A Woman’s Perspective. Owning a Springfield XD 3″ SUB 9MM F

Lifestyle, Mindset, Soft Living, Wellbeing

 

The Drills 

Unlike riding a bike, firearm handling is a perishable skill, which was new to me. I hadn’t factored that into the learning curve of owning and competently handling a firearm.

As a result, these are some of the home drills I perform to help improve muscle memory and good habits. I have a designated area and table space to practice alone and undistracted (i.e., no cell phones, TV, etc.).

I started with 1,000 reps, two times a week, to work on competence handling skills using training (dummy) rounds:

  • Finger and grip strength (e.g., loading rounds)
  • Racking the slide
  • Slide lock and release
  • Magazine insert and removal
  • Safe dry-fire, trigger practice

These all require some strength to perform. It’s like squeezing the tension in jumper cables to jump-start a car. Like me, if you are just starting out, your finger joints and palms will ache, and your fingertips will feel raw and tender. However, once your muscle memory improves and your finger dexterity and strength grow, the firearm becomes easier to handle.

Monthly Range visits for better Muscle Memory

If I want to maintain muscle memory to be competent, safe, and confident with my handling skills, I need to factor in and schedule practice time on the range.

For us, that means shooting about 200 to 400 rounds once a month. Eventually, once we become more proficient, we want to move away from paper targets and do fun combat training courses.

I also keep a journal of the types of drills I want to learn or practice while on the range. At the moment, I’m focusing on grouping my shots at 7 meters. I’m also trying to reduce firing anticipation (which shows up as lower shots on the targets). To build self-awareness (much like keeping a fitness diary), I record any mistakes, fatigue, loss of focus, what went well, and what didn’t go well to prevent bad habits from forming.

Like fitness, I keep notes on how I felt during and after my firing practice. For example, if I shoot for longer than one hour, I seem to get diminishing returns and experience physical issues like feeling shell-shocked, drained, increased sensitivity to sound, shakiness, and fatigue. I always recover, but it’s noticeable that I need a lot of quiet space after a long duration of shooting.

Grip Adjustment with Long Fingernails

When shopping for a firearm, I learned it’s best to get fitted properly and not just buy anything. I wanted a concealed carry option—something small and compact that still packs a punch. The longer the barrel, the less likely I could conceal it.

The firearm should feel like an extension of my arm. It took me about five hours in a gun store to find the right fit for my hand size. However, I discovered that a compact, short barrel means more recoil and more impact in the hand compared to longer barrels.

This means my hands take more of a pounding. You won’t know this until you get on the range, or if you can test-fire before buying, which is often unlikely.

After a few months, I also had to alter my firing grip. Since I wear my natural fingernails long, my practice sessions were becoming torturous to my left palm.

The Slide Stop Lever and Grip Change

The Springfield XD also has a slide stop lever on the side that has a reputation for being a thumb-skin shredder, particularly if I use the straight double thumb combat grip (the grip I was trained with). After each firing session, my thumbs would be raw, so I wore gloves.

The gloves only worked as a band-aid during practice. It wasn’t an ideal solution, and it would be highly unlikely in a home self-protection situation that I would be wearing gloves, let alone have the calm, collected time to put them on while an aggressor patiently waits for me. It’s not going to happen, and I don’t want any physical hindrances.

Instead, I made the hard decision to change my firing grip from “Straight double thumb” to “Thumb-over-thumb.”

You have to figure out what will work best for you, even if it means undoing all the muscle memory training you have built up with a grip style over many months. The grip style you adopt should become a permanent unconscious competence habit—second nature to you, like putting on a glove. If you have to think about your grip, you don’t have enough muscle memory built up. Since firearm handling is a perishable skill, using the same grip every time you pick up your firearm is crucial for safety, effective firing, and competent handling.

These are the things you don’t or won’t know before you buy your firearm. It might be easier to test out firearms in other states in the USA, but here in California, it’s a little more challenging. Where I live in San Francisco, gun stores and ranges are only located in the suburbs, and there aren’t many. At the time of writing, our closest firing range (20 years in operation) closed down. If you have inner-city restrictions (like we do), travel time to and from a range is another thing to factor into your lifestyle.

You gotta hold the firearm like you mean it. Or it will own you

You’ve got to hold the firearm like you are the boss of it. It’s not the boss of you. If you don’t take charge, it will snap back your wrists, beat up your palms, and donkey kick around like a jackhammer in your hands. Remember, it’s a controlled explosion going off in your hands.

You cannot be delicate with it, or you’ll cause firing malfunctions. A loose, floppy hand grip is dangerous. As I discussed, you need to build up both your grip strength and your straight-arm strength to handle the recoil.

Shooting will hurt at first until you build your capacity:

  • The central nervous system will be stressed, and your heart rate will increase
  • You will get tired fast
  • Due to the stress, you will hold more tension in your body—this can create further strain on your muscles
  • Your jaw, neck, shoulders, traps, upper back, forearms, wrists, hands, palms, and fingers will hurt until you get used to it
  • You need to learn unusual finger dexterity movements that require strength (e.g., loading a magazine after 10–20 rounds when you aren’t used to it). This hurts, especially around the finger joints and fingertips.

Mentally Lean Into Discomfort

Mentally, it’s going to be uncomfortable—these are things I’ve learned:

  • You have to “lean-in” to the violence of the firearm. It’s human instinct (and normal) to move away from violence. You cannot do this with a firearm; you must lean-in, otherwise, you’ll become unsafe (leading to poor form, a loose grip, loss of control, etc.)

  • Learn to embrace the violent sound until you no longer flinch at live fire
  • Embrace the violent impact of the explosion in your hand; it feels like someone with huge knuckles punching your palm hard
  • Get used to the explosive vibrations that move up the bones of your arms and into your teeth

  • Controlled, proactive aggression is a must. Each time the recoil pushes you, you must push back and lean-in, just like you would when you open-arm hug.

Malfunctions and Mastery

It’s not like the movies—the cool slide, lock, and load. While gun handling looks effortless in movies, like re-capping a tube of lipstick, it’s not. Being light-handed in the way you handle your firearm (a weak grip, not racking the slide forcefully, or not inserting your magazine with gusto) will cause malfunctions. Rounds can “stovepipe” in the chamber, magazine feed jams can happen, or bullets can be duds, so you need to know how to clear them safely.

I’ve experienced all of these malfunctions during live-fire. It’s disconcerting, but that is where proper training from a qualified instructor is essential. I’ve had to learn how to safely clear my firearm and not let it throw me off my game.

Being able to problem-solve and stay calm when things malfunction is another skill you’ll need to learn to be self-reliant, safe, and effective.

Just like makeup brushes, you have to clean your firearm

For operational self-reliance, I learned I need to know how to field strip my firearm and clean it after each use—which is another thing I must make time for. We shoot about 300 to 500 rounds (in an hour), and they get dirty super fast. I must take care of my firearm to keep it safe, free from malfunctions, and operational.

I discovered Geauga Firearms, on YouTube, a thoughtful, thorough husband-and-wife team who are a great resource for firearm training. I learned how to quickly field strip and properly clean my firearm (without all the bells and whistles products) as well as troubleshoot my grip issues and other key firearm handling techniques. They offer excellent information for everyone, from newbies to advanced shooters, and even have a women’s video series. I highly recommend them.

I modeled this simple cleaning setup off Geauga Firearms’ recommendations.

Getting a Firearm License in California

Obtaining a Firearm License in the State of California is a strict process, as California maintains some of the toughest firearm regulations compared to other states in the USA.

As of writing, an applicant must pass a compulsory Firearm Safety Test, achieving a 75% or above pass rate. A mandatory 10-day “cool down” period follows this.

Before a firearm can even be obtained, the applicant must pass a full background check and supply multiple forms of photo ID and proof of residence. This processing can take about three weeks, and it happens well before the applicant gets access to the firearm.

Once the cool-down period has passed, the applicant must then collect the firearm in-store and in person. The store registers the firearm in the applicant’s name, and the individual is thumb-printed before the firearm is finally released (see the vlog at the end of this post).

A Note on New Zealand Laws

Side note: In my native country, New Zealand, handguns and automatic firearms are not permitted nor accessible to the public, and our police officers still operate mainly unarmed. The process to obtain a New Zealand firearms license is also strict. They perform a full criminal and psychological background check and conduct a formal interview. An examiner comes to your home and interviews you and your spouse separately. Your spouse cannot have a criminal record. They ask questions like, “Has your partner ever been violent towards you, others, or things?” and “Have they been depressed, extremely angry or sad, or a heavy drinker?” You also have to join and maintain a Rifle Association Gun club membership.

Accessories: Would You Like an Extra Mag With That?

California State law only allows for a 10-round magazine capacity. If you go out of state to buy bigger capacity magazines, you won’t be able to legally use them here. This means on the range, you can blow through 10 rounds in just a few seconds. This requires a lot of downtime to reload, and it’s a major time suck that interferes with shooting flow.

To get around this, we purchased extra magazines and keep them loaded. Then my hubby and I tag-team it: when he’s in the lane, I am reloading his magazines, and vice versa. It makes for much better time management and productivity at the firing range.

How About Some Splatter Targets?

These are not essential, but I think they are worth it. They are so much more fun than shooting plain old paper targets. Splatterbursts give me instant visual feedback, so I know exactly where I’ve hit the target (unlike plain paper). They are great for grouping drills and help me course correct if I am aiming too low or too high.

Ammunition and Modifications

With ammunition, we buy in bulk because it’s cheaper than the prices at the firing range or gun stores. Outdoor and recreational megastores often have mid-year sales for ammo, but we did notice that our bulk ammo was super dirty. Our fingertips were covered in some kind of brassy/gold-looking residue—just something to be mindful of. Also, we only experienced a couple of dud bullets in that particular bulk buy.

Modifications

Although not essential, I highly recommend getting modifications. We had Truglo TFO handgun sights put on to help increase visibility for a better aim, and I noticed a big improvement. The glowing green-red-green when the sights line up makes it easier on my eyes to focus. They’re also a big help in low light levels, as our firing range isn’t brightly lit, and the neon fibers glow in the dark.

Note: If you make custom or major modifications, you may void your warranty, so keep that in mind.

A Note on Concealed Carry in San Francisco

Concealed carry is the practice of legally carrying a concealed firearm on one’s person in public. The Springfield XD 3″ SUB-COMPACT 9MM is ideal for concealed carry.

However, the San Francisco city laws are very strict on this. A concealed carry permit is granted only in a “very special” circumstance—for example, if your life has been threatened or if you are being stalked.

Studying for your Firearms License

You can easily download a self-testing FSC manual and study up. Although some of the questions seem blatantly obvious, you have to take them seriously and not skimp over them—they have been crafted into the exam for a reason.

Remember, just because you pass this test doesn’t make you competent. Here, factoring in firearm lessons from a skilled instructor will be invaluable.

Choose the Right Instructor

Look for an instructor who has good empathic skills and knows how to respectfully instruct women. I’ve found ex-military instructors brilliant in this instance. They seem to be able to get a good read on you—they really watch your eyes, perhaps looking out for those fear markers. Mine have been respectful with physical contact, always asking permission first (even my husband’s) before approaching or making adjustments.

The video below is a good example of this. Here I’m being trained on a LWRC M6AZ Short Barrel Full Auto Machine Gun at a gun range in Phoenix, AZ.

Catch the daily lifestyle vlog of our pick-up below.

 

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Until next time.

 

 

Disclaimer: This content is For Educational and Informational Purposes Only. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition, disease, or illness. Not a Substitute for or to replace Medical Advice. Consult Your Physician or Health Care Provider anytime you plan to make changes to your diet, eating, or exercise patterns. No Affiliation to any products mentioned or used in this content.