icarrydaily

I completely removed my sear deactivation lever and have no problem just pulling the trigger to remove the slide.

Yup! It was a learning experience for sure! Last night I repainted the slide and masked-off all the critical areas and it came out much better!

I have some Great News for anybody who cares! So I had my Slide completely Bead-Blasted, because I reasoned that paint in the rails etc. could be contributing to short cycling. Then I went back-out to my favorite desert plinking spot called "Queen Valley" about an hour east of me here in Arizona. So I fired-off the first shot as usual, then attempted to fire-off a second round, but it was a No-Go! Bummer! So I pull-off the slide and noticed that the Trigger Loop was bent inward towards the sear. So I decided to try an experiment and bend it out a bit. Also at this point I have my Trigger Loop gap at about .032 So after re-assembling the gun, I fired-off a shot, then pull the trigger again and it shot again! I was elated! Then I loaded 3 rounds in my mag and I fired-off all 3 rounds! Then I loaded-up a 10 round Obama-approved magazine and fired-off some double taps and triple taps with no issues! So that's it! Problem solved... As I said before, I never tried to claim that the Apex part was at fault. Thanks to all who helped!

I'm not trying to say that it's the FSS Trigger's fault at this point. I'm sure there's something I did incorrectly. I'm just trying to figure-out what the problem is so it can be corrected. One thing I haven't done yet and still think I need to do, is to have my rails bead blasted. As I have painted the gun, there is most likely still some paint in the rail areas that maybe inhibiting the reward movement of the slide enough to cause a "short-cycle" condition. Now that I think about it, I laid-on the cerakoate too thick anyways. So I'm just gonna have them bead blast the whole slide and test fire it again with my slide completely naked! This way I can absolutely rule-in or out the paint as the cause of my short-cycling. Once this issue is corrected, then I'll more properly mask-off all the rails and inner surfaces before cerakoating and I'll lay it on thinner this time as well. If this doesn't solve the issue, then I'll contact Apex and go from there.

My M&P .45 FS didn't come with a mag safety. Yes, I installed the FSS Sear & large sized sear spring. I didn't do anything to the striker. I'm using all the parts that came with the FSS trigger Kit except for the RAM spring since my sear block cannot accommodate a RAM. BTW my Mom lives in Morro Bay which is next to Los Osos! I happen to be flying out there next weekend. So maybe I can send it to Apex, have them fix it and perhaps I or my Mom can pick it up when it's fixed.

Ok so I took it to the desert and test fired it again with the extractor stripped of any paint. And unfortunately, it's still not firing more than one round, then I have to partially rack the slide again to get it to fire the next round. I tried gapping the trigger loop at <.030, .030, .032, .040, .045 and no luck. I think I'm gonna call Apex and see if they can give me any ideas or what it would cost to send it to them to fix. I don't know what else to do. Thanx for all your help though!

ok I'll give it a go and see what happens Thanx!

For some reason I misplaced the darn ejector pin, so now I have to wait for another one to arrive in the mail! So are you saying I should start with an .032 Loop gap first and go from there?

YouDaMan! Thanx!

Thanx for the info! I guess I could try to knock out the pin that holds the ejector in place and take it to the car shop that bead blasted my slide for $5 and have them bead blast my ejector

Yes about the 30. That's what I meant also. When I fire a shot, a new round chambers, but I don't know if it's completely chambered or not. When I rack the slide after that to get it to fire, I don't rack it all the way knowing that a live round will pop-out and fall into the dirt. I just do it enough to either reset the trigger or to drive home the chambered round or ? All I know is it works. The Extractor is painted, but it does seem to be extracting the empty brass just fine. Every time I fire, the expended brass is ejected. I did notice sometimes that for example I'm dry firing, when I pull the trigger, the slide moves forward approx. 2mm. When I had it bead blasted, I just had them do the area where the barrel is to solve that issue at the time. So I'm sure there's still some paint inside the rail areas. P.S. When it automatically chambers a new round and I pull the trigger, there is no "Click".

ok so I used a spark plug gap tool and set the gap to "30"(actually I think it's more like 0.30) and went out into the Arizona desert(Queen Valley) and did some test firing. Unfortunately, I'm able to fire-off the first round, but it doesn't fire again unless I manually rack the slide. I don't know if it's a feeding issue, or another tolerance issue caused by the painting I did, or if I need to adjust the trigger loop some more. I tried making the gap in the loop a little bigger, then smaller and no matter what I did, it would-not shoot unless I manually chamber a round/rack the slide. Any ideas? Thanx for all your help folks!

Roger-that! Thanx!

Ok, so I found a local Car Shop that graciously bead-blasted (for only $5!) the slide cavity to remove the excess cerakoat which was causing the slide and barrel to bind. Now I'm happy to report, that I can now cycle my slide and dry fire with my newly installed Apex FSS! I'm going to try and take it out to the desert very soon for test-firing and bring some tools with me in case I need to do some tweeking of the trigger loop. Thanks guys for all your help!

So, just got home and put a little 2 inch by 1 inch piece of paper in the slide under the barrel to simulate too much cerakote. Same exact results as you. This paper is only .003 thick. Your coating could be plus or minus that very easily. I wouldn't bother paying money for the bead blasting just yet. From what I've read, 10 minutes with 400grit sandpaper will take it right off the inside of the slide, the. Use some 1000 or higher to smooth it back out. My money is on that solving the problem. Thanks so-much! I'll give it a shot!

I found a local guy on craigslist who does bead-blasting. Maybe I can mask-off the whole slide except for the inside which interacts with the barrel then see if that improves the situation.

The barrel is stock. Yes, I just coated the slide and haven't had the gun back together since I painted it and changed the Trigger stuff. I think what MadMike is getting at and what would be causing the problem I'm suspecting. Is that the slide coating is too thick and is pushing the barrel away from the slide and out of spec causing it to jam against the locking block. I'm not sure what you used for slide coating, I imagine it can't be super thick, since it appears to be on the sliderails themselves and those most likely have a tighter tolerances and I would think that would give you problems as well. If that's the case, the slide coating on the inside of the frame really isn't a big deal, no one will ever see that. It might be worth it to hit it with sandpaper and and bring it back down to the melonite finish. Did you coat the barrel too or was that always black? Also, if this was the problem and you could get it together. Wouldn't be far fetched to think that a couple hundred rounds of factory ammo would smooth all of that out itself. It's cerakote on the slide, and duracoat on the frame. And I'm not too experienced at painting, so it might be laid-on a little too thick. As previously stated, the barrel is stock, with it's stock finish. However, it IS entirely possible that I screwed-up the tolerances having painted the slide and frame. So I'll investigate to see if there are any painted areas that might be causing too tight tolerances. Thanx guys for all you help!

I think you're onto something here! I was finally able to manipulate the slide back, but the barrel still doesn't want to go further back. Any other thoughts?

The barrel is stock. Yes, I just coated the slide and haven't had the gun back together since I painted it and changed the Trigger stuff.

Ok. I just tried it with the guide rod/recoil assembly completely removed and the slide is still not going all the way on with the barrel installed. But if I also remove the barrel, then the slide goes all the way on. So it must be an issue with the barrel hitting something.

It does it in either sear-lever position. I also tried it with the takedown lever removed and the slide still won't install unless I remove the barrel & recoil assembly.

Here You go.

I'm trying to get my Full sized M&P .45 running with my newly acquired Apex FSS Trigger. However, I can't seem to get the slide fully installed on the gun, since I installed the FSS Trigger kit. When I pull back the slide, it is hitting on something. I notice that if I take-out the barrel & recoil, then the slide can fully install. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong? Thanx!