Finally -- Shot My XD

So, I bought my first weapon, a Smith & Wesson Sigma 9mm on July 30th. It arrived about a week later and I was further unable to shoot it for another two weeks -- an agreement with my wife that I take my safety course first. So, I've technically been shooting about 2 months or so now; I've posted my targets here before and while some were nice, they were several sporatic shots. I attributed this to the 12lbs trigger pull of the weapon, which prompted me to pick up a Springfield Armory XD 9mm after having fired my friends.

Today, I was able to hit the range for the first time -- I picked up 300 rounds of ammo (figured it'd be a nice break-in) and hit the range. I went with the intent of doing the NRA Handgun Qualification course of fire -- a self-paced method that the NRA came up with that entails a series of progressively difficult courses of fire. The first was to aquire five rounds in ten eight inch targets (or within an inch of the border of a 9" paper plate) at 15 feet in benchrest position. While I didn't keep all of my plates (went through a lot of targets with 300 rounds), I'll post the first eight.

These were my very first shots with my XD -- I got excited and lost count, but still a nice grouping of six shots there.


Probably the best five shots of my life on plate number two -- I'm thrilled with that grouping.

Here's where my magazine ran out. Still not too shabby.

Still not too shabby.

Looks like with these last two, I'm starting to pull at the trigger a bit.

Maybe trying to go too fast? I get... cocky? when I'm doing well.

I recoup a bit here, but...

The second trigger pull gets away from me, but I recover.

All in all, I love my new weapon -- I'm realizing that I enjoy paper plates as targets more than anything else... Aim small, miss small, ya know? I did most of my other work in my standard stance and did just as well as benchrest; a HUGE departure from my Sigma. The RO even asked if I was looking into IPSC... when I told him I'd only been shooting a month or so, he grunted and shook his head.

After a while, I pushed the target back to 30 feet and did so-so. I did some one handed work and actually did better with that than I did two hands. Granted at this point I was feeling the fatigue and I was getting a little sore on my trigger finger, but I made sure to collect my brass as, at the rate I'm going (maybe 1000+ rounds now in a month), it'd definitely be cheaper for me to reload my own ammo.