Malfunctions with my SR9c

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HOOfan_1

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I first took it out about a month ago and fired 197 rounds through it without one single hiccup. Last month I fired 17 Gold Dot 124 grain +P and 180 reloads using Berry's 124 Grain plated round nose. I am pretty sure last month it was a combo of W231 and due to the shortage...Unique.

Fast-forward to yesterday and all I had was reloads with 124 grain Berry's plated round nose over 4.7 grains of Unique and CCI SP primers. No crimps.

I was shooting from three 17 round magazines and a 10 round magazine.

I went through 350 rounds yesterday and had at least 10 malfunctions. It started out with 2 or 3 stovepipes, or spent rounds getting caught on those two ears on the barrel hood. It progressed to mostly double feeds....and to clear most of those double feeds I had to drop the magazine. On one instance the slide was in full battery with an empty in the chamber.

I didn't think to track magazines until I had already gone through 3 boxes of ammo. The last malfunction I had, I put that magazine(a 17 rounder) aside and didn't use it anymore. I then fired 2 entire boxes through the remaining two 17 rounder and the ten rounder and the only malfunction from those boxes was one time the slide did not lock back on an empty magazine.

I am almost sure I had malfunctions with more than that single magazine which I set aside, because I load them all at once and shoot them one by one, and I am sure I had malfunctions in every magazine for at least 2 boxes of ammo.

What is the most likely cause?

1) Bad Magazine? (springs are stiffer than any other auto mag I have dealt with, and the gun has only ~550 rounds through it spread across 4 magazines)
2)Under powered ammo...4.7 grains of Unique is actually below the starting load from Alliant's website and I have only fired this load through a Glock 19 (no malfunctions) and this SR9c
3) Need to crimp
4) Bad extractor, or not enough tension on extractor.
5)????


This gun is the most accurate, or at least the best autoloader I have shot other than a 1911. I'd like to have it as reliable as all the polymer wonders I have shot as well.
 
I do not reload, so I don't know how powerful of a load that is, but it might be under power ammo, those sr9c's have pretty stiff springs. Someone with more knows more will be a long before to long. Hope you get it figured out, those SR9c's are fun pistols.
 
I hope you figure it out.
#1 son has an SR9c in 9mm. It is a real shooter. No problems that I am aware of. Not picky on ammo either, but we don't reload 9mm.

I think I would get some factory 9mm ammo and run that through it and see what shakes out.
 
I think I will just up my Unique charge to 4.9 or 5 grains. With that many malfunctions, my guess is it is weak ammo...won't be able to go shooting in a while though.
 
Alliant lists 5.8grs of Unique for a 124gr Gold Dot. They didn't have the plated bullets listed but I suspect other may be right in saying your load may just be a little weak to reliably cycle your weapon.
 
The malfunctions you describe are typically NOT due to magazine problems. They're more often due to extraction-related issues, maybe ammo that is sub-par, etc. As an earlier responder indicated, try some factory ammo or load some new stuff using the recipes suggested.
 
Also you stated you weren't keeping track of which magazines the failures came from and I would think that would be the first place to start. When I purchase a new weapon I number the magazines. If I have a malfunction then I note which magazine it came from. That is pretty much step one in determining or eliminating where the problem is coming from. Happily I've been blessed with reliable weapons, 1911s not included, so I've never had to do much to track such a problem. However, I still make a practice to number and track my mags.
 
I second the crimp. Why wouldn't one crimp a pistol round, especially an autoloader round?

You don't really "crimp" the brass to the bullet with a 9mm, you just remove the flare with a taper crimp.
 
Ditto on why no crimp?

You can test how tight the bullet is seated by pushing the nose of the loaded round against the edge of your reloading bench.

I feel like I am the only person that doesn't like Unique as I can not get it to meter consistently which can be a problem with auto loaders.
 
underpowered ammo. period. For the time being, disregard your other hypotheses.

Underpowered, at least in the sense that this load is not enough to operate the firearm for reliable ejection--your stovepipe is a clear indicator of that--not to mention a satisfactory load nominally 10% below the manual max figure--that is a max figure, correct?

You MIGHT be able to tweak the cartridge with a shorter LOA, but, personally, I would take them apart and build a ten cartridges each at 4.9 gr. and 5.1 grains and see how they work.

I am a reloader, BTW, although I don't work with 9mm any more....

Jim H.
 
Underpowered rounds can certainly cause feeding issues.
It doesn't matter if the loads work in another gun either. The springs on your Ruger may be stiffer causing the problem. Should be easy enough to fix either way.
 
Ditto on why no crimp?

because I never needed to for my Glock 19 or Walther P38

I feel like I am the only person that doesn't like Unique as I can not get it to meter consistently which can be a problem with auto loaders.

If I could find W231 or HP-38, that is what I would be using. All I could find for 9mm over the last year has been Unique
 
I run the 124gr Berry's over 5.1 grains of Unique in an Sr9c and have had no issues at all.
 
I think it's a combination of underpowered loads and possibly to short of an OAL.

My SR-9 seems to like 1.135OAL the best. It will shoot 1.125 all day long but the longer of the two OALs is more accurate and cycles really well.

I would definitely bump my load up to a hotter load and make sure your powder measure is throwing accurate charges of the Unique. If it does like mine does my loads will be all over the place so you are probably getting a little heavier and a little lighter loads and you are already under minimum load so it all seems to fit.

Unique burns dirty anyways until you are at around max load so the light loads are making your pistol dirtier than it usually does and that also would contribute to your problem.

I use a very light taper crimp, just enough to get the flare out of my longer cases. It's all more crimp you need. Your resizing die does need to be touching the shell plate minus a couple thousands so you don't stress out the carbide resizing ring and crack it. If your using range brass than you could have some that were shot out of stepped chambers and unsupported chambers and so on which have to resized as fully as possible.

But your problem sound like just plain weak, dirty loads.
 
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