I have two XDs in .45, one each for my wife and I.   Hers has always been flawless, even with the Powder River trigger kit.  That hers shot so well, and hid so well, caused me to finally buy a plastic pistol for myself.

I installed PR trigger kit in mine as soon as I got it, and had light primer strikes.  Cleaned the striker channel, and ran it dry.  Better, but same issue.  installed the stock striker spring, and same thing.  Tried different primers, and different ammo, same thing.  

So, after trying reloads with cast bullets, 800x powder, and soft primers(really dirty combo, which helped me here) I took the slide off one more time in desperation.  Here is what I saw. Attached File


The trigger bar lever was riding the striker plunger all the way at the rounded edge.  I tweaked the stamped steel lever so that it would ride the plunger about 1/3 of the way in, on the flat.  No problems since changing that.   The striker plunger was not being depressed enough to not drag on the striker.

Upon inspection of my wife's XDs, I saw that hers rode on the flat where it should.  

Thought I would share because of all the light primer strike issues I have seen.  Worth looking at yours.

How much better is the PR trigger compared to the factory trigger? I have a XDS 45 with a factory trigger that isn't "great" but not objectionable.

I've never had light primer strike with the factory trigger.

Could you give a bet better of an explanation of how the trigger bar was riding the plunger, maybe even some annotations on your drawing. I don't have my XDs in front of me right now and from your explanation I am having a difficult time figuring out where the interference was, what it should be, and what "tweak" you did to make it better.

The PR trigger is markedly better than stock. Well worth the cost

Attached File


Attached File


Attached File


If you look at the wear line on my dirty slide at the top, compared to the wear line on the other cleanish gun, you can see that the first one is riding the radius of the plunger, and the second is riding the flat where it will fully depress the plunger.

The last picture is of the trigger bar that depresses the plunger.  Mine needed to be bent to the left, looking at the picture, to ride the flat of the plunger.  It's just a cheap piece of stamped steel.  Mine was even wearing on the slide on the outside.

How much does it cost ?

Thanks for the update on this. Makes much more sense now.

I will have to take a look at my XDs and see if this is an issue.

To the previous poster asking about the cost of the PR trigger kit (http://shop.powderriverprecision.net/category.sc?categoryId=41)
$64.95 as of this post.

The two times I started getting light primer strikes (XDM), pulling the firing pin and spring and cleaning it and channel solved the issue. Seems like the loaded chamber indicator stands more proud as well, that might be a clue to address it.