XD Grip Safety Bad.....or Good Feature?

Out of all of the above mentioned safety devices, the grip safety is the most intrusive and the least useful.
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I will vehemently disagree with this part, and I will suggest that a magazine disconnector safety is king right here. And no, it's not because I see myself grappling with Macho Man Randy Savage and inadvertently losing the magazine and planning to use my single chambered round to save all of humanity.

For me, it's about being able to practice dry fire with a hammer-equipped pistol and for the striker fired guns, even more so about being able to release the striker for something such as a field strip. To be forced to do either of those things with a magazine installed should only be described as ludicrous, but I suppose I would also suggest the term unacceptable.
 
Sevens, I don't disagree with you. That's why I didn't list the magazine disconnect. Yes, it is even more useless and intrusive than the grip safety. Agreed!
 
Extraneous safeties, especially any that can mechanically prevent a weapon from firing should you need it under stress (I'm looking at you, thumb safeties), are more a hazard than a boon on a fighting handgun. See: Glock, M&P, Sig P-series etc.
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Please go on and detail your fighting handgun experience please.

Negligent discharges during re-holstering are a result of the trigger being caught on something, sometimes even a finger. Good holster technique, well practiced, and good trigger discipline, well practiced, carry the day here. And good technique will carry the day regardless of the kind of firearm you are holstering, whether it is bedecked in safeties or not.
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Lol. Good practice and discipline also carry the day when using "extraneous" safeties too. They were never really a problem in the shooting world until suddenly they were imagined to be so by people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. The stressed out klutzes, or the tiny handed, among us assume everyone is as panicky and uncoordinated as they are and so make a virtue out of necessity. Then they are prone to proclamations about the "uselessness" of a manual safety they cannot, or will not, master.
 
I have been told that train this way and you will get use to a light gun...true enough. But do I have to? Uh no! In the same since I could say get use to a little weight and you don't have to work so hard to get good groups! Uh yeah! Will a lighter gun teach better trigger/grip discipline? It can. Can I use that discipline on a heavier gun for even better accuracy? of course!

Same thing with a safety, Manual or not should I have to train with one? Uh no! If I train with one can I be just as effective...uh yeah! What's the diff? Well maybe a toddler in a grocery cart at wal-mart or the kid that got a hold of his dumb brothers piece that momma didn't know he had. could have bought the seconds needed, been of no use, or prevented a ND altogether.

At the same time could a safety become an obstacle? Uh yeah. Can training with one prevent it from being so? Yeah and it has for some in a bad way! But why if I don't have to? Guess I don't.

I shoot big booming pistols because like them. I am called a showoff. I own a Glock and I am called a fanboy. I own a gun with a safety and I am called untrained........ The truth is they are kind of like Neapolitan ice cream at a birthday party. You can like all the flavors or take your pick. No right or wrong, just flavor! You also can go get whatever you like at the store if the flavor still don't suit you. No need to have a debate about which ice cream is best, it's all in the taste buds anyway.
 
Originally Posted by RickB
When I started shooting USPSA competition I'd already been shooting 1911s for twenty years.
I'd literally never had a problem depressing the grip safety before, but had to readjust my grip to get the gun to fire on three of the first six stages I shot in competition.

When you started competitive shooting, had you just adopted a higher grip?
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I was using the "two thumbs up", "Cooper Combat Hold" with both thumbs on the safety, weak over strong, and had been for fifteen years.
I soon noticed that nobody but me was holding the gun that way, so I changed, within six months or so, to the two-thumbs forward grip.
The latter isn't any higher than the former.
 
I personally wouldn't use my XD for self defense because it has a PRP trigger, which is very light; the grip safety doesn't both me at all though. I'm used to it. If i didn't like grip safeties, I wouldn't own a Les Baer 1911.
 
I have a grip safety on my 1911 and XD .45 Tactical. Just gives me a warm feeling. Did not take any additional practice to adapt to them.
 
Skans wrote: My opinion: Grip safeties are bad on ALL 1911's, XD's, lugers, and any other pistol that happens to have one. If you don't like Ruger's chamber indicator, how can you like a grip safety? If you don't like Smith and Wesson's safety lock, how can you possibly like a grip safety? If the trigger dingus on a Glock bothers you, how can you like a grip safety? If you think the firing pin block in a Series 80 messes up the feel of the trigger, HOW CAN YOU LIKE A GRIP SAFETY???
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Should I mark your vote as bad or good? :D
 
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the grip safety allows the liability lawyers to relent
And, that's why I hate grip safeties. Hi-Powers don't have them. CZ 75B's don't have them. 2nd and 3rd Gen S&W autos don't have them. My Witness Sotck 10mm doesn't have one nor does my Sig X-Five. All of these guns function perfectly without the wiggly piece of metal jutting into the palm of my hand.

But the pistols you cite are ones that don't have the "Glock-type" trigger "safety" (a relatively "unforgiving" trigger safety configuration in some people's minds-myself included) and/or are ones that aren't typically carried in a "cocked and locked" mode (excepting the Hi-Power and, depending on if you want to carry sa instead of da mode, the CZ). I'm an advocate of having grip safeties on pistols with Glock-type triggers or on pistols that are carried in "Condition 2" (cocked and locked). On a properly designed pistol, I don't see any significant downside to them-just my opinion, folks.
 
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how will a grip safety prevent an ND while holstering? Do you not hold onto and push down on the grip when you holster it?
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Do Not! trigger finger parallel and along side of the slide of my XD40 Sub Compact, middle, and third finger on the front of the grip with pinky finger below. Now, pay attention, heal of thumb on the back of the slide with the rest of the thumb pressing down on the slide. Very secure, and natural hold for holstering with nothing even close to depressing the grip safety. So natural of a hold it wasn't even needed to be practiced. That was the way I bolstered it from day one.
 
I don't know if they're good or bad, but just like with 1911's they feel awful in the hand.

The #1 reason I've never owned a springer or 1911.
 
I like the grip safety. When I reholster I always put my thumb on the back of the slide, no glock leg that way. That is the way I reholster my hammer fired pistols also.
 
I've owned one of the original XD's for years--and I assure you I'm one of the poorest shots on this forum--yet I've never once had an issue of it failing to bang when I wanted it to and putting the bullet reasonably close to my blurry POA.:)
 
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