Springfield XDS-4: A review by Peter Burlingame

Lee’s note: Here’s a great pistol review from Peter Burlingame, AKA VIGunfighter, president of the Self Defense Initiative on St. Thomas. Peter’s work is highly recommended.

You can access his You Tube Channel here.

Springfield XDS-4: A review

by Peter Burlingame

I never warmed up to the Springfield XD series of pistols. While it incorporates my favorite features in an Every Day Carry Fighting Pistol, (Double action only, striker fired, polymer frame), I found it clunky, unattractive, with a too high bore line above the hand and what I consider to be an unnecessary grip safety.

I didn’t hate them, and didn’t try to dissuade people from buying them, they just weren’t for me. Until now.

A little backstory: About a year and a half ago, a few people came up with the brilliant idea of taking a perfectly good Glock 19 and cutting the butt down to take G26 magazines. The barrel is easy to conceal, being down your pants in an Inside the Waist Band holster. It’s the grip that needs to be small for concealment.

The genius is continued; it can use all the bigger magazines, 15, 17, on up to the 32 rounder. The longer barrel is easier to hit with, giving you a longer sight radius. It also helps control muzzle flip and add a touch of velocity, good for helping hollow point to expand.

The downside is that Glocks are, well, let’s just say it, they’re chubby. Big boned. Husky. And that’s were the new Springfield comes in. They came out with their ‘S’ series of single stacks, trying to keep up with the Kahr PM9/Shield/LC9 in the svelte single stack market. Their first offering was ho-hum.

But then they did the smart thing. The bold thing. They put a four inch barrel on it. And came up with something very Special.

I’ve been lusting after one ever since I saw the first advertisement. It took a few months, but I finally got the chance to shoot one. And it was everything I’d hoped. I carry a G26 every waking hour, and mine has over a hundred and twenty thousand rounds through it. I shoot it well. But that extra bit of barrel makes a difference. The Xds4 points well, and hits quickly.

This is a pistol you can fight with.

You can get the XDS4 as a ‘kit’, in a nice briefcase containing the pistol, a paddle holster, a seven and eight round magazine, dual mag pouch, cable lock, optional back strap insert, and a couple of different colors of fiber optic for the front sight.

The two stage, spring over spring recoil system, combined with the longer barrel help mitigate the recoil to where it is pleasant, despite the narrow backstrap. The butt has nice block texture for a sure grip without being too abrasive, an important feature if you are going to shoot more that a couple of magazines through your pistol.

An ambidextrous magazine release is in place. No need to switch it from one side to the other. Many righties with smaller hands may find using their trigger finger on the right side button is a better way to drop the mags. Clever.

I got to put a box of Wolf steel case 115grain FMJ and a couple of mags of Gold Dot through this little darling. Popping 8” and 10” steel targets at ten to fifteen yards was easy as pie. No struggle at all. Follow up shots came easy, with little muzzle rise and the the sights snapping back on target quickly.

The issued sights worked well, the red fiber optic quick to pick up, the white dots at the rear easy to ignore, yet offering the traditional patridge sight picture which is so good for precision work.

The only negative is that the slide didn’t lock back on empty magazines. I didn’t think of it until later, but I suspect that it was a combination of me and my high thumbs forward grip, and the slide release lever being fairly far back. Same thing happens to me when I shoot Sigs. Thinking about it, the releases are in similar locations.

So overall, Springfield has a winner in the Xds-4. I love it. A slender, easy carrying, serious fighting pistol.

Now if only S&W would put a 4” barrel on their Shield and Glock come out with a G44 (taking their ho-hum 43 and putting a 4” barrel on it) we’d have a great trio of slender ladies from whom to choose to take to the dance.