9mm doesn't like my reloads

billj888

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Location
western NC
I have a 9mm semi-auto that's been sent back to the factory twice for light hammer strikes. After much trial and error I see it can only fire commercial ammo which it does flawlessly. My reloads fail to fire about 20% of the time. I even bought Federal primers, the softest I am told, and that didn't help. I'm wondering if cutting out a section of the firing pin spring will give a harder hammer strike.
 
I have a 9mm semi-auto that's been sent back to the factory twice for light hammer strikes. After much trial and error I see it can only fire commercial ammo which it does flawlessly. My reloads fail to fire about 20% of the time. I even bought Federal primers, the softest I am told, and that didn't help. I'm wondering if cutting out a section of the firing pin spring will give a harder hammer strike.
Try this ... seat primers all the way into the primer pocket untill they bottom out .

Spin the case around in the shell holder 180 degress and complete the seating ...

Again making sure the primer is completely seated in the bottom of the pocket - and seated all the way around .

After I started seating primes with this method ... The Light Strikes and Primer Failures ...
Stopped ... after that trick ... it's been 100 % ignition ... No Light Strikes !

Try it and experience the Magic !
It will cost you nothing to try it !
Gary
 
The reloads that fail….

What does the primer strike look like…?
Does it appear to be “light”…?
Are the cases extremely short causing headspace to be the issue…?

Could be a brazzillion things without more in
Try this ... seat primers all the way into the primer pocket untill they bottom out .

Spin the case around in the shell holder 180 degress and complete the seating ...

Again making sure the primer is completely seated in the bottom of the pocket - and seated all the way around .

After I started seating primes with this method ... The Light Strikes and Primer Failures ...
Stopped ... after that trick ... it's been 100 % ignition ... No Light Strikes !

Try it and experience the Magic !
It will cost you nothing to try it !
Gary
I'll try that, thanks.
 
I am a revolver guy, trying to become modern, but its hard. Plus the cost buying expensive ammo to prove it works

Only gun I ever sold was LCP, sent to factory. They told 4 in 400 jams was ok. Since factory said it was ok. I felt ethical selling it.
 
I have a 9mm semi-auto that's been sent back to the factory twice for light hammer strikes. After much trial and error I see it can only fire commercial ammo which it does flawlessly. My reloads fail to fire about 20% of the time. I even bought Federal primers, the softest I am told, and that didn't help. I'm wondering if cutting out a section of the firing pin spring will give a harder hammer strike.

What manufacture/model is the gun?

I would definitely never lighten the firing pin spring!!!! You risk a possible slam fire.

The proper thing to do is to figure out what is wrong with your reloads.

Some semi-autos have firing pins with surfaces that restrict how far the firing pin can travel forwards. Taking a couple licks with a file can extend the firing pin protrusion through the bolt face. But if you go too far you will end up with pierced priers (the firing pin going to far and tearing through the primer surface instead of just dimpling it). Since factory ammo works fine I would not go here.
 
The primer strikes are very light, even on the commercial ammo that fires.
Is the main spring older than a year? You might also want to see if you get proper pin extension past the bolt face. Those are steps 2 and 3 after primers but if factory is showing light strikes might be worth checking
 
Hard to tell since we don't have the gun in our hands to examine. If it is a striker fired gun, did you lube the channel that the firing pin and spring go in? If so, clean that oil/lube out. That channel, and the spring, has to be dry. Any oil in there will slow down the spring. I had this happen in a Springfield XDM. I cleaned the oil out and no more light strikes.
 
If the thing doesn't do what you want, sell it, buy one that does. Unreliable guns are dangerous paperweights.
I have a savage sitting, cause I ethically don't feel good about that. I guess with semi autos, that is their nature. If it fired factory ok, I suppose I could sell it.
 

Primers need to be seated until the anvil legs touch the bottom of the primer pocket (Minimum), and then a little more so the cup pushes down around the legs, up until it hits the bottom of the primer pocket (Maximum).

If seated to little (Anvil legs not touching the bottom of the primer pocket), the firing pin has to seat it fully and then have enough energy left over to crush the priming compound between the cup and the anvil. Sometimes it does not, these are the ones that so often fire on the second try. The first try seats them fully, the second try fires them.

bds has some great primer pics here somewhere that shows the cup and anvil and how they are positioned with each other prior to seating. The anvil legs are sticking out of the cup just a little bit.

After fully seating the anvil's legs and the primer cup is hard against the bottom of the pocket, it takes a great deal of pressure at this point to damage the primer so much it fails.

It is fairly easy to seat a primer too soft, not fully seating it, so that it misfires, but difficult to seat them so hard it damages them to the point of not firing. This statement is based on my decades of seating primers with various tools. I have never had one fail from being seated to hard/deep. Not saying that with some primer tools and some gorilla grips it can't be done, but it is 100/1000 times less likely to happen than seating one too shallow/soft.

We have threads here all the time when failures to fire end up being primers seated too softly/shallow. I can't remember one where it turned out someone managed to crush a primer into submission. I would suggest to all to try it. Some priming systems simply cannot do it for mechanical reasons. Some might have enough travel to do it if you have the strength, That cup surrounded by the brass primer pocket is tough to crush. Very tough.
 
If the thing doesn't do what you want, sell it, buy one that does. Unreliable guns are dangerous paperweights.
I have a 9mm semi-auto that's been sent back to the factory twice for light hammer strikes.
Lose it. Trying to fix a factory defect in the fire-control system is one of those rabbit holes that needs to be avoided.
 
The OP has a real problem, because ignition problems can have simple solutions such as stronger mainsprings, but after that, there may be very little the OP can do to improve ignition reliability.

This is worth reading:

IT DON’T GO BANG: FIRES, HANGFIRES, MISFIRES AND SHORT ORDER COOKS IN JERSEY By Mark Humphreville

@Hummer70 has given us all insight to the lackadaisical attitudes of firearm companies to reliable ignition. If the OP's pistol has an inherently weak ignition system, there is no reloading trick that will increase firing pin strike power. And it is possible that a stronger mainspring will help, assuming a stronger replacement is available. Changing springs on a semi auto can cause its own problems if the replacement spring is too strong, or too weak. It is all about the timing of the weapon.

On a Mauser action, I was able to find a firing pin with greater protrusion, and that fixed a misfire problem with 35 Whelen's. But I have a box of 98 military parts. With a commercial firearm, the factory will not sell longer firing pins. Ruger would not install one on a Ruger #1 in 35 Whelan which was having misfire problems. Thankfully the gunsmith centered the firing pin hit on the primer by doing something to the block. And this is something that someone without a machine shop cannot fix: excessive firing pin offset. The further the firing pin hit is from the tip of the primer anvil, the more energy it takes to ignite the primer.

This ought to be of interest to those who wonder what firing pin offset is acceptable in a small arm:

Report No. R-462 Primer Sensitivity vs. Firing Pin eccentricity
Frankford Arsenal Dec 1943


Object: To determine the effect of firing pin eccentricity on the sensitivity of small arms primers

Summary: Retaining firing pin plates were constructed for the drop test machine that have blows eccentric by .00”, .02” and 0.04”. Drop tests were made on cal.30, .20 carbine, cal 0.45, and cal .50 primed cases (in cases) with sharp anvils, and on cal .30 primers (H-4 in cases) with flat cups.

Very little, if any, changes in sensitivity occurs with blows of 0.02” eccentricity; large differences occur with blows of 0.04”.


“H bar” H̅ is the mean critical firing height. (approximately the 50% ignition point)

From Percussion Primers, Design Requirements , McDonnell Douglas 1970: “Primer manufacturers in their data sheets customarily provide the 100% “all fire” level of their products. This is essentially the same as the mean firing height plus five standard deviations.”

The 1943 report shows for the Cal 0.45 H̅ with a four ounce weight is 3.70” for 0.0” eccentricity, 3.70” for 0.02” eccentricity, and 5.11” for 0.04” eccentricity. They were using chlorate priming cake at the time, I assume non corrosive primers will require similar ignition energy, but, it won't be exact.

George Frost, in his book Making Ammunition, shows data that the further the firing pin hits, the more energy it takes to ignite the primer. At some level of firing pin offset, the primer is not going to go bang. Maybe a torch will make it ignite, none of my weapons has that option.

If the OP's pistol cannot be made into a reliable firearm, the OP ought to get rid of the thing. Sell it for parts, whatever.
 
Hard to tell since we don't have the gun in our hands to examine. If it is a striker fired gun, did you lube the channel that the firing pin and spring go in? If so, clean that oil/lube out. That channel, and the spring, has to be dry. Any oil in there will slow down the spring. I had this happen in a Springfield XDM. I cleaned the oil out and no more light strikes.
Not only do we not have it in our hands, we don’t even have its name.
 
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