In another thread I asked a question that included reference to a picture of the object of my query, and said picture included in the background a handgun I own, about which I have another question. To quote from the other thread:
And:
The gun is a Springfield XD45 Service with an Insight tactical light/laser sight. I got it last summer and I’ve put ~1000 rounds through it. I do like it, but I have had three failures to eject. I have three magazines for the gun, all 13 round, and I think all three failures happened with one particular magazine, on the 3rd or 4th shot. I’m not familiar enough yet with automatic handgun mechanics to understand this, but my gun guru suspects the magazine. How? I don’t know. FWIW, all three failures happened with Winchester FMJ, and I do clean after every outing.
Could it be something about the magazine (spring? alignment?) causing failures to eject? If not, what else should I look at?
This page on AR15 .com shows some differences between old and new magazines, maybe one of yours is an oddball?
Are you stovepiping?
Usually the slide isn’t cycling completely.
Standard answers are -
A. Too strong a recoil spring (or low-power ammo).
2. Lack of lubrication on the slide/ frame surfaces.
III. Limp-wristing.
Now, there is some disagreement as to whether or not limp wristing is a real problem, and I’ve no idea how much you shoot so I’m no way going to criticize your technique. Take a couple big boxes of ammo to the range and try to confirm/deny the bad mag hypothesis?
I had a stock Colt 1911 give me a hard time until I had the ejection port widened, but I can’t imagine the Springfield would have that same problem.
There’s no simple way to check the spring without contriving something to see if it has the same force and rate as the rest. I’d check insides of the magazine to see if there is any burr or unevenness, and maybe the lip of the magazine for the same. Also to break the magazine down as much as you can and clean and lubricate it thoroughly. Basic, common-sense stuff; of course I’m no expert, just familiar with handguns from a general sense.
Thanks for the input bob and Una. I’m going to strip and clean the magazines and see if that clears the problem. Otherwise I love the gun - very easy to handle and I like the large magazines. Easy to clean, as well, at least compared to a 1911.
[sub]Hey, Una! It’s been a while; I hope you’re doing well.[/sub]
And as long as I’m asking, Bobtheoptimist, the recoil spring is stock, the ammo has been standard Winchester 235 grain FMJ, the slide rails are lubricated, But I can’t answer that which I don’t know. What is stovepiping? And what is limp wristing? I typically fire two-handed.
Stovepiping is when the spent brass partially ejects and is caught by the slide so it sticks out of the action like a stovepipe. Here’s a picture. Limp-wristing is a problem with how you hold the gun - not having a firm grip and/or having a floppy wrist. As I implied, it’s controversial but I’ll save the entire world several pages of gun-geek stuff - if you get the jam/ejection problems towards the end of the day when you just want to burn off that last mag, or you’re kind of distracted for a minute, or you’re getting over-confident because you just shot an excellent score, you may want to pause and make sure you’re holding your gun properly.
I could demonstrate it with my Colt - good firm grip and the thing would perform flawlessly, relaxed my wrist/grip a little and I’d stovepipe once a magazine. Minor modification of the gun, and a lot more practice, and it hasn’t happened since. Could have been me, could have just needed breaking in.
There’s at least one person on the boards that’ll disagree with that entire explanation and tell you that limp-wristing is a myth. He may be right…
Almost totally unrelated - I recently built an M4 from parts - the thing fit pretty tight and the springs were really strong. The first 500 rounds almost had me in tears, the thing jammed repeatedly and no amount of fiddling would fix it. But sometime around the 500 mark things got broken in and it settled down to be a real dependable gun. The moral, if there is one, is if your problems were in the first few hundred shots but not so much lately, it might have solved itself.
As I mentioned, I have the XD40 SC and Tactical and have never had a FTE or a Failure to Feed.
But, I did have the XD45 for a while when it first came out, and did have some stovepipes. :eek:
It turned out that I was limpwristing after the second or third magazine. When I used two hands and concentrated on my grip I had no problems.
I decided to stick with the .40s. More from a compatability issue as I already had two .40s and decied it wasn’t worthwhile to stock an additional type of ammo and magazines.
