. As an old petroleum chemist I had mydoubts, bUt the results were clear: Gunzilla

did the job.So did the XDm 9 .You thought the capacity

wars were done; they've only just begun. G51\