This step will weed out the majority of pistols that cannot tolerate direct chambering.
Since you still have no information from any authoritative source on which pistols will tolerate direct chambering and which will not, this is nothing but pure speculation.
It's educated estimation. If a beveled pivoting extractor can pivot outward far enough to allow the rim of the shell case to pass by, it's already overcome the greatest hurdle. I don't need an authoritative source to tell me that.
One test is worth a 1,000 opinions, even Sig's opinions. I measured the force required to move the P365 extractor outward far enough to allow the rim of the cartridge to pass by. It was only 3 lbs of force! I can apply more than 3 lbs of force with the fingernail on my little finger. I can push the extractor outward far enough to allow the shell case rim to pass by using the paper shaft of a Q-Tip. The extractor has very little inertia to overcome. Most of the force that the extractor claw encounters will be transferred through it into the extractor return spring. The extractor does not actually absorb very much force.
Are you going to suggest that a steel extractor that cannot handle 3 lbs of force against a soft brass shell case rim without breaking or chipping is somehow reasonable and NOT pathetic? If the extractor chips or breaks it is likely to have been made with a low grade steel, that was overly hardened to increase it's strength, instead of using a higher grade steel that doesn't require much hardening to achieve the required strength.
A pivoting spring loaded extractor claw will eventually wear out. But it should NOT be chipping or breaking, EVER! But for a pistol designed to fire brass cartridges, it doesn't require a particularly hard steel to resist wear against the brass cartridge rim. If a pivoting extractor chips or breaks while direct chambering, the extractor is either defective or has been overly hardened way too much to be reliable for use as an extractor and NOT reliable to enough to carry, EVER!
Why should I care? If the steel extractor breaks with only 3 lbs of force applied, why would Sig's opinion (or excuses) even matter?
How many directly chambered rounds, without breakage of the extractor, would you consider adequate to qualify as reliable?
I have no idea how to quantify it.
I've already slammed the extractor against a brass shell case rim in my P365X 738 times with no apparent damage. That would be 2 years worth of clearing your weapon every evening when you got home and then reloading in the morning.
While possible, I find it difficult to believe that many brands of pistols would have extractors that could so easily chip or break, as that would be a serious liability issue for the companies.
I know some people have gotten away for it for a long time in some pistols and then finally had a chip. I know others have had the claw break after just a few rounds.
Assuming that there was no mechanical interference that would prevent the extractor from pivoting past the shell case rim, if a pivoting spring loaded extractor claw breaks due to direct chambering after only a few chamberings, or EVER, the alarm bells should be going off in your head. "Houston, we've got a problem!" And that problem is a poorly designed and/or poorly manufactured extractor.
A replacement extractor for the P365 only costs $8.58 anyway.
This is your carry gun, right? How much does it cost if it breaks when you're chambering a round and you first find out that it's broken in the middle of a self-defense encounter?
If I have any concern that the extractor is compromised in any way I can replace it in less than 5 minutes. I've already tested the hardness of the Sig extractor and it is not hard enough to be brittle. The Sig extractor is highly unlikely to chip or break in this application.
My actual plan is to remove the extractor and measure how many pounds of force it actually takes to either bend or break the extractor claw. If any stress cracks have already formed, this test will reveal it. The $8.58 cost of the extractor is a very small price to test the reliability of a critical part. FYI, the extractor testing is also helping to break in the pistol.
The manufacturer may simply be overcautious and recommend that you NOT do something that is perfectly acceptable.
Ridiculous. If there's no risk to them, what benefit is there in them in trying to convince their customers that their product has a limitation that it doesn't?............... My comment was explaining why it made no sense to expect that they would tell you NOT to do direct chamber loading if there were no reason for them to do so.
Let me put it to you in dollars and cents. If Sig makes ANY claims whatsoever, that their product is capable of doing something and it does NOT live up to the claim, they have a liability. It can be called false advertising and they could be sued and would lose the lawsuit. So before any rational sane company with any integrity makes ANY claim about their product, they do extensive testing to make sure that their product will live up to their claims. HOWEVER, Sig may not want to spend the time or money to perform the testing. There is virtually no liability in telling the customer NOT to do something. That is how manufacturing modifies it's behaviour in reaction to our legal system.
"Thank you for contacting Sig Sauer......This is not acceptable for any Sig Sauer semi automatic firearm. You are bypassing the extractor and therefore the extractor is on the wrong side of the casing rim, which can break the extractor. The firearms are designed for feeding the top round off the magazine only."
Did you actually ask Sig the all important question: "What kind of testing have you done to prove that the extractor can break from direct chambering?" At this point it does not appear that you have been given any data by Sig to corroborate their extractor breakage claim. I believe that this is a perfect example of Sig trying to play it safe and cover their a**. I'm sure that some people are going to be accusing me of heresy at this point.
So far my data seems to be contradicting Sig's claim about potential extractor breakage. I've directly chambered my P365X 738 times and allowed the slide to slam the extractor into the cartridge rim without any sign of breakage or chipping.
I'm sure that at one time Sig also did NOT recommend inserting a magazine loaded to capacity against a closed slide. They still don't mention this in their manual as an acceptable method, yet they advertise the P365 series as 10+1, 12+1, and 15+1 capacity.
But until you have actually polished the stripper rail, I would highly recommend AGAINST inserting a magazine, loaded to capacity against a closed slide, because of the excessive friction against the stripper rail opposing rearward slide motion. Some men are actually unable to retract the slide over a magazine loaded to capacity!!! It would be even more reliable to use the MagGuts spring kit, as it reduces the friction against the stripper rail even further.
I'm also fairly certain that Sig is going to tell you to NOT polish the internal trigger parts, the stripper rail, the breech face, or the left adjacent wall to the breech face. It's likely that they do not want it to appear that their pistols are not well finished. Also, telling you NOT to perform any work on the pistol yourself reduces their liability. But without this internal finishing work, the stock Sig P365/X/XL/SAS is just not reliable enough for me to carry, which why I performed the finishing work myself.
While I have NO good reason to believe that direct chambering and allowing the slide to slam the extractor into the cartridge rim will cause extractor breakage in the P365, I still don't recommend it, as it is needless to allow the slide to slam.
You can manually insert a cartridge into the chamber, then gently release the slide onto the cartridge, then press the rear of the extractor to allow the extractor claw to pivot outward enough to pass over the cartridge rim and allow the recoil spring to return the slide to battery, with no significant stresses to the extractor, and eliminate ANY possibility of bullet setback.
Or they may tell you not to do something because they KNOW it will break and reveal a design flaw that they don't want you to know about.
In that case, following their recommendations aligns with your interests as a gun owner since, presumably, you don't want your gun to break.
I want to know about a products capabilities AND vulnerabilities. Then I can make an informed decision as to whether or not the product's performance and/or reliability is acceptable to me. In this case, if a spring loaded pivoting extractor breaks while direct chambering when no physical interference exists, I consider it way too fragile to use for normal extraction in a carry weapon. There is just not enough margin of safety. Direct chambering seems to be a very good way to weed out poor pivoting extractor quality and/or poor design.
How could the customer have a reasonable expectation that it would be acceptable if the manufacturer says not to do it?
The consumer can claim that they never got the message. It may be the second owner that never received the company's manual and they did what they thought was reasonable and a problem occurred.
Example: The MagGuts magazine conversion has a follower design inferior to Sig's, which can require more than double the force to chamber the last round (Actual measurement.), which will not only be more likely to cause bullet setback, but also cause a greater amount of setback than with a Sig magazine. Let's assume that the MagGuts magazine could cause the last cartridge to have so much setback that it damaged the firearm when fired. MagGuts could issue a warning NOT to fire the 14th round in the magazine. But the 2nd owner may not have received the warning. The courts would consider it a reasonable expectation to be able load the magazine to capacity and fire all of the rounds in the magazine.
Example: Let's assume that the norm for a striker fired pistol, with a pivoting spring loaded extractor, was being able to directly chamber cartridges without damage. But then a company makes a striker fired pistol, with a pivoting spring loaded extractor, that WILL be damaged if it is directly chambered. The company can issue warnings NOT to directly chamber their pistols until they are blue in the face, but the courts will likely rule that it's a reasonable expectation that a striker fired pistol, with a pivoting spring loaded extractor, can directly chambered without damage.
Some people may disagree, but if one manufacturer can make a pistol that can be reliably loaded by direct chambering, they all can.
Sure, I agree with that. Not that it's especially relevant to whether they all DO.
That falls under the category of reasonable expectations. Also note that the extractor of the Sig P365/X/XL/SAS appears to be physically designed to allow direct chambering. If in fact the Sig P365/X/XL/SAS is the only modern semi-automatic pistol that can handle direct chambering, it then just became the new standard for everyone else to live up to. With the metallurgy of today, it just isn't that difficult to manufacture a pivoting extractor than can handle direct chambering.
People ARE directly chambering the Sig P365/X/XL/SAS. I'm not the first one to be doing it. I didn't even consider it until someone online mentioned that they were directly chambering their Sig.
As a manufacturer you should ALWAYS CYA and specifically recommend AGAINST anything that may cause a failure and/or dangerous condition.
I have to laugh at this. Clearly you've never worked in tech support, or in any kind of customer support where you're dealing with people who buy products and then either screw them up or can't figure out how to make them work.
I actually have provided tech support of a LASER velocimeter system for customers in the '80s. Granted, the customers were typically engineers, scientists, and college professors. But I have also provided tech support for consumer audio electronics that I have designed and built, or modified.
There's no way to list all the ways to misuse a product. Idiots are far too ingenious, and there are far too many of them for anyone to be able to come up with all the ideas that they can.
That's why manuals tell people what to do, and maybe list a few things they shouldn't do, but can't be exhaustive. It would be harder to come up with manuals than to make guns if they tried to do what you think is reasonable.
Direct chambering is just not that obscure. If a pistol cannot tolerate direct chambering it should at least be listed in the manual, and many (especially liability lawyers) would argue that it should be labeled directly upon the pistol as well.
Longer bullets are extremely likely to result in longer cartridges resulting in greater setback, hence the relation to your comment.
Cartridge overall length is determined by industry standards and doesn't change based on the length of the bullet.
Industry standards? It would appear that the standard maximum overall length is 1.169" for a 9 x 19mm cartridge. I have measured 6 brands of 9 x 19mm cartridges, with 115 gr bullets that ranged from 1.170" to 1.045" to in overall length.
Longer bullets get seated deeper into the case, reducing the space for powder and increasing the effect of setback on discharge pressure.
Seating the bullets further into the shellcase is one way to do it. But if you already have a cartridge with a shorter OAL, wouldn't it make more sense to seat the bullet to the same depth and allow it to protrude up to the maximum OAL?
Regardless, my statement remains true that cartridges with longer OAL are more susceptible to setback and a greater amount of setback per chambering than cartridges with a shorter OAL.
Some people may think that I'm being way to critical.
Well, I don't. I just think you are assuming a lot. Even after pointedly saying that it was a bad idea to assume, you are still doing exactly that. You still haven't contacted a single firearm manufacturer to find out what they recommend, have you?
I've got 8 dummy rounds......... I grab a different dummy round for each test, manually chamber the round, and then release the slide onto the round, eject and repeat.
Or you could just call SIG.
Actually I did send Sig an e-mail and asked them about the boss on the underside of the sear and the corresponding boss on the FCU frame of the P365, that looks like it was designed for a coiled sear spring, similar to the position of the sear spring used for the P320. NO response from Sig what....... so........ ever.......!
Sig can say or not say whatever they want. You can take Sig's word if you like. But I have actual test data. I'll trust my data over what Sig says, unless they can provide me with better and more complete test data. My money says that Sig has NOT actually performed any testing on directly chambering the P365 series and I seriously doubt that they can provide any test data.
I can remember a time when the auto manufacturers would try to void your warranty if you used synthetic oil. Now some new autos are delivered with synthetic oil. Having worked for manufacturing companies for most of my career, I have good reason to have very little trust in what they say. I was taught from an early age to always question authority and that has served me well.
Are your recommendations for the expertily skillled or for the average gun owner who just cleans and shoots it less than 10,000 rounds in 10-15 years?
Who does any of the finishing work or modifications that I have described so far is up to the owner of the gun to decide. It's a free country here in the USA.
It doesn't matter if the gun owner has ever shot a pistol in their life. What matters is their mechanical abilities and whether or not they can pay attention to the details. There is nothing extreme about anything that I've done to my P365X. It's just minor finishing and refinements. Of everything that I've described, what takes the most skill is polishing the breech face and maintaining the angles. Everything else is fairly easy for a handyman. What I've done to my P365X is nothing compared to the modifications that I make to an engine.
I checked the carry ammo today and found the out of the box proper OAL to be 1.080-1.085 Most of the rounds in my magazines were OK and fell right in that range. There were a few more that setback .010 or so. The jaw dropper was the one that was at 1.036.
I've measured ammo from four 50 round boxes of Sig Elite Performance 115gr 9x19mm ammo. Within a single box the OAL was fairly uniform. However, the average OAL from box to box varied considerably. I've been setting aside any ammo that is noticeably shorter than the rest of the ammo in the box. I then remove the bullet, empty the powder, and store the shell case with the intact primer, just in case I want to perform any firing pin indentation testing.
I've measured 3 brands of self defense ammo, and the OAL seems more consistent than the FMJ target ammo that I've measured. The Winchester White Box FMJ seemed to have a fairly wide variation in OAL.
