So I removed the grip safety on my XD last night...

[Guest GUTTERbOY]

As part of the continuing saga of my extra-corrosive sweat, I was noticing some discoloration on the side of the grip safety level. Looked like it'd be annoying to get to with the grip safety on the gun, so I resolved to remove it, give it a thorough cleaning and CLPing, and then go forward with my life. Little did I know what i was getting into.

Now, I'm by no means a mechanical moron. Part of my genetic makeup is the innate desire to disassemble every item within a three-mile radius and figure out how it works, so this is a skill I've been honing since I was about five years old. The reassembling skills took a little longer to develop, but they're fairly mature at this point, too.

Anyway, I first sought out a good illustrated guide to the inner workings of the XD before i just started knocking pins out all willy-nilly. Found a pretty good detail strip guide over at xd-hs2000.com, and observed that the only thing behind the safety lever was the spring for it. nice and straightforward, just knock the pin out, do my thing, and reassemble.

Steps one and two went down without a hitch, as expected. However, it was at the reassembly stage that things began to go south. See, the guide I looked at didn't really show very well how the spring was positioned. No problem, I figured- after looking at the parts, I figured out how the spring went in there- or so I thought.

I then began attempting to insert the safety and spring back into their cozy home. Clearly, I was doing something wrong, because the spring kept popping out of place riiiiiiight when I almost had it in place. This happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until I was about ready to start chucking tools across the garage. During this time, I kept going back and looking at the strip guide to see if there was something obvious I was doing wrong.

Finally, at about 1 AM, I decided it was time to hoist the middle finger and go to bed. Just before that, I decided to search around some, because SURELY I wasn't the first person to run into this problem. And I hit pay dirt. Turns out I had an entirely wrong conception of how the spring was positioned. Durrr. Found a good pictorial guide, had my "Ooooohhhhh" moment, went back in the garage, and had the thing back in in like five minutes.

Things go so much better when you do them the right way.

I figure there are two morals to this story. The first is that no matter how mechanically inclined you might be, if you're not careful about observing things as you disassemble them, things can go rodeo pretty easily. The second is that if you own an XD, and think to yourself that maybe if you pulled the grip safety, you could get all that crud out of the well..... trust me, it's not worth it.

[Guest abailey362]

that's why I've never completely broken down any of the xd's that I've had.......such a simple gun can become so complex in the hands of a tinkerer

[TGO David]

Huh... well ain't that some ****. I've never had that problem with my Glock.

[Oh Shoot]

Huh... well ain't that some ****. I've never had that problem with my Glock.

Yeah, them Glock grip safeties are foolproof !

- OS

[Guest GUTTERbOY]

I once disassembled the Ruger P94 I had down to the bare frame for the pure hell of it. Took me a while to get it back together, but it was educational. I probably would have avoided the confusion last night had I done the complete detail strip, which would have given me a better view of the way the grip safety spring was supposed to be... but I started at like 10:30, and had this mistaken belief that it'd just be a quick 30-minute job.

[Angus]

Huh... well ain't that some ****. I've never had that problem with my Glock.

Glock FTW...heh.

I am the same way with tinkering though, but have never broken down a pistol, so I will leave it up to a professional untill I get someone to show me how.

1am huh....I have had a few fishing reels apart at 1am, it was like high-mass here at the house...not just the middle finger

[Guest GUTTERbOY]

I have a thing for tinkering into the wee hours of the morning. Back in NC, the tinkering was usually occurring on a vehicle, leading to my roommate and I makign frequent reference to Midnight Mechanicking. Seemed like no matter what time we started working on either of our trucks, we'd end up lying under the thing with a Coleman lantern going at 12:30 AM.

On a related note, it's amusing to see how apartment residents react to seeing a guy dropping the transmission out of his truck in the parking lot. I remember one dude walking by, doing a double-take... "Is that a transmission?" "Yep."

[Angus]

LMAO...nice.

Found my neice playing with the bearing I " lost " from one of my nicer fishing reels. Seems that at 3 yrs old, she liked how it rolled, and none of us saw her take it of the table????? Well, now I have 2 of those nice fishing reels, cuz when I couldn't find that bearing, I bought a new one....

[Marswolf]

Well, I'm glad to hear that someone else takes everything apart just for the hell of it.

Only gun I have that I won't do more than field strip is the P7M8. I have heard stories of gunsmiths taking 14 hours to get one of them reassembled....

[Guest Todd@CIS]

Try taking apart the mag release assembly...it's worse.

[DWARREN123]

I have taken apart just about everything I own, and some things I don't, but my Glocks, they just don't seem to need it, or want it!

[TripleDigitRide]

I removed the grip safety from my XD, so I could polish it. A Q-Tip will be your best friend.

Used a small section of the Q-Tip to hold all the parts in place, then push the pin though the hole. As you push the pin through, the piece of Q-Tip will come out the other side.

[Guest bkelm18]

Huh... well ain't that some ****. I've never had that problem with my Glock.

You ever fully disassembled your Glock?

[Guest GUTTERbOY]

I removed the grip safety from my XD, so I could polish it. A Q-Tip will be your best friend.

Used a small section of the Q-Tip to hold all the parts in place, then push the pin though the hole. As you push the pin through, the piece of Q-Tip will come out the other side.

Yeah, that's how I ended up doing it. Once I found that pictorial guide, that was when I realized that I'd been trying to put the spring in there wrong the whole time.

[strickj]

Try taking apart the mag release assembly...it's worse.

Yes it is!

I have done that twice.After the first time I said"I wont ever F`with that again"

that is until I did it the second time

[Marswolf]

You ever fully disassembled your Glock?

I did when I had one. Simplicity is fine, but I'll take a bit more complexity in my carry gun, thank you.

[Guest Verbal Kint]

You ever fully disassembled your Glock?

Full take down is quite easy... and very simple. Almost too simple. I had mine apart to swap out the connector bar and figured, while I was in there, why the hell not. Had it down to individual pieces in about 30 mins (first time and taking time to read all the directions). I was actually disturbed, a little bit, by how easy it was (compared to all of my previous guns).

The only issue I had, in the slightest, was the damn spring cups in re-assembly. Tiny pieces under pressure = the suck. But once I figured out to rest the striker on the edge of the desk, while pushing down on the spring, it was cake.

I still think they're ugly ass guns... and I used to hate them. But now I definitely appreciate them for their purpose, and have become one of the drinking fanbois.

[Guest GUTTERbOY]

I did when I had one. Simplicity is fine, but I'll take a bit more complexity in my carry gun, thank you.

Huh, that's not something you normally see on the list of desired features for a carry weapon.

"Well, it does feel nice in my hand, but this is going to be a carry gun. Do you have anything more complex I can take a look at?"

[Marswolf]

Huh, that's not something you normally see on the list of desired features for a carry weapon.

"Well, it does feel nice in my hand, but this is going to be a carry gun. Do you have anything more complex I can take a look at?"

Let me re-phrase. I like more options available for a carry gun. De-cock / re-cock. SA/DA. Manual safety but with the option of disabling it. De-cocker. Etc. That requires more complexity to have all of those options. I guess I'm just supposed to be happy with the lack of options in a "perfect" gun.