jerryg22 Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Took my 9mm Match to the range today to try out some of the mods I made to improve the trigger. I had installed a 13# hammer spring and a Henning Xtra long firing pin. The firing pin installation required the firing pin block to be removed. Since this is a range gun only I was not concerned with carrying it cocked and locked. Previously I had fired approx 300 rounds of various ammo without on FTFeed, FTFire, or FTE. Today it was jam-o-matic city! Stove pipes, and fail to feeds. Here are some of my thoughts what may have cause this to happen: 1. Removal of the firing pin bloc? 2. Extra length and lighter weight of the firing pin? 3. Lighter weight of the hammer spring requiring a heavier recoil spring? Any ideas or suggestions will be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nealio Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Were you using the exact same ammo? Were your mags dirty? Did you clean the slide rails and re-lube them after the previous 300 rounds? None of the changes you made should effect feeding or ejection. I have done those to all of my SA guns and never saw a change in anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 17, 2011 Author Share Posted March 17, 2011 Were you using the exact same ammo? Were your mags dirty? Did you clean the slide rails and re-lube them after the previous 300 rounds? None of the changes you made should effect feeding or ejection. I have done those to all of my SA guns and never saw a change in anything. All was cleaned and properly lubed after the last session. Same ammo used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I find it hard to believe that the parts you swapped on the gun have anything to do with the jams you experienced. 9mm EAA/Tanfo guns are well known to be very jam prone due to the very short rounds used on the large frame gun design. Lets break down the failures one at a time.... Fail to Fire - This is probably due to the trigger over travel set screw being set incorrectly. If the over travel screw is set too deep you may create a situation where the Sear lip is catching on the half cock notch on the hammer as it drops the hammer. This takes a lot of the striking force out of the falling hammer and causes failure to fire errors. The easiest way to see if the over travel set screw is adjusted correctly is to manually cock the hammer and then hold it back with your thumb. Then pull the trigger back and hold it back. While the trigger is held back slowly lower the hammer and see if the sear lip catches on the hammer hooks or half cock notch. If they catch you need more over travel to properly clear these two ledges on the hammer. Fail to Feed - Most of the failure to feed issues are due to nose dive issues with the ammo. When it fails to feed what is the exact failure condition? Is the tip of the round jamed into the base of the feed ramp of the barrel or even below that? Or does it fail in a different manner. You need to describe the exact jam condition in order to troubleshoot it. Being able to take a detailed picture of the jammed condition will tell us a lot about what is going on. Fail to Eject - Once again we need to know the exact failure condition. When it fails to eject the spent brass is the brass still in the chamber? Is it partially removed but stuck sideways in between the chamber and the slide? Most failure to eject failures are due to a worn out extractor spring, the extractor depth isn't tuned correctly or the extractor is damaged its self. Start by replacing the extractor spring and then verifying that its depth is correctly set. Take the slide off the gun and remove the barrel. Then take a piece of brass and push it up against the breach face and under the extractor hook. Basically placing the brass in the same location as where it would be when a round is chambered. Is the brass held in place by the spring pressure on the extractor? If not then the extractor depth isn't set deep enough. Once again being able to take a detailed picture of the jammed condition will tell us a lot about what is going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Could the firing pin be sticking in the hole ? That would cause both FTF and FTE. Do the primers look ok, any smear marks from the firing pin or even punctured primers ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) duplicate Edited March 17, 2011 by BritinUSA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nealio Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) 9mm EAA/Tanfo guns are well known to be very jam prone due to the very short rounds used on the large frame gun design. I would consider the poor magazine design the cause of almost all the jamming/feeding issues on the 9mm Tanfoglio's. My new 9mm MecGar mags were filthy dirty and had sand in them, yet they still fed 100% this weekend on my 1.070" 9mm rounds. The old "new" mags fed good, but needed to be kept sparkling clean to feed good. The "old" old mags wouldn't feed handloads if you covered them in CLP and held them upside down.. IMHO the only reason you .40 guys need to load long is because of the poor mag design. I'd bet $100 that the new MecGars won't "require" you to load that long and will still feed better with the shorter rounds. That's just my $.02 The rest of what CHA-LEE says is great info Edited March 17, 2011 by Nealio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zartiblartfast Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I had the same problem. Low PF ammo, and a hammer spring that was too weak. Used federal primers, and more powder, end of problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtb Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Chalee wrote... "....Is the tip of the round jamed into the base of the feed ramp of the barrel or even below that?" What is happening in this scenario? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 I find it hard to believe that the parts you swapped on the gun have anything to do with the jams you experienced. 9mm EAA/Tanfo guns are well known to be very jam prone due to the very short rounds used on the large frame gun design. Lets break down the failures one at a time.... Fail to Fire - This is probably due to the trigger over travel set screw being set incorrectly. If the over travel screw is set too deep you may create a situation where the Sear lip is catching on the half cock notch on the hammer as it drops the hammer. This takes a lot of the striking force out of the falling hammer and causes failure to fire errors. The easiest way to see if the over travel set screw is adjusted correctly is to manually cock the hammer and then hold it back with your thumb. Then pull the trigger back and hold it back. While the trigger is held back slowly lower the hammer and see if the sear lip catches on the hammer hooks or half cock notch. If they catch you need more over travel to properly clear these two ledges on the hammer. Did not experience a Fail to Fire unless you call an empty chamber a Fail to Fire. :-) Fail to Feed - Most of the failure to feed issues are due to nose dive issues with the ammo. When it fails to feed what is the exact failure condition? Is the tip of the round jamed into the base of the feed ramp of the barrel or even below that? Or does it fail in a different manner. You need to describe the exact jam condition in order to troubleshoot it. Being able to take a detailed picture of the jammed condition will tell us a lot about what is going on. Two things happened. Either the slide did not chamber a round, or in most cases the round was nose up and the slide would not close.[/ Fail to Eject - Once again we need to know the exact failure condition. When it fails to eject the spent brass is the brass still in the chamber? Is it partially removed but stuck sideways in between the chamber and the slide? Most failure to eject failures are due to a worn out extractor spring, the extractor depth isn't tuned correctly or the extractor is damaged its self. Start by replacing the extractor spring and then verifying that its depth is correctly set. Take the slide off the gun and remove the barrel. Then take a piece of brass and push it up against the]. breach face and under the extractor hook. Basically placing the brass in the same location as where it would be when a round is chambered. Is the brass held in place by the spring pressure on the extractor? If not then the extractor depth isn't set deep enough. Once again being able to take a detailed picture of the jammed condition will tell us a lot about what is going on. If the round was chambered and it fired the failure was a horizontal stove pipe most of the time with a few trouble free ejections. Please read my reply wherein a reinstalled the original firing pin and safety block. At least the pistol feeds and ejects manually at this time. I had a heck of a time reinstalling the extractor. The extractor spring seemed like it was a 50# which took quite a bit of squeezing to get it to compress just a little bit. Is that normal for the spring? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mo Hepworth Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Did you install a stronger extractor spring? When you say it would not chamber, do you mean the slide would not fully close? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mo Hepworth Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 When you reinstalled the sear cage,...was it seated properly? The pin pin should not be protruding up,.is it hard to rack? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) When you reinstalled the sear cage,...was it seated properly? The pin pin should not be protruding up,.is it hard to rack? It is not hard to rack. The sear cage appears to be seated properly otherwise I would not be able to pull the trigger and get a hammer drop, no? Edited March 18, 2011 by jerryg22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 Did you install a stronger extractor spring? When you say it would not chamber, do you mean the slide would not fully close? I did not change extractor or spring. This is a new pistol. And yes on some rounds the slide wouldn't close all the way into battery as the rounds were going in nose up. Now I am able to manually feed properly and will let you all know how it worked on the range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skydiver Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 CHA-LEE, having more experience would probably have some better advice. For me three things stand out: 1) Have you checked the feed lips of your magazine? With a loaded mag, the bullets should all be parallel. If the topmost bullet is pointing up, while the other bullets are flat, then your feed lips may have spread out and need to be adjusted back. See this thread for pictures: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=115828&view=findpost&p=1323164 2) Are you sure the ejector has not been broken or bent? 3) Have you verified that your extractor was reinstalled properly? The pin around which the extractor pivots should be at least flush, or even better inset to make sure it not scraping on the rounds that are about ready to be fed. Additionally, does the extractor actually pivot? I would go over CHA-LEE's questions above about Failure to Eject to double check the correct fitting of the extractor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 CHA-LEE, having more experience would probably have some better advice. For me three things stand out: 1) Have you checked the feed lips of your magazine? With a loaded mag, the bullets should all be parallel. If the topmost bullet is pointing up, while the other bullets are flat, then your feed lips may have spread out and need to be adjusted back. See this thread for pictures: http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=115828&view=findpost&p=1323164 2) Are you sure the ejector has not been broken or bent? 3) Have you verified that your extractor was reinstalled properly? The pin around which the extractor pivots should be at least flush, or even better inset to make sure it not scraping on the rounds that are about ready to be fed. Additionally, does the extractor actually pivot? I would go over CHA-LEE's questions above about Failure to Eject to double check the correct fitting of the extractor. 1) Mags are good. 2) Ejector perfect. 3) The issue occured prior to the extractor ever being removed. The extractor is not bent or damaged, and it does pivot but due to the stiff spring it takes effort to pivot it. I'm going to call EAA for a replacement spring. Since it is now feeding well manually I'm hoping that when I go to the range all will be good again now that I reinstalled the original firing pin and sfety block. Keeping my fingers crossed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nealio Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I'm sure its something simple that you overlooked during your install of the longer firing pin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) On the failure to Feed issues, when the round is going nose up this is usually due to the magazine feed lips being too wide. This can also happen if there is an obstruction on the breach face keeping the rim of the round from slipping under the extractor hook and seating on the breach face. The only obstructions in this area are the extractor hook and possibly the firing pin getting jammed in the forward position because the firing pin return spring isn't strong enough. An easy way to test if the firing pin is getting stuck forward is to dry fire the gun then look at the breach face to see if the tip of the firing pin is sticking out. The failure to eject issues are usually due to poor performance of the extractor hook or the extractor spring. The extractor spring needs to get really weak before is starts to cause problems. You can easily test the spring by manually pulling back the extractor hook when the gun is slide locked. It should take a good amount of effort to move the extractor to compress the spring. If you can move it easily then the spring is worn out and needs to be replaced. Other than that you need to make sure that the depth of the extractor travel is tuned properly. As I mentioned in my previous post the best way to test this is to put a spent piece of brass up in the breach face and see if the brass is being held in place by the spring load of the extractor hook. If it isn't being retained by the extractors spring tension then you need to adjust the extractor hard stop so that it travels deeper into the breach face center line. The only other thing I can thing of but is a way out in left field issue is the hammer spring. I have seen some frames that have their hammer spring retaining hole drilled too shallow and it can cause the spring to coil bind before the hammer reaches full travel. This will cause an excessive amount of friction between the hammer and slide as the gun cycles and cause all kinds of funky timing issues with feeding and ejecting. The easiest way to verify that the hammer spring isn't bottoming out and coil binding is to slide lock the gun. In this condition the hammer should be held back by the slide. While the hammer is in this held back state see if you can pull the hammer back even further so that there is a gap between the tip of the hammer and the slide. You should be able to see a significant gap between the hammer and the slide when doing this. If you can't pull the hammer back any more then the hammer spring is in a coil bind condition and the only way to eliminate this is to cut a coil or two off of the hammer spring. Check these things out and let us know what you find out. Edited March 18, 2011 by CHA-LEE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Also take a camera to the range with you so you can take detailed pictures of the jam conditions. Seeing how it jams makes it a lot easier to troubleshoot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 Also take a camera to the range with you so you can take detailed pictures of the jam conditions. Seeing how it jams makes it a lot easier to troubleshoot. Thanks for taking the time CHA-LEE to offer some sound suggestions. I have a feeling that you may be correct as to the firing pin not retracting. Since I reinstalled the OEM one this should not be a problem when I visit the range on Sunday. Hammer spring bind is not an issue. Extractor seems to be clean now and functional as to holding in a case properly. The spring tension is Superman strength (I had some dificulty getting the extractor back in due to the stiffness of the spring). I will take a camera with me when I'm at the range Sunday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 21, 2011 Author Share Posted March 21, 2011 Also take a camera to the range with you so you can take detailed pictures of the jam conditions. Seeing how it jams makes it a lot easier to troubleshoot. Thanks for taking the time CHA-LEE to offer some sound suggestions. I have a feeling that you may be correct as to the firing pin not retracting. Since I reinstalled the OEM one this should not be a problem when I visit the range on Sunday. Hammer spring bind is not an issue. Extractor seems to be clean now and functional as to holding in a case properly. The spring tension is Superman strength (I had some dificulty getting the extractor back in due to the stiffness of the spring). I will take a camera with me when I'm at the range Sunday. I forgot to take the camera. Only spent 15 minutes as the @#$%# Dawson Precision Fiber Optic site I installed launched itself somewhere out on the range. (Grrrr) With the original FP and FP block back in the slide I did get better results. WWB fired and fed 15 rounds perfectly. Federal and CCI Blazer jammed 80% of the time wherein the slide would not go completely into battery unless I gave it a push to close the last 1/4". When I came home I "adjusted" all my mag lips and now the rounds sit parallel to the feed lips so hopefully I'll get better results on Thursday when I practice next. I ordered a 14# hammer spring to try instead of the 13# one as a just in case. I also ordered a Wolf spring pack of four different recoil spring weights from 12# - 20# as a just in case. The stock spring seems weak as it is almost too easy to rack the slide now. Stay tuned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 Jerryg22> The failure to feed jam that you described where you have to "Tap" the slide forward is indicative of an issue with the rim of the case sliding up the breach face and under the extractor hook. You could have a bad extractor that is not allowing the rim of the case to slip up under the extractor hook smoothly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nealio Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 Sounds like its not broken in yet.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 22, 2011 Author Share Posted March 22, 2011 Sounds like its not broken in yet.. I would normally agree, except it functioned flawlessly on my first outing of 300 rounds. The jams only started when I switched the hammer spring to 13#, installed the Henning Xtra long FP, and removed the FP Block. Rather than wait for Thursday to see if my mag tweaking and bringing it back to stock internally worked, I bit the bullet and shipped it back to the mother ship today. Since it's less than a month old let's see if they figure it out under warranty. While I was at it I sent in my three mags with red followers as 50% of the time they would not hold open on the last shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryg22 Posted March 28, 2011 Author Share Posted March 28, 2011 (edited) I sent them my pistol on Tuesday with the following jam-o-matic issues: 1. Faulty extractor 2. Recoil springs seems too light 3. Three red follower mags not holding open after last shot Received it back today only 4 business days later!!! Replaced extractor, recoil spring, three mags, and threw in an extra mag - all new Mec-Gar models. That's commendable service! (Subject to range outing Thursday - LOL) Edited March 28, 2011 by jerryg22 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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