xd tac 9 or ammo problem

[kellymc]

My 10 year old dauther is shooting a XD 9 with cast 121 gr flatnose bullet about 1.080 long. When she unloads and shows clear many times the bullet will be stuck in the chamber like a 40sw with a glock bulge. It also happens while hand cycling the bullets thur the gun. Sometimes the bad bullet will do it more then once, sometimes it won't. Today while cycling some of the MG 124gr bullets loaded to 1.125 by hand they would hang up with the slide about half way back. A few light jerks would work it the rest of the way out. I tightened the crimp and it helped some. Any help would be appreciated. Hoping to get this cleared up before she shoots Double Tap.

Edited March 22, 2011 by kellymc

[Classic_jon]

The first thing I would suggest is to case gauge the rounds that get stuck and see if they are in spec. You may want to break out your calipers and check things that way if you do not have a case gauge. Have you also checked the ammo to see if the bullet will push into the case and "setback"? I am suggesting this because you said that tightening the crimp helped.

The other thing I would check is the extractor to see if it is bent, gunked up, or damaged.

That is what I would check first before anything else more drastic. Good luck!

[sdm74]

And if you don't have a case gauge take the barrel out and use that to check the bullets.

[busyhawk]

OK, all good advice above.

Does the same pistol run fine with factory ammo?

My factory Winchester 9mm with 125 grain bullets is measured at 1.160 oal so your ammo length should not be a problem. My guess is the diameter with a finished hand-loaded cartridge. Now this is not to dismiss the chamber being out of spec (to tight) from the factory! Scott Springer of WWW.springerprecision.com might be able to shed some light on this. I know, hard to believe that a factory pistol chamber is tight:-)

If you don't have a case gauge, pull your barrel out and try to case gauge with factory ammo! If the factory ammo passes without problems then try some (at least 50 rounds) of your hand loads and see if your ammo passes the same as the factory.

Since you are shooting some cast bullets insure that the chamber is very clean...lead has a way of gumming things up in a slow way and can frustrate you to the end of time! That will make all ammo malfunction/stick too! Tightening the crimp on ammo might get it to pass ammo around the lead...

Hope this helps,

Sincerely,

RLTW,

Scott