PHX Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Hey everyone. I have a gold team in 38 super. This is a new upper i have fit to my 9mm Limited frame. extraction is amazing (throws brass farther than any other gun i own) so im almost sure the extractor is not to blame. I think it may be the magazine. When i shoot the gun with any amount of ammo in my 21 round mec gar mags with factory spring/follower with henning H-141 pad ill get a jam after a hand full of rounds. It almost looks like to live rounds are trying to feed at once. I have attached two pictures below. I had a hard time getting it to focus but this is the best pics i could get at the range. I ordered a grams spring/follower kit from henning to see if that helps. any info would be great! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 In your pictures are both rounds live rounds (double feed), or is the top round a spent case that has not been ejected properly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Another thing to consider is that the stock spring and follower are not long enough to work properly when you put a H-141 extended base pad on the magazine. You need to use the Grams 11 coil spring and follower with that kind of setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nealio Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Another thing to consider is that the stock spring and follower are not long enough to work properly when you put a H-141 extended base pad on the magazine. You need to use the Grams 11 coil spring and follower with that kind of setup. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skydiver Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 I don't want to disagree with Cha-lee and Nealio since they have a lot of experience with these guns, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that the stock spring and follower are not long enough. If the spring is not long enough, then presumably less pressure is being exerted. How would less pressure then be trying to feed two bullets per slide stroke? Additionally, the OP said that the jam happens after "a hand full (sic) of rounds" in his 21 round magazine. (I'm assuming that a handful is 5 rounds and not 27 rounds that usually fits in my hand when I grab a handful from the finished bullet bin of my reloader.) So if only 5 rounds have been fired, it won't matter that much the the spring and follower are not long enough in conjunction with the H141 base pad. After firing 5, there should be still 16 in the magazine. At that point in time, the spring pressure should be sufficient to keep a mag with a standard base pad running when it still has 12 bullets. I can partly understand the weak spring idea at the tail end of the magazine when only 3-5 bullets are left. I can visualize the stock spring and follower then being too short. But I'm still at a loss to explain to myself how not enough spring pressure will cause two bullets to feed instead of just one. Please help me understand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Skydiver> You are correct that a stock spring and follower should have enough spring tension to properly register rounds when only 5 - 6 rounds have been shot out of a fully loaded mag. My point in stating that the 11 coil grams spring and follower are needed is to address a general issue of having the wrong spring/follower combo in the mag to properly register the last few rounds. I am still waiting for the original poster to reply with an answer to my initial question. Knowing if the top round in the picture is a complete round or a spent case dramatically changes the troubleshooting process. So without that key piece of information it makes no sense in charging off one direction or another in the troubleshooting process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHA-LEE Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Another thing to keep in mind when tuning mags is to understand that even though a weak mag spring may not register the rounds quickly enough to cause a double feed. They can fail another way because they are not registering the top round up against the feed lips with enough force. If there is only a weak amount of upward pressure being placed on the top round in the magazine then it can very easily be displaced by slide movement or the simple shock of the recoil when shooting. Its important to understand that there is not a consistent upward spring tension holding the top round up against the feed lips as you strip rounds out of the magazine. From what I have experienced, the top round is registered with a lot of force on the first 5 - 6 rounds and on the last 5 - 6 rounds. So after the first 5 - 6 rounds there is less registration pressure on the top round until you get down to the last 5 - 6 rounds. If you have a really weak magazine spring, or in this case one that is not long enough, it will magnify this "Weak top round registration" issue. Someone smarter than me will have to crunch some numbers to explain exactly why this weak top round registration situation happens. All I can do is explain what I have observed in all the magazine fiddling that I have done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skydiver Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Another thing to keep in mind when tuning mags is to understand that even though a weak mag spring may not register the rounds quickly enough to cause a double feed. They can fail another way because they are not registering the top round up against the feed lips with enough force. If there is only a weak amount of upward pressure being placed on the top round in the magazine then it can very easily be displaced by slide movement or the simple shock of the recoil when shooting. Its important to understand that there is not a consistent upward spring tension holding the top round up against the feed lips as you strip rounds out of the magazine. From what I have experienced, the top round is registered with a lot of force on the first 5 - 6 rounds and on the last 5 - 6 rounds. So after the first 5 - 6 rounds there is less registration pressure on the top round until you get down to the last 5 - 6 rounds. If you have a really weak magazine spring, or in this case one that is not long enough, it will magnify this "Weak top round registration" issue. Someone smarter than me will have to crunch some numbers to explain exactly why this weak top round registration situation happens. All I can do is explain what I have observed in all the magazine fiddling that I have done. I experienced that as well the few times I filled old style Tanfoglio 10mm mags with H141 pads, and 11 coil Grams spring and follower to capacity. I thought it a little odd, but just attributed the condition to my not using a push thru resizing die, as well as leaving the Dillon case lube on my bullets. Just use the regular U-die, and I don't do a quick run through the vibrator to clean off the case lube. I didn't really think too hard about it since I play L10 most of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mo Hepworth Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 what am I seeing exactly in this picture...the primer looks un-spent...and I can see a lot of the 2nd round that is still in the mag....is this a .40 mag? Are you using the proper mags? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david s Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 I bought from Henning, 38 Super kits for the K38 mags i already owned. H141 pads, Grams follower and 11 coil spring came as one kit. As he explained it, the H141 & H1410 take the 11 coil and all others take the ten coil. This combination runs 9MM,38S,38S/C & 9x23 thru my Match with zero issues. Are you shooting S/C or 38S ammo? You could be giving up at least 2rds and some reliability by sticking with the factory spring and follower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littletoe Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 you should also check your mag lips....especially the front part... ive seen this happen when they are opened up too far. what sometimes happens is that the friction between the top and second rounds is enough to actually slide both rounds forward and if the mags are not tuned right it will push the top round out prematurely. thus creating a double feed.....worth checking out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHX Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 (edited) Hey guys. Sorry i havent replied soon....been really busy. The 2 rounds in the picture are unfired. The bottom round is still in the lips of the mag, but is moved forward with the slide. I am using new K38 Mecgar mags. They have <100 rounds through them. I have a 11 coil grams spring and follower coming in the mail as we speak from henning. Ill let you know how that turns out. By a handful of rounds I do mean about 5. Ill start a stage and get about 5 shots down range and then a jam occurs. I have to then drop my mag because part of the round is out of the feed lips and the 2 bullets are wedged together in a way that even pulling the slide back wont eject the top round. Ill shoot 5 or so more and the same thing happens. I have however had a stage or 2 where there were no jams, but I have jamed multiple times on probably 15 other stages. Thanks for all the replies, and ill be faster with my responses. If this helps I am running star line supercomp brass with a 124gr FMJ round nose @ 1.270" Edited November 24, 2011 by PHX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spideysteve Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 you should also check your mag lips....especially the front part... ive seen this happen when they are opened up too far. what sometimes happens is that the friction between the top and second rounds is enough to actually slide both rounds forward and if the mags are not tuned right it will push the top round out prematurely. thus creating a double feed.....worth checking out. +1 here I had that exact problem for months and couldn't figure it out. Checked the feed lips on all my mags and most were too wide. Squeeze them in so that the top round is parallel (or very close to it) with the feed lips and you should get better results. After making this fix, I went from 1 or 2 jams a stage to 1 jam my entire last match. And that was an ejection problem rather than a feed problem. HTH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHX Posted November 30, 2011 Author Share Posted November 30, 2011 I was just doin some reading and came across people saying they were using a length of 1.240 and if they went longer they had jams. You think me loading to 1.270 could be an issue combined with my mag springs and follower? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spideysteve Posted November 30, 2011 Share Posted November 30, 2011 I load them 1.210" but playing around with loads I've gone up to 1.250" ... Never tried any longer than that ... At 1.250" they don't seem to cycle as well for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHX Posted December 1, 2011 Author Share Posted December 1, 2011 thanks spidey. what is your mag setup? what is your best load? case/bullet/powder/primer thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spideysteve Posted December 1, 2011 Share Posted December 1, 2011 In Canada we have 10 round mag restrictions ... Crappy, but thats the law, so we deal with it ... 5 round mags for rifle max, 10 for handguns I use 200gr Frontier bullets, 4.5gr VV N320, CCI primers ... Cases I typically use mixed brass, I haven't tried sorting it to see the difference ... That load gives me ~174 PF and shoots really soft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupture Posted December 4, 2011 Share Posted December 4, 2011 1.235 to 1.240 is optimal for 38 sc. Check the extractor tension, take the slide off and slide a round under it make sure it holds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PHX Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 thanks for the info rupture. Ill give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whoops! Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 (edited) Reliability is so much better for me with the factory spring and follower that I do not use grams anymore. Also, they only make a one round difference in my 170mm mags. 1.27 is way too long. In my 170 mm mags, ammunition can't even be loaded in at anything over 1.26. My stock magazine body does allow longer; however, HAP bullets would bottom out on the rifling at 1.255. I would have occasional failures to feed at 1.245 OAL. My recommendation is 1.235 or less with Hap, I don't know about round nose, rule of thumb is add .01. Since the top round is not spent and the bottom round is still pushing into it, I don't think I'd bother checking extractor tension. If you fix the length issue and you start getting jams where the top round is spent, then add extractor tension. Edited December 6, 2011 by Whoops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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