XD45 issue

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smirnoff a

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My Springfield XD45 developed a light primer strikes issue. The gun has about 1,000 rounds through it and was my camping/hiking workhorse. It was never abused and cleaned after every use, but I did care a bit less about it than the rest of my quality weapons. Well, a few weeks ago, while plinking, I did have a few light primer strikes here and there, but my Dan Wesson and Beretta CX4 Storm did fine with the same ammo. I was pretty disappointed, since this was the first time this gun malfunctioned and it was one of my primary guns. Well, last weekend we went camping and I decided to fire off a few rounds. It fired the first two in the magazine, but to my dismay, had light strikes on the rest. I switched the magazine to the one with personal defense ammo and experienced the same problem. Pretty much the gun no longer fires, but does ding the primer.

What are my options here? Should I send the gun to Springfield for repairs or should I take it to the local shop? Living in Alaska, shipping would not be cheap. Can local Springfield dealers do warranty repairs?

Thanks,
 
Contact Springfield and they can advise you better than a forum can. My experience with them has been nothing but good.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
May be some dirt or firing residue retarding the striker. That's a possibility if this is your hauling-around-all-the-time gun, and it gets a little less attention than everybody else.

May also be that a new striker spring is in order. You can get one from Springfield, and you can install it yourself if you have the proper pin punches and skills. If not, any competent gunsmith will be able to do the work for you. Springs do break from time to time, and sometimes sooner than you would expect them to.

RedloaderFred does get points though, contacting Springfield for their advice trumps internet know-it-alls.
 
Sounds like it could be the striker retainer pin but I'm no gunsmith.
Like Fred said --I would contact Springfield.
www.pistolgear.com has those pins--$1.25 for 3 of them or $3 for the factory ones.
Since you are so far away you might just have a local gunsmith take a look at it --if it is that pin--it sounds like an easy fix
Good luck--what a bummer though--don't hear about XD's breaking very often
 
DA/SA actions have that pesky long heavy first pull, but man is there a sense of security seeing that big ol' fat hammer, at least IMHO! This and second strike capability are what make me gravitate towards DA/SAs. Especially the Beretta slide safety/decocker design. Striker fired handguns are great, but none are better than hammered designs, not even Glock......no matter what anybody sais:evil: Theres only one truth, and thats Winchester white box ammo WILL fail in YOUR gun at some point.
 
If I had that problem I would buy some replacement springs and install them myself (cheapest option) using the instructions in the link to take the slide apart.

I guess a person could disassemble the slide and give it a good cleaning just to be sure some crud hasn't kinda blocked the firing pin. (Really cheap)

I've not tried it myself.;)

http://www.xd-hs2000.com/disassembly/slidedisassembly.html
 
DA/SA actions have that pesky long heavy first pull, but man is there a sense of security seeing that big ol' fat hammer, at least IMHO!
Click to expand...

That doesn't make much sense because in most designs that big ol' fat hammer isn't what's making direct contact with the primer to begin with. You can have light strikes with a hammer just the same as you could with a striker. If something is causing a blockage or something is broken after the hammer falls..you're in the same boat.

You're right about the 2nd strike capability but that's assuming the primer will actually go off the 2nd time. Hitting a primer too light and not setting it off 2 times is no better than one time. It's still faster than chambering another round...but a new round would have a much better chance of firing if it was an ammunition malfunction instead of a firearm malfunction to begin with.

I guess you could argue that a hammer mechanism is more reliable than a striker mechanism but I think that would be a tough one to gather up statistics on.
 
I appreciate everyone’s replies. I’ll give Springfield a call on Monday morning and see what they say first. I’ll then go from there.

Yea, I too have not heard of many reliability issues with Springfield XDs – that was one of the reasons I purchased the gun. The other reasons were the bang for the buck and the options.
 
Disassemble the upper and clean out the firing pin channel. Bet you'll find that oil and gunk have accumulated there dampening the firing pin travel. No big deal, it should be done every now and then anyway. It kinda falls under the heading of "Routine Cleaning".
str1
 
Shooter just identified the most likely problem. I don't know of it being prolific on XDs, but it is one of the more common failures in 9mm Glocks. Result is typically overapplication of lubricant. Lube stays in the firing pin channel, and does what lube does (attracts dirt, accumulates carbon), and turns to sludge over time.

DA/SA actions have that pesky long heavy first pull, but man is there a sense of security seeing that big ol' fat hammer, at least IMHO! This and second strike capability are what make me gravitate towards DA/SAs.
Click to expand...

If your firing pin channel is too dirty, it doesn't matter what's driving the pin itself. If it's a weak spring, doesn't matter if it's powering a hammer or striker. Also, I've experienced bad primers before, but never had a round that failed to fire with one strike ignite on the second (or third, or fourth) strike. Much better habit to execute a tap-rack-bang if you want to bring a gun back to action.
 
i say first before you call them and then have to send it in, change the striker spring. i change mine everytime i change the recoil spring. if that dosen't work then call em, but that will most likly take care of the issue. my factory striker spring lasted over 8500rds before i started having light primer strikes, went home changed it, no issues, and continue to change every 3,000rds.
 
op,
if you need to know how to change it let me know i will tell you how.

with only 1000rds, it might be the primers or the ammo you are shooting. i would try different ammo first, and then change the spring if the ammo change didn't do the trick.
 
Disassemble the upper and clean out the firing pin channel. Bet you'll find that oil and gunk have accumulated there dampening the firing pin travel. No big deal, it should be done every now and then anyway. It kinda falls under the heading of "Routine Cleaning".
Click to expand...

That's what happened in my XD, (old style). I spotted some brass crap when I shined a flash light in the hole on the bottom of the slide. It had too much oil and particles of brass were stuck in there.
 
My Springfield XD45 developed a light primer strikes issue. The gun has about 1,000 rounds through it and was my camping/hiking workhorse.
Click to expand...
IF you dry fire a lot you may have a broken "roll pin" like I did at less than 400 rounds. Get some "Gun Scrubber" or non-chlorinated brake cleaner and clean the hell out of the striker channel as it could be terribly gunked up. With ONLY 1000 rounds I seriously doubt that your striker spring is weak.
I'm betting that your "roll pin" is broke or your striker channel is gunked up.
Please post what the problem was when you find out as this kind of info is helpful to us all.
 
Springfield will cover shipping and repairs for free. Warranty is lifetime, so no need to risk voiding it by having a gunsmith other than Springfield do the repairs.
 
Springfield will cover shipping and repairs for free. Warranty is lifetime, so no need to risk voiding it by having a gunsmith other than Springfield do the repairs.

I would be hesitant to send my pistol in for repair, when likely all it needed was routine cleaning. Anyone capable of operating a firearm should also be capable of maintaining it. I'm sure there's a video or block of instruction on XD assembly/disassembly floating around out there somewhere.
Warranty work is not free. It has to be calculated into the cost of doing business. Wonder what the price of a pistol would be if everyone sent theirs back for cleaning under warranty-----------hummmmmmm.
str1
 
I have few xd's and I had the same problem in my 40 cal sub compact which I take hunting and do all kinds of plinking. After about 2000 rounds it started to have same issues as you do. So I took it apart and and cleaned it with a small brush using wd40 (that's all I had in my truck) and wiped it good and no problem since then. What happens is that the pin retains oil when you clean it and it is hard to wipe it down. So all that gun powder and dirt residue stacks in there and it take a while to get to that, it prevents the pin to strike in the correct area of the cartridge.
 
Clean it second.

First, make sure it's unloaded, etc, etc and cock it. Put a pencil with a good eraser on it. Point the gun up and pull the trigger. Note how far the pencil comes up (and/or out) of the barrel. Do it several times to get an idea of how much force if being generated.

NOW clean it, per Shooter1's instruction.

THEN reassemble and repeat the pencil test. If the pencil comes out higher, that was likely the problem. (which should've been self evident as you cleaned it, so would a broken roll pin)

If the problem is a dirty gun, then it's a long time to wait to have the factory simply clean it for you. Will you send it back everytime it does this?
 
This is just an update. I called Springfield and was advised to take down a firing pin assembly and clean it out. As numerously mentioned in this thread, I was told that oil around that area would cause light primer strikes. The second advise was to send it in to them for cleaning overnight, but the customer service tech was not sure if they would charge for this service or not.

I think I’ll follow the instructions to take down the assembly and clean it when I have time. Hopefully this would fix the problem. I’ll post an update once finished.
 
smirnoffa,
Once you've done this procedure once, and see how simple it is, you'll want to do it every 500 rds or so (Minimum) to make sure the pistol remains reliable.
Anytime you acquire an unfamiliar pistol platform, it's always a good idea to locate the information you need to properly maintain it. Lot's of good sources available.
str1
 
smirnoff:
When you take it apart the first time do it some place where you can find the spring and the little black thingy. Once you depress the spring and slide the retainer back the spring has a mind of it's own and want to take off. The little black piece is plastic so a magnet won't do you any good. Of course if you have 5 or 6 XD's then you can always take one out them and put it in the one you lost. :D:D:D:D
 
Take a can of air and blow out around the striker pin, maybe some remnants of something got stuck up there. If that doesnt fix it, take it to a qualified 'smith to save on shipping costs.
 
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