jim vaughan

Either use a stronger recoil spring (10 lb or up), change powder or use hotter primers. The yellow cornmeal does not seem to build up past a certain point. Weak recoil springs definitely lead to feeding jams.

Either use a stronger recoil spring (10 lb or up), change powder or use hotter primers. The yellow cornmeal does not seem to build up past a certain point. Weak recoil springs definitely lead to feeding jams.

I would suggest that movement itself is not a current problem. I rather identify 2 other stage design issues that are far worse. 12 round stages with 4 or 5 shooting positions and stages that do not have any options.

The AD happened immediately after firing at 2 targets then straight into a magazine change. The RO was very close and confirmed that he saw the spent magazine start to fall from the gun when the shot went off. I have very short trigger fingers so I regrip when mag changing. When I stripped my primary gun I found that the firing pin and channel were coated with a hard grey film that was difficult to remove. The long firing pins are flush with the breachface when the hammer is down. I do not know what brand of extended firing pins I have.

I purchased it in South Africa so that may not be helpful to you.

I recently had problems with my 2 STI type open guns in 9mm major. The firing pins indentations in the primers were quite deep and during a competition I had an accidental discharge with my finger outside the trigger guard. Upon checking various primers I saw that the tip of the extended firing pins in both guns were flat with sharp edges. Some of the primers (WW SPP) had holes on the sides of the primer indentations. The firing pin had extensive powder marks along its length. I reground the firing pin tips to a normal curved shape. This shows just another area to check in the never ending journey to a reliable open handgun. The attached images show the 2 extended pins together with 2 normal pins. The 2 rows of fired cases show normal and pierced primers.

I purchased an Eemann Tech competition extractor for my STI 9mm major. It is perfect in every way and the installation was trivial/drop-in. My new Aftec's were hopeless as described in the various comments. By the way the springs and saddle are interchangeable.

Hi, Do a simple firing pin strength test. Take a virgin pencil with the base cut off. Insert it into the barrel and see how high the pencil flies out of the vertical barrel when the trigger falls. 2-3 ft is the norm. If less replace hardware accordingly. Also remove the mainspring cap retaining pin. Jim

Yes. use a vernier.

Bend the left hand side of the sear spring forward approx 0.25 - 0.5 mm. This should fix your problem.

Light slide, comp, barrel and grip will aid you to get the fastest cycle time.

Don't forget that open high cap magazines need cleaning from the firing gunk that accumulates inside the upper portion.

How does one check that a handgun has a consistent sight alignment after travelling? Assume the handgun has previously been accurately zeroed and that physical zeroing is not available at a match. I am looking for a methodology that will give repeatability to 1-2" at 25 m. Many thanks.

Although this is an expensive option, consider having a chamber reamer and comp alignment reamer in your tool kit. They are great to check and clean your chamber and comp.

The difference is most probably due to the friction between the top of the barrel chamber and the underside of the slide. Test it using a full slide stoke or dummy rounds and I think you will find that all is good.