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New STI GM FTE Problems - FYI


dkizer

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I'm no expert. I drop parts in Glocks, polish S&W internals and have a good set of punches and screwdrivers. I just wanted to share this recent experience with a new STI.

Got my brand new discontinued STI GM in 38 Super. What a beautiful thing! I picked it up from my small town USA FFL delivery with much pageantry. We passed it around, racked the slide, felt the trigger, turned on the dot and just generally admired it. The Owner of the shop admitted this was the first one they had ever received or even seen. One of the girls that works there seemed a little left out so I asked if she would like to check it out before I left. She sheepishly said “I already have. I checked it out when it came in”. I don’t blame you, I replied.

I took it home, showed it to the wife (“yep, that’s pretty”) and took off to the basement.

My brass and dies came in the next day from Starline and Midway. By that time I had field stripped, wiped it down and re-lubed. I proceeded to load up some 125 grn. BBI’s to my 9mm major recipe. This load only produced about 155 pf. as opposed to 170 in my Glock. Turned a few more flats on the powder measure which produced about 168 pf. Problem was the gun was not extracting. The slide was just barely moving with these loads. I got on Benos and discovered several posts on faulty new STI’s. Somehow I missed these when I was deciding to buy one. One of the posts had an STI quote saying to run 100-500 175 pf rounds thru it to break it in. Turned the measure again and got in the 174 range but the gun still wasn’t cycling enough to reach the ejector. By this time I’m starting to look at warranty return information. Since it was Friday and nobody was home at STI I decided to think on it more over the weekend. I read a lot of the forums and decided to do some backyard troubleshooting.

First I racked the slide several hundred times til my hands got raw, wiping and re-lubing along the way. Next, I ran 10 190 pf rounds (124 grn. Jacketed). It was still a single shot and only barely bumping the ejector enough to release the spent case. It still wasn’t ejecting or coming to the rear enough to pick up the next round. I decided to forget it was a brand new factory gun and just act like I had thrown a bunch of parts on a frame and do what I would do. The slide was very smooth. The gun failed the same way with or without the magazine installed. My first guess was that the recoil spring was too heavy. I trimmed 2 coils off the recoil spring and it started cycling 175 pf but still stovepiping every few rounds. Progress!

I trimmed 2 more coils and it started running 175’s no problem. I dropped back to 170ish and it started running. It hasn’t jammed in a couple of hundred and fifty rounds. I used all the new STI magazines with no problems. The cases are all exiting nicely in an arc landing 3 to 4 feet away. I think it’s going to be really nice.

I’m figuring STI must have installed the “Heavy” recoil master instead of the “Light” called for with the 38 Super. I tried to call STI Monday but wasn’t able to get thru so I ordered a light spring from SC. BTW, this gun did not come with a test target.

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