My XD .40 cal Sub-Compact just wasn't working out... so I've adoped the Walther PPS 9mm as my new choice firearm for conceal & carry.

In the fall last year I bought an XD .40 sub-compact handgun made by Springfield Armory. I had chosen the XD because I really liked the feel of the weapon, had fired a 9mm version and been very pleased, and the .40 offered substantial fire-power in a small form factor. I also loved the features of the XD line.

My intent was to carry it on a semi-regular basis.

That was a little more than 6 months ago.

Overall, the XD is a fantastic weapon, and I would recommend the XD line without reservation to anyone that asks. There are a LOT of good guns on the market, but the XD line is truly at the top of the heap.

Unfortunately, I have discovered some problems that have forced me to the conclusion that the XD sub-compact .40 is just not the right weapon for me personally.

After a couple thousand rounds of regular target practice, I just wasn't consistent in how well I shot. Sometimes I'd do well, and others I'd hardly put one in nine rounds on the paper at 5 yards. I'm not naturally a "good" shot. But after that much practice I should at least be consistently bad. The gun itself was fine... other people pick it up and do fantastically well with it.

The other problem was the size of the weapon. I'm 6' 4" tall and weigh in at around 145lbs --tall and skinny. The XD is a sub-compact with a 3" barrel and an overall length of about 6.5". It isn't a large weapon in those dimensions, but the slide is still a 2" wide chunk of steel. No matter how slack I try and dress, the XD sticks out like a brick making wearing it concealed nearly impossible.

But it was the lack of consistent accuracy that forced me to admit that, while I loved the XD, it was not the right weapon for me. Not knowing if you can reliably defend yourself with your side-arm is far worse than just being unarmed in the first place. It's safer for both you, and anyone else that happens to be around when the shit hits the fan.

So reluctantly, I decided to give up my XD and start looking for something that fit me better.

The search was long, and there were a lot of weapons to research and consider. In the end though it was the Walther PPS 9mm that ended up in my hands.

I didn't get to shoot one of these before I bought it. It is a new weapon, and they are very hard to find. Fortunately, one local shop had one in stock, and after seeing it myself I decided it was worth the gamble... well, that and the fact that the shop's owner gave be a reasonable trade-in price on my XD that put the Walther in range of my limited budget (the PPS retails for $650 - $750 when you can find them at all). 

The Walther PPS is thin and light. It weighs in at about 20oz loaded, and is just over 1" wide at the thickest point. And it measures just over 6" long. It is significantly smaller than the double-stack sub-compacts like the XD, but still feels more substantial than the Pocket guns such as the Kahr PM9 or those made by Kel-Tec. The thin design it what makes it conceal well, though it is still a tad largish if you want to use a pocket holster. As thin as I am, the pockets on my Dockers slacks are deep enough to hide it well enough.

What impresses me most about the PPS is the recoil. I've fired a lot of 9mm handguns, and this is the softest shooting one I've yet to handle. While it is very thin, the backstrap is just big enough to spread the recoil evenly over you palm, and the double recoil spring design and the shape of the weapon itself do the rest.

The slide action is smooth, and the trigger action is great, though a bit stiff at the break point until I put a few hundred rounds through it.

Some people have problems getting used to the magazine release, which is integrated into the bottom of the trigger guard. I personally got used to the release mechanism very quickly, but if you have developed a habit of using a standard thumb button release, it might take you longer to get used to.

One of the features I like most is the choice of 3 magazine sizes. It ships with a 6 and 7 round magazine. The 6 round is flush with the bottom of the grip leaving your pinky exposed, while the 7 round adds enough extra grip to give most people's pinky a resting point. There is an 8 round magazine as well which gives even people with large hands pinky support. It also ships with two backstraps... a small one for people with girl hands, and a large one for people with hands designed to break rocks.

The only real complaint I have is the "QuickSafe" backstrap mechanism. Removing the backstrap decocks the weapon and renders it un-firable. This also assists with takedown. If you remove the backstrap you can field strip the weapon by just pulling down on the take-down levers and pulling the slide forward. You do not have to pull the trigger or pull the slide back in any way. This makes it very simple to disassemble. Personally though, I would rather have a grip safety instead of the QuickSafe mechanism. It's a minor point though.

One other minor complain for some people is the somewhat unpredictable direction the ejector will send your spent casings. Mine tends to throw them up and slightly to the right. If you are a left-handed shooter though, it might rain the casing down on your head. I don't have a problem with it as the casing generally fly over my right shoulder, but there have been a couple of them bounce off the top of my head anyway.

I've only put a few hundred rounds through it so far, but I've found that I can shoot much more consistently than I did with my XD. I'm still not a good shot, but I can see improvement on each trip to the range now.

The biggest disadvantages to owning the PPS actually have nothing to do with the weapon itself. It is such a new weapon that it is very hard to find accessories for it. There are a few decent holsters on the market now, but not as many as with other more popular weapons. Magazines are the biggest problem as the cheapest I've been able to locate are in the $50 (each)  price range. And if you want lasers or custom sights you'll find these even harder to come by. This makes the PPS an expensive weapon to own.

But the weapon is gaining popularity fast, and so more and more accessories are coming out for it every month.

If you are looking for a CCW weapon, I highly recommend you consider the Walther PPS.
 

Update: 6 months after buying the XD, I have replaced it with a Walther PPS 9mm. Find out why in my folllow-up post.

I was raised around guns. As a kid I lived on a small hobby farm in a rural part of South Carolina, and guns were just part of the scenery. As young as 6 or 7, I was using small rifles and shotguns. Not that I was much of a hunter or anything. Mostly the guns were for defense.

We raised cattle, and packs of wild dogs were still common in the area, so we carried weapons of some kind almost all the time in the woods or pasture. Usually we carried knifes, BB guns, pellet guns, or sometimes just big sticks. But if a pack of dogs had been sighted, suspicious strangers reported in the area, or a violent crime where the assailant was still at-large, we'd switch up to shotguns and rifles.

At least twice, having a gun on me in the woods saved my life. Once from a group of dogs and once from a very upset bull. 

I have a healthy respect for the 2nd amendment and I am comfortable with guns, but I've not bothered to keep my own guns as an adult. I had several reasons including the high cost of weapons, but mostly it was just because I usually had roommates who owned plenty of guns. I just never felt the need to buy my own.

I'm not the kind to trust the police and government to protect me from danger. Police are great 10 minutes after the shit hits the fan, but they aren't likely to be handy when you are actually being assaulted, robbed, mugged, car-jacked, etc.  And governments are just as likely to be doing the assaulting as protecting anyone from it. Likewise though, I do have a good grasp of the actual rarity of random personal assaults. Even in the most dangerous of urban areas. most assaults are committed by people you already know and have pissed off. So I just make a habit not to know too many people likely to assault me, and avoid pissing off the rest so much. This greatly increases my odds.

Still though, I have a habit of being out late at night and hanging around slightly dangerous places. I also own my own house now and live alone most of the time, so there aren't roommates with guns around anymore. And that is why  I finally decided to buy a handgun, learn to shoot reasonably well, and get my conceal and carry permit. I have always carried a good knife on me, but I have no doubt that a knife would probably do little for me against a real threat.

Time to upgrade.

One thing that always bothered me about civilian gun owners is that they tend to get carried away. I don't know exactly what it is that makes an ordinary person become a gun-nut, but It does seem to be a very simple conversion for most people. They decide they want to buy a gun, and two weeks later they are at the gun-show picking up their 8th pistol and 3rd rifle and have most of their credit cards maxed out on accessories already. They'll go on for hours on end debating the merits of this vs. that weapon, talking technical details about the performance characteristics of different kinds of ammo, and worst of all --they spend an enormous amount of money buying weapons, accessories, and gear that they will likely never use other than recreationally.

I'm not a person who has a need to be a gun-collector, and I've never wanted to be a suburban gun-nut. But in becoming a gun owner, I see more clearly just how very easy it is to fall into becoming one. Guns are not simple, especially handguns. They come in an amazing array of sizes, shapes and calibers. Just deciding what to buy requires a significant investment in time and learning. And no handgun is good for everything. So it becomes very easy to have a conversation like this with yourself:

"I'll get the 5" 9mm semi-automatic for the shooting range. It is very accurate, holds a lot of ammo, and won't beat the shit out of me. It'd have similar enough recoil to my concealment weapon to make it good for practice."

"Then I can get the 6" .22 semi-automatic for the range because ammo is dirt cheap for those, almost no recoil so you can fire it all day long, plus they are just plain fun."

"But I still need a concealment weapon. For that I'd like to get the 3" sub-compact semi-auto .45 with double stack magazine. Big bullets for best chance to put down an attacker in one shot, double stacked for more bullets, and still short enough to fit in a concealment holster... more-or-less."

"But in the summer when I'm wearing thinner clothes, it would be easier to conceal that tiny little 9mm with the single stack magazine. It is really tiny, but with smaller bullets it holds as many shots as the double stack .45 and is a lot lighter. Of Course it will kick like a mule and be less accurate, so it's not that good at the range".

"OK, maybe I should go with a longer weapon. A 4" barrel will help with accuracy, even though it's harder to conceal, but that's OK I can go with a smaller caliber instead".

"Crap, what about brand. This one has a manual safety which I like, but it is double action on that first shot, which always throws off my aim. Maybe I should get the one with the trigger and grip safeties instead... I don't like that as much, but it has a single action first pull... which would be better in a crisis.

"What about a revolver. They are more reliable and a little simpler to use."

"Now, should I get all metal, or go with a polymer frame?"

"Fuck-it, I'll just buy ALL of them!"

So I can see how collectors and gun-nuts happen.

For the record, I decided on a 3" Sub-Compact XD .40 Caliber from Springfield Armory. It's a short and squat weapon, but still a tad on the thick and heavy side. For most people it probably wouldn’t matter, but I'm so thin that concealing a weapon of any kind is a tad tricky. But this one conceals reasonably well when I wear a coat or heavy shirt, and most of the time I'll probably just be in my laptop bag anyway (I rarely go anywhere without that at my side).

I stubbornly refuse to go crazy and become a total gun nut and collect a personal arsenal. But also, I do live in a two story house so I'll probably pick up a second handgun for up-stairs and eventually a slimmer 9mm carry weapon for those times when the XD is just a tad too big or when I'll be carrying for longer periods of time. Add that to a 12 Gauge shotgun, the ultimate home-defense weapon, and that should be about all I'll need. It's Four weapons, but still... most of my friends own twice that many or more...

Shit... OK, I'll admit it... I'm now officially a gun-nut. Damnit! But I promise not to get too carried away.

Caress has started blogging her experience with AVM over at "I'm not your prozac". She wrote a lot of those posts while she was going through her procedures, but since I hadn't gotten off my lazy ass and put up her blog site (and she was a tad too busy to do it herself) she's didn't get them online until more recently. Most of her posts are back-dated to when she actually wrote them.

I've avoided blogging about the experience mostly because I was waiting on her to blog about it first, and also because AVM is too damned scary for me to blog well.

A long time ago (sometime in 1997) I came across a clockwork wall sculpture in an expensive art and collectibles shop. I'm not easily impressed with any piece of art and generally lack an eye for visual arts in particular.

But I stood in this store watching this wooden clockwork type sculpture/device make the most amazing motion patterns for what must have been 2 or 3 hours. It was one of the most amazing and beautiful things I've ever seen. I've thought about that piece many many times in the many years since I visited that shop.

I would gladly have bought it, but with a price in the $1500 range, I simply couldn't afford too... still cant.

But, I did finally find out who makes them; David C. Roy. And it turns out that he has a web site... with flash animations of many of his works.

Check it out at:
http://www.woodthatworks.com/index.html

The particular piece that I was watching was Tango.

Inside the Soul of the Web

A person watches 24 hours of Google queries scroll across a screen in real time. I haven't read something that left me this disturbed in a long long time.

I'd never thought about it before, but running a search engine is an awesome responsibility. Users look to Google the same way some people look to a god. But unlike a god, Google actually might have an answer. But it isn't really a god. Google is run by people. And people, unlike a god, can make mistakes. What happens when a person prays to Google, but the answer is a mistake? I guess even a god can't help everyone...