I would like some opinions on this. I only have 2 mags that came with the pistol and it seems like it may be a mag issue. It just occasionally dies this, normally the first time I empty the mag then runs fine till the next outing and always jams on the last two rounds in the mag. I have tried taking it apart and cleaning after each outing and ran it dry and oiled. Seems to be one mag but really haven't tested the 2 nd one extensively. Ideas?
1. Get some new mag springs.
2. Mark your magazines so you can tell which one is doing it and compare the lips.
Marty-hiding out in the hills.
I would call the manufacturer and send the pistol back for warranty repair along with a letter and the pictures you just posted. I'll bet they don't charge you a thing.
If sending it back is not an option, I would get new magazines. So what if they cost $40 each? Your life is worth the investment. (some may disagree with me, but I think my life is worth at least $92.75)
Last resort, if you simply cannot afford to replace the magazines, or send the gun back to the manufacturer, change out the springs like mpmarty suggested and pray it works.
Those feed lips are the single most important piece of automatic pistol function. They are under a great deal of stress, and they are always made of sheet metal (go figure).
Most semi-automatic problems evaporate when you replace the magazines.
Precision in the wrong place is only a placebo.
If that's a handload, check the cartridge OAL against that of a factory round. Pictures can be deceiving at times, but that cartridge looks too short.
Is your powder charge sufficient to properly cycle the weapon?
How does it function with other ammo types/loads?
As someone else said, you must mark your magazines so you can determine whether or not is an issue related to one (magazine) or multiple magazines(gun or cartridge).
There is some ammo and more ammo. There is never enough ammo!
The OAL in the Lyman casting handbook is 1.100 which I did shorten to 1.085 to correct feeding and other issues but I'm thinking it's not OAL due to the fact that it is always the next to last round.
I would love to change the springs but I can't find replacement springs for the PPQ. I'm not sure if there is a cross reference to another mag spring that may work.
I'm not big on sending this pistol back to S&W again. I did before due to visual defects in the lands. They sent it back saying they just cleaned it. The defects were still there so I called and they told me that the problem was due to the fact that I was switching up lead and jacketed.
The guy at S&W said that they take it to test fire it and if it cycles with the test ammo and is accurate it's deemed good.
No doubt I will get the same result from S&W on this as well.
Looks very much like a bolt over base misfeed. The breechface would be then hitting the cartridge in the extractor groove rather than the rim. Shoves the cartridge in the magazine base down and jams when the round is at an angle.
The bottom round being at an angle as well seems to be a clue.
In cycling the pistol, how much breechface overtravel past the magazine well is there?
Last edited by 35remington; 06-13-2012 at 12:16 AM.
I'm trying to follow you 35 Remington. I cycled the gun by hand each round would pop up smoothly until the last or next to last round which comes up nose first.
Why and how do I fix it?
Breach face over travel past the magazinewell I'm not sure I understood the question but here is a pic
most feeding issues are the magazine.
if it's the last two the carrier could be tilting and applying all the pressure to the nose.
if you have had the thing apart and it's possible to turn the spring around i would try that first.
i would definately mark the magazines and see if it is both of them.
it could be the lips are bent on the front i have seen a lot of them that need a little tweaking in that area.
especially on 22 magazines people tend to shove the round straight down instead of sliding the rim down and back into the magazine.
Ok . I tried turning the spring 180 and that did put more pressure on the back of the round but when it got to the last round it hangs on the lip of the casing when it tries to feed. Too much downward tilt I guess. I think I'll try and TWEAK the spring a little. What the hell ...it's only $50 right?
if it don't work it's about useless. [unless you can throw it real hard]
you'll probably replace it anyways so what are you really out?
BOB misfeeds are where the slide is outrunning the magazine. It's a live fire malfunction. Usually occurs on the last rounds in the magazine.
Again, what is the breechface overtravel past the magazine well? Demonstrate, please. What you have is slide stop notch captivity. Hold the slide open to the limit of its travel and then have another take a picture.
Don't touch the spring. See if Wolff has aftermarket options in the + power range.
Some designs are more prone to this than others. That's why I'm asking about overtravel.
The last or next to last rounds are usually the ones most likely to give problems due to the fact that the magazine spring by that point has expended most of its preload.Originally Posted by Tango2020
Regarding what Lyman recommends as overall length for a given bullet, I think that you should consider the source of that recommendation. After all, this is the same Lyman that recommends that .45 caliber boolits be sized to 0.451". My .45 boolits, even Lyman (452630) don't work correctly in my autos or revolvers until I size them to 0.453". Any smaller than that and they give me some leading regardless of alloy, pressure, lube, etc.
This is also the same Lyman that suggests that one seat aforementioned boolit to 1.235", which will not give reliable function in my Sig P220's, but which work just fine with an OAL of 1.242" OAL is critical regarding function and feeding in an auto, and most often a round that will give trouble is way short of what the magazine can handle lengthwise. So I'll say it again, find a factory round that functions OK in your gun and try that OAL with your handload. When I have an auto for which I have no factory round to measure, I start by loading the cartridges as long as the magazine will accomodate without nose drag on the mag body. At that length any trouble is with the charge weight(too light), extractor, etc., assuming of course that the magazine itself if not the issue.(number or othewise mark your magazines).
If that is the Lyman 401638, 175 grain TC, it runs great in my P226's at 1.113" OAL, a bit longer that the folks at Lyman recommend. Guns are like women, they can be similar in function, but they are all individuals with slighly different tastes. The book recommendations are good starting points, but most often not correct for all guns.
If it were mine, I would lengthen the OAL to the point that it is just short of nose drag on the magazine and then dismantle and clean the magazine while also giving the spring a slight stretch to see if that resolves the issue. If the spring stretch works get another new spring, and I suggest an extra power spring if available from Wolf or someone else.
There is some ammo and more ammo. There is never enough ammo!
I will adjust the oal if all else fails but the function is the best I have gotten it to this point. I do have the mags marked and it seemed to be the same one but need to shoot more to be conclusive.
I have to work the next few days ( night shift) so that isn't in the near future. Here is the breach face pic
Thanks for all the assistance.
Are you just doing this because you like to tinker with stuff? No way I would trust my life to a firearm with those problems.
Did you call S&W?
Precision in the wrong place is only a placebo.
I'm really curious what's going on. I have a PPQ in .40 that has 1300 rounds through it in 3 months. I shoot it in IDPA and USPSA and I only cleaned it once after the first 100 rounds. I've only shot factory and moly coateds through it but plan on working with lead with it. I know 1300 rounds is just a little bit but dang I haven't had a single issue with it.
Does it do this on factory ammo? Are the Magazines OEM...not ProMags are they?
Last edited by NTD; 06-13-2012 at 06:21 PM.
I'm starting to believe that he cannot be helped. He either can't or won't answer the question of whether or not the gun gives problems with factory ammo. I wonder whether S&W told him that their expectation was for their products to function with factory ammo rather than handloads.
Yes, I know that a good handload tailored to a specific firearm is often superior to any factory cartridge, but getting to that point is often to run a gauntlet of details.
I wish him well, but won't waste any more of my time.
There is some ammo and more ammo. There is never enough ammo!
At least you've got some breechface overtravel. Not as much as a five inch 1911, but some is there.
The next time it jams, take a very, very close look at it, and this should resolve the issue for you definitively. If the breechface has missed the rim but is bearing against the extraction groove, the back end of the remaining two rounds will be "shoved down" into the magazine a little bit, with the front end tilted upward. The round will stop well short of the chamber.
This means a magazine spring that is not strong enough to bring the round up into feeding position before the breechface has over run the cartridge to some degree. It's a common problem with magazines that are designed with too much capacity and too little spring, and with guns that have little breechface overtravel past the magazine well. The more overtravel, the more time the round has to rise before the breechface returns forward. The stronger the magazine spring, the faster it moves the cartridges into feeding position. Ideally you have plenty of overtravel and spring for redundancy. These usually happen on the last round or two when magazine spring tension is at its weakest.
Don't bother stretching the spring if you see that this is the case because stretched springs are problematic.....they will take back their original set very, very quickly and you won't learn anything. See if Wolff offers some aftermarket springs that are Plus (+) power to raise the rounds quicker into feeding position.
If there is room, here is how you see if more spring will help. This is better than stretching the spring. If the gun has a removable floorplate, and you can fit a spacer equivalent to a couple round's thickness in the magazine, yet is square on top to give the spring a solid base to push on, do so. You should be able to find something that will work. A squarish piece of plastic, wood, whatever. You can fit a piece of wood from the hardware store. Now place this spacer between spring and floorplate. This is equivalent to having a higher "base" to the magazine and gives the spring more "oomph" in a regular way.
Now shoot it and see if the gun feeds the last two rounds perfectly every time. If it does.......it's the spring strength.
I presume you have a double column magazine because it looks like it in the pictures. With 1911's this is a bit easier as we just load a round or two in the magazine and put the spring on top of them if we suspect the spring is a problem. It reduces the magazine capacity to 5, 6 or seven depending upon whether it's a seven or eight shot but it definitively shows whether spring strength is the issue in feeding the last rounds.
Hope this is your problem. And that if it is, you can get more springs.
Shimming the spring in the Magazine sounds like a very good solution which I will try but finding a replacement spring for a PPQ Mag is next to impossible but I will do some calling and see what I can come up with.
35 Remington I thank you for your input.
NOW to answer the other questions.
YES I do like to tinker or I wouldn't be casting / reloading and have sank the thousands of $$ into this venture that I have.
NO it does not do it with factory ammo but I will be damned if I will go buy and shoot factory ammo and pay their prices so it is pointless. I need it to work with my cast boolits. An OAL of a jacketed round seems moot to me because it has a completely different profile.
MAYBE I can't be helped but I know I can't be helped by being insulted. If you don't want to waste your time don't click on the thread.
YES I have spent enough time on the phone with S&W and sending my gun into them to know that they don't give two craps about my CAST HANDLOAD not feeding perfectly. That is why I'm here asking for help.
This I completely understand. I was under the impression that you had this problem with factory ammo as well as cast.NO it does not do it with factory ammo but I will be damned if I will go buy and shoot factory ammo and pay their prices so it is pointless. I need it to work with my cast boolits. An OAL of a jacketed round seems moot to me because it has a completely different profile.
Perfectly understandable. You wont get anywhere with any manufacturer if you bring up the castboolits issue.YES I have spent enough time on the phone with S&W and sending my gun into them to know that they don't give two craps about my CAST HANDLOAD not feeding perfectly. That is why I'm here asking for help.
For the record, I meant no offence in my previous post. I just asked a simple question, that's it!
Now, since this is limited to cast boolit ammo, I would be looking at your boolit profile. I have had problems in the past with angled nose-hollow points before. Is that the only boolit you have tried?
I wish I had some .40 caliber boolits that I could send you to try, but alas, I dont shoot that caliber yet. Still, thats the direction I would go (as well as replacing the mag springs with new ones. Heck, I replace mine every 18 months at least as a matter of course.)
Precision in the wrong place is only a placebo.
Now hold on a minute. Magazine issues of this sort don't discriminate against handloads as opposed to factory loads.
I didn't know it doesn't do it with factory loads. If it was as I as said, factory loads would do it too. If it's been shot enough for you to be sure that it doesn't do it with factory loads, it's something you're doing with your handloads.
That brings us back to what the others were saying about overall length. Try seating it at different lengths as suggested. You have an unusual jam, and you must try the simple things first.
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