slide not locking back after last round

[Barry Davis]

I have a 9mm Match Elite. The last trip to the range, the slide stopped locking back after the last round in the magazine. It is doing it with all my magazines. Any ideas?

Edited June 10, 2010 by Barry Davis

[sinnsyk]

Slide lock function can be unreliable which is why I never use it any more. I have switched to a pin and never rely on the slide-lock to only lock back on empty.

It can probably be fixed, but it's probably a gunsmith job unless you can spend some time on it and thoroughly investigate what it's doing.

[PeterMor]

Had this happen to me a while back, turns out while working on my new grip my thumb was riding the slide stop.

[jmcmanis]

I had an issue with my slide stop pin when I was working on some rounds. I had some rounds in the mag and the slide locked back. I getting ready to switch to Hennings Tight Fit Pin.

[bamayne]

Will Hennings tight fit slide stop pin work on all eaa's? I have the elite limited and want to get rid of the slide locking back but the barrel locks up really tight now. I was just afraid that with hennings pin being oversized it might be to tight? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[USAFA82]

I had a similar problem with a 41 AE magazine not engaging the slide lock in my narrow frame MAPP1.

To correct this issue, I built up the area of the slide lock that engages the magazine with some JB Weld (epoxy) and beveled it down so the 41 AE round would clear the built up area.

You can get an idea of what's going on by removing the slide, replacing the slide lock pin and inserting an empty magazine.

The original part that engages the magazine looks something like this:

=|

The modified part looks something like this when viewed from the rear:

=|\

Hope this helps.

[dbman]

I just wanted to interject my $0.02 on this issue in the Tanfoglios/EAA Witness. I have one in .45 and it is normally an excellent and trouble-free lead-slinging machine.

For about 6 months I have had the issue of the slide not locking back on last round on Meggar mags, but not on factory Tanfoglio mags. I thought it was due to different mag follower dimensions, and if you look they are a bit different in that crucial area where the slide stop is pushed up by the follower.

But recently I started to have the malfunction when using the Tanfoglio mags. I went back to basics. I took the slide off the gun, replaced the slide lock pin, and inserted my mags one at a time to watch what happened. I saw the follower clearly missing the slide stop nub on the Meggars, but just barely missing the follower on the Tanfoglio mags. It was a force fit thing, too, where to eject the mag I had to physically pull the mag out of the mag well with quite a bit of force because the slide stop pin nub was pushing so hard against the mag follower. Not good.

I remembered the Witness was based on the tried and true CZ-75 design. I got a hold of a CZ-75 and set it up the same way - no slide, slide stop pin in. The slide stop pin nub on the CZ is quite a bit longer, almost by a quarter inch. It also looks a lot like the second ASCII "drawing" made by USAFA82 ("=|\"). Using the CZ slide stop pin in the Witness, *NOT FIRING IT* (details in a sec) but just working the slide, I noted that every magazine worked perfectly every time. (I couldn't fire the gun with the CZ pin because it is for a 9mm, and would probably break the first time I tried it in the .45 with my luck.)

I though back to what I had changed on the gun. Then I remembered that before putting the gun in the safe for a while about 9-10 months before, I had changed the mag release to actuate from the right side of the gun. Being a reversible mag catch was a great feature in my opinion, and I thought I could actually work the mag release better with it on that side.

Bad mistake. The inverted mag release was pushing the magazine, and thus the follower, *away* from the slide stop pin! I reverted the mag release back to the left side, and lo and behold all my mags started working again with the factory Tanfoglio pin! Who would have thought that there was that much play in the mag well?

Anyway, lesson learned. And now due to the slide stop pin nub having chewed up the side of a couple of the Meggar followers, it looks like it will be a mistake that costs money. Luckily not a lot of money this time.

Hope this helps someone else.