Can too loose of a grip cause misfires?

[BSA1]

Here is a bit of a puzzler for me.

My daughter shot a S&W Model 10-6 and a Ruger P89 9mm.

The Smith is a used police trade-in I got a couple of months ago. I test fired it with 50 rounds and it functioned fine with no misfires. However the cylinder was very difficult to open which I traced to the end of the center pin having a dimple in the center of it. To correct this I slightly shortened the end of the ejector rod and center pin until the dimple was gone and the gun unlatched easily. Using ammo for the same batch of my reloads with Winchester Small Pistol primers she had two failures to fire. Both primers showed light firing pin strikes.

With the P89 using my reloads with WSP primers she had one misfire twice on the same round with light hammer strike. It fired just fine for me (3rd strike). She had no failures to feed or eject.

Can too loose of a grip cause misfires?

I have reloaded for many years and am very confident that it was not caused by me failing to seat the primers fully (high primers). See my comment about the revolver test firing fine. Also note both guns and ammo work 100% for me.

My daughter had not shot a handgun for many years and needed a lot coaching on proper stance (I had her use a Weaver stance), grip, trigger pull and sight alignment. Could she have been relaxing her grip just enough to allow the guns to misfire? Revolvers are forgiving about improper grip. However I am stronger and use a firmer grip.

Ok to discount mechanical I am going to replace the center pin and ejector rod on the revolver even though it does not have excessive endshake. On the Ruger I am going to replace the firing pin spring. (Parts are on order).

Can too loose of a grip cause misfires?

 

[Ryanxia]

I know with autoloaders 'limp wristing' can cause FTF, stovepipes, etc. I can't imagine in a revolver it would affect it at all, the force of the hammer/firing pin should be enough to set the round off even if you're barely holding it.

I was at the range a few weeks ago with a friend and his family and his 80 something year old grandmother was very weakly holding a .357 magnum (light .38 SPC loads) and it shot fine, I was more worried it would bounce back on her but she did good.

The only extremely slim chance I could see is if she was 'pushing' the gun forward during trigger pull (kind of like a jerk) enough to slow the momentum of the hammer but I don't think that's really possible either (just throwing it out there thanks to Physics).

 

[rcmodel]

No, a loose grip or limp wresting cannot cause misfires with either a revolver or auto pistol.

It can cause function problems with an auto, but not misfires.

On the S&W, if you shortened the center pin, it may not be holding the thumb latch back far enough to completely clear the hammer inside the frame, which would drag and slow it down.

You should be able to feel that by holding the trigger back and slowly cock and lower the hammer several times.

Make sure the strain screw in the front of the S&W grip frame is tightened fully.

Other then that, I have no idea.

rc

 

[Ryanxia]

Whenever I have a post like this (or any other post for the most part) I look forward to RC chiming in. If I could remember half of what I've learned about guns (learned a lot forgot a lot) I don't think I'd be the fountain of knowledge he is.

 

[Jim K]

Could there be an age problem with the primers?

Jim

 

[kingcheese]

I seen a mauser ftf because the guy jerked the trigger, it caused the action to bind up, and i had a nagant revolver bind up on me because i had a loose grip, but the nagant is a beast of its own and the trigger spring came out of the track, locking the mecanism up on the barrel and i had to dissasemble it while it was loaded

 

[mr16ga]

Any miss fires with factory ammo? If not your reloads are bum.

 

[BSA1]

"Bum" reloads are always suspect although I am discounting them at this early stage. I considered that fact as they came out of the same lot of 5,000 but only 3 misfires out of 4,000+ rounds seems to low to blame the manufacturer. Please note I have ruled out high primers as I check primers when I reload. As I have reload all 5,000 primer I will see if the remaining few hundred misfire.

12 factory rounds through the Ruger fired fine.

I detailed striped and cleaned both guns.

When cleaning S&W I ran across something interesting. Inside the small channel on the sideplate the transfer bar rides in I found a very small piece of metal (I hestitate to use the word burr). It was in the top of the channel and was dark blue-black so I almost missed seeing it. After two light file strokes it disappeared leading me to believe it was a loose fragment that somehow worked its way there. This gives rise to the idea that the metal frag interfered with the transfer bar as it worked its way inside the channel. Also all of the inside edges of the sideplate were rough and sharp so I broke them gently as a precaution.

All i found inside the Ruger was the firing pin spring and firing had a little sticky residue on them...OMG! like dried WD-40. I cleaned and oiled the channel with a dab of Breakfire and installed a new firing pin spring.

Back to the range.

 

[Fleet]

You don't have to have a high primer, just one not fully seated.

 

[BSA1]

More firing will tell but I do not believe it was my reloads especially with two different calibers loaded on different occasions in two separate guns. They all pass the feel test. I have loaded 100k's with only one misfire over the years and that was on a dang progressive press.

Use of WD-40 gumming up the action of firearms is well documented, especially in a gun that has not been cleaned in 20 years.

I am still waiting on the correct ejector rod and center pin for the S&W to arrive just in case the 1/32" I shortened the old one is causing the problem.

Going to the range tomorrow. I will give a update.

 

[BSA1]

9mm update

Well it was only another 50 rounds through the Ruger but they were all trouble free. I (well actually my daughter is) am going to run 50 rounds a week through it for a total of 500 without without cleaning it just to see if I can create any problems. Since I have cleaned the sticky residue from WD-40 out of the gun I expect it to easily pass this test as my semi-autos must run 500 rounds without any problems before I will trust them.

Still waiting on parts for the Model 10.