German Hsc has trouble feeding first rd., or closing slide.

[Ignition Override]

The original .32 Auto gun has tight recoil and mag springs, as with my superb Sauer 38H and Sig 232. It was manufactured at the end of the war, serial # 9**,***.

I always firmly slam the mag into the well. For the unfamiliar, an inserted Mauser Hsc mag-whether loaded or empty-is required to release the slide.
Quite often the round only strips approx. 1/4" fwd. in the mag. The ammo is always fmj.

Even when it does chamber/fire the first round as it should, sometimes one or two times with the remaining rounds, the slide closes only within about 1/3" from the forward limit.
From there it is easy to push it into battery.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

I'm no expert but have seen some of this with Milsurp guns:

1) Before doing anything else, be sure your thumb isn't dragging against the slide as you fire. It wouldn't take much contact to slow things down just a bit, and that might explain why it's not a consistent problem.

2) Make sure the underside of the slide is shiny and that there's no roughness that may be causing the slide to drag on the top of the next round. (This would be more likely with the first round of a fully-loaded mag, which is pressing up with extra force.) If it does well downloaded one round, you have a good suspect. Note: just because a gun can hold 6 rounds, for example, doesn't mean it will always load the first round properly from a fully-loaded magazine.

3) Is the ammo known GOOD ammo? If the loads aren't uniformly loaded, there could be problems.

4) burrs or roughness on the mag feed lips? Sandpaper will fix this or 2, above.


Less likely suspects:

5) Rough or dirty chamber. (Should be a more-consistent problem if that's the cause.)

6) Roughness or burrs on the slide or frame rails or where they rub. (As with the dirty chamber, the problem should be more consistent... and not common with older guns that have been shot a lot.)

7) Are you sure the recoil spring is correct (i.e., strong enough?) It may feel stiff, but could still be marginal.

 

[wlewisiii]

Do you have a new recoil spring in it? If not do that first.

If you do, then my suggestion is to get a different magazine. They can have bad lips that you will never get quite right.

Key thing - buy a WWII mag. The third party ones out there (cough*Triple K*cough) are made for the post war .380's and are slightly too wide to use in a war time HSc. Yes, I lost money on learning that lesson ...

 

[9 fingers]

I would tell you to get Wolf mag and recoil springs, and you should, they are cheap and far superior to the originals and will probably solve your problem. But you should also go on the Muserguns forum and check with the moderator "warbird", a cranky but supreme expert on the HSc. He helped me greatly with my first one.
Link is attached.
9 fingers
http://www.mauserguns.com/forum/index.php?board=17.0

 

[Vodoun da Vinci]

When the jam occurs/the slide stops moving forward, is the nose of the top bullet in the magazine in contact with the feed ramp of the barrel? "jamming on the ramp" is very common especially if the bullets are anything other than round noses/hardball.

A lot of these guns were designed in an era when hardball was the only bullet they were expected to feed.....ever! Flat noses, soft lead, hollow points, etc will jam on the ramp. Is the ramp rough/pitted or have any machine marks?

Polishing the ramp is often the cure. But the first thing is to identify if that's where the failure is. But from your description it also sounds as if the slide is dragging or the recoil spring simply does not have enough Oomph to strip a round and push it up the ramp. Could be lots of things but recoil spring and a rough ramp are my first guesses.

VooDoo

 

[Normandy]

I have two WWII Lugers that are the same way about the first round. Usually take the first round about 1/2 way out of the magazine. So, I accommodate them by loading only 7 rounds per mag. They are fun range guns, but I do not depend on them for personal protection.