People love their single-stack subcompact handguns. For many, though, a single-stack nine just isn’t something they’re willing to trust their life to, which I can’t say that I blame them on. After all, 9mm’s biggest advantage is round capacity.

That means people want something a little bit beefier, and Springfield Armory’s new XD-S Mod.2 pistol might just fit the bill.

The pistol comes with Pro-Glo™ Tritium/Luminescent Front & Tactical Rack Serrated Rear to help maximize whatever accuracy you can get out of the 3.3″ barrel. Chambered in .45 ACP, it also comes with a five-round flush fitting magazine and a six-round magazine with a Mid-Mag X-Tension slapped onto it. The pistol weighs either 21.5 ounces or 22.5 ounces unloaded, depending on which magazine you have slapped in at the moment.

MSRP is $618, though you can bank on retail being a bit lower as per usual.

Other than the lack of named Pro-Glo sights and a $50 or so cheaper price tag, I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference between the XD-S and the Mod.2 version except a different kind of stippling on the grip. So you have to delve a bit deeper to find anything meaningful.

The Mod.2 version. Perhaps the biggest difference is the recoil system. Where the XD-S used a dual spring with a full-length guide rod, the Mod.2 goes a little different by offering a dual captive recoil spring with the full-length guide rod. In addition, there is a .2″ difference in overall length while maintaining pretty much the same barrel length.

Not everything is smaller with the Mod.2, however. The grip has an addition .75″ of width, which doesn’t exactly help the pistol be more concealable.

Is this the single-stack pistol shooters have been waiting for? That remains to be seen.

I know a lot of people who like their XD-S, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they’re clamoring for this one as well. However, I personally want to see more than a marketing video of this being shot to see if it’s worth the additional price over the earlier version. Far too often, it feels like gun companies offer new iterations of guns just to convince people like me that we need to buy another gun, and I can’t shake the feeling that this is more of the same.

After getting a little too excited about the Gen5 Glocks last year for no good reason, other than one or two things I kind of liked, I’m not going to repeat that mistake. Especially since I went out and bought a Gen4 for a new carry pistol.

So far, there seem to be some things to like on the Mod.2, but I’m taking a wait and see approach on whether this is just a marketing thing or whether it’s an actual improvement on the earlier firearm. If it’s an improvement, I might pick one up just for the fun of it. If it’s not, I’ll save a few bucks and get something else. It’s not that hard to find a .45 ACP subcompact these days anyway.