Some time ago I mentioned I was doing a comparison of the XD and Glock lines of pistols. Of course I didn’t follow up on that in any reasonable time but here is the follow up. Before making posts comparing the two I’m going to go over the two pistols being compared, the Springfield XD Compact in .45 and the Glock 30SF also in .45.
Both guns are the compact versions of each companies .45 pistol. The XD Compact I’m testing has a 4.04″ barrel while the Glock 30SF has a 3.78″ barrel. Not a lot of difference there I must say. Meanwhile the XD is 5″ high while the Glock is 4.76″ when using the flush 9 round magazine (I only have 10 round magazines for the Glock). For width the XD is 1.21″ while the Glock is 1.27″ which is so negligible that it’s almost unnoticeable. The XD does look quite a bit thinner due to the fact the top of the slide is thinned while the Glock slide is the same width from top to bottom. According to company provided statistics with an empty 10 round magazine inserted the XD weighs in at 29 oz. while the Glock weighs in at 26.49 oz. This surprises me a bit since the Glock feels slightly heavier.
Both guns are capable of using their bigger siblings larger capacity magazines give both the capability of 13+1 rounds. One difference is Springfield has spacers for their magazines to make the 13 round magazines fit flush with the shorter grip compact model while Glock offers no such piece. Standard they take 10 round magazines giving both guns the same capacity.
On the exterior the guns only differ in appearance and a slight number of features. The XD comes with a striker cocked indicator and a grip safety. Both guns have a loaded chamber indicator but whereas the XD indicator is a separate piece on the stop of the barrel the Glock’s extractor doubles as a loaded chamber indicator. This is not achievable on the XD since it uses an internal extractor while the Glock uses an external one. Both guns have a trigger safety mean to prevent the firearm from going off if the trigger gains enough inertia but somebody isn’t pulling it.
The Glock grip is at a steeper angle than the XD. Some people hate this about the Glock while others like it but I found it easy to adapt to with a little time. The XD grip angle is similar to that of the CZ line of pistols from which much of its design came. Meanwhile the barrel axis of the Glock is noticeably lower than that of the XD. This in theory reduced felt recoil but to make up for that fact the XD has a much heavier recoil spring in it than the Glock does.
Those are the two pistols, if you want more details just do a Google search. Most people know the guns well enough that this post isn’t really needed but being this is an experiment I feel the need to list all information.