New Trojan Problem

[Rising Sight]

1500+ rounds now since Virgil's work was done and zero problems. I think it's safe to say that he solved my problem.

[Wim]

I know that this thread is old already, but I posted a question in the limited /standard gun tech section which I think is relevant and on a search I found this thread. I apologise in advance if the description is inellegant (and LOOONG) but I'm trying to do a few things at the same time here, sorry.

The bullet noses of my unfired cartridges look exactly like the photograph posted by Merlin.

Initially I also thought that I had "nosedives" and people were recommending recutting my ramp, commenting on the barrel to frame fit etc. (it's a ramped barrel on a Para).

I don't think that is the problem. I worked it out after I kept a few of the dinged rounds - which I used not to do (silly me!).

Take the dinged round and put it in a mag in the gun. Remove the barrel from the slide and postion it correctly on the frame and start stripping the top cartridge by hand and you will probably notice that it meets the feedramp higher than the marks on the bullet would imply if it were being stripped by the breech face (like would happen under cycling).

What I noticed is that the height at which the bullet meets the ramp indicates to me that the cartridge is being dragged int othe feedramp when the one above it chambers - i.e. the bottom of the slide (the firing pin housing area) is pulling the cartridge below (due to friction I suppose) and slamming the nose into the feedramp. On the next cycle you appear to get a "nosedive" jam because the nose of the cartridge is already jammed into the outside corners of the feedramp (and with lead bullets - properly jammed in there sometimes).

I tested it by inserting a loaded mag and retracting the slide just short of enough to strip a round and letting it go forward - most of the time it would pull the top cartridge forward at least a bit and sometimes into the feedramp (by friction of the underside of the breech area I suppose).

Another test is to see if you ever get the "nosedive" on feeding the first round from the mag - cycling by hand - or by loading the gun (chambering a round) and then inserting a fresh loaded mag and firing the gun. Now remove the round that is fed from the mag when you fired the first shot and inspect it. Chances are no jams under those circumstances and no marks on the bullet. Now if you had fired that one the next round fed would again have the problem. i.e. you should never have this problem the first shot you fire after a mag change.

I think I've just identified the problem, not the solution. Flexmoney replying to my post suggested just breaking the bottom edge on the breechface. (Posted yesterday under limited technical).

This is why maybe having the mag sit lower could solve the problem as there may be less friction from the underside of the breech are / firing pin housing on cycling. But too low then you get inconsistent stripping from the mag again.

Any other ideas are welcome.

Wim

[XRe]

Another test is to see if you ever get the "nosedive" on feeding the first round from the mag - cycling by hand - or by loading the gun (chambering a round) and then inserting a fresh loaded mag and firing the gun. Now remove the round that is fed from the mag when you fired the first shot and inspect it. Chances are no jams under those circumstances and no marks on the bullet. Now if you had fired that one the next round fed would again have the problem. i.e. you should never have this problem the first shot you fire after a mag change.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We have different problems. Mine happens when feeding the top round off of a mag loaded w/ 9 or 10 round mag (witnessed by the timer this past weekend - first shot 1.2, second 16-ish, third a long time after *that* - it wouldn't load the top round off the now 9-round mag, either). If I load the gun off a different mag, and insert a fully loaded 10 round mag - it'll jam on the first round in the mag, not the second.

It'll happen with hand feeding or "powered" feeding. Sometimes it doesn't happen at all under power, but will happen under hand feeding. And it *is* the top round in the mag, not the second round - I've saved mine and tracked carefully, too. In fact, I won't fire those rounds, because they've been pounded short!!

[Wim]

Okay. Mine is different.

Sorry - but even if it was the same problem I still didn't have a solution!

Wim

[MikeFoley]

Update. A friend who wants to build a .40 SS gave me some of his reloads to try in my McCormick 10mm mag to see if it would run with 9 rounds in it without nosedive. His OAL is 1.225! It worked. I inserted 9 rounds into the mag, then into the gun with the slide closed, and racked the slide to smoothly and efficiently load the first round with no dip whatsoever. All 9 cycled. Might be worth a try for some of you who are still having problems.

[XRe]

If I can find someone in the Austin area to dupe into letting me load some on their press, I'm going to see if longer OAL will help me out temporarily. If not, off to Tripp.... At least I have an action plan....

[Wim]

At this point those of you with action plans are waaaay ahead of me Best of luck with it, hope that sorts it out for you!

[XRe]

Wim, you always have the option of sending the pistol off to a smith with an explanation of what's going on. Virgil Tripp seems to have a great track record at getting these things running - and he's a really nice guy, to boot. He also seems to be very reasonably priced....

[XRe]

I sent my Trojan to Tripp yesterday to get the feed ramp fix done to it. I took some pics of my current feed ramp and frame relationship before sending it, and I'll take "after" pics when it comes back. I'll post for perusal Fingers crossed that I'll now have a Limited-10 gun instead of Limited-8

[Bear23]

Mine went last week to Tripp. I sent him 6 of his 10 round STI specific mags. I had the same issues as you did. First round or two would commit suicide and slam into the feed ramp. Mec-gars and metalforms were the only mags that would run. Kinda hard to run L-10 with L-8..

Gun is being hardchromed and the feedramp issue worked on.

I'll keep you updated when it returns.

[XRe]

...slam into the feed ramp...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The "feed wall" is what Shred has termed it, after seeing mine Mine got a little better after a trip to STI - when I first got it, it wouldn't feed with more than 5 or so rounds in the mag. After STI, it would run w/ 8. Any more than that, though... death jam. The positive side, though, is that everyone who's had one of these go through Tripp has received a working pistol back, so we have good chances

[rmills]

Why doesn't STI acknowledge the .40S&W feed issue on the Trojans and correct it, as it is a quality control / design issue?

[XRe]

It's apparently corrected on the newer pistols. They seem to be willing to *try* to fix it - mine was worked on under warranty and all, and I'm not the original owner, and the pistol is 3 years old. But... I'm not sure why they can't/won't correct these older pistols properly - I suspect that they don't have Virgil's TIG welding skills, and would have to resort to re-barreling, which they may be trying to avoid (but that's only my thoughts - no one there has said that, and I haven't pushed hard on them for a correction, though I'll probably mention it to Dave Skinner next time I see him). Their stance is that the pistol worked with the factory mag when it left their hands (which it did - I can't complain about that). Anything past that is outside the warranty....

[MikeFoley]

My Trojan is still running, and I am still shooting it in steel challenge, but it is just slightly inside the margin since one of my mags still nosedives at the LAMR. I will be ordering more Metalform mags and dropping the only MecGar that nosedives. I shot 300 rounds through it last time out without a hitch, but I wouldn't trust my life to it. The real test will be a USPSA match (once the provisional divisions starts).

[GASMAN]

I have a 45 Trojan 5 inch barrel.It was a real problem getting the gun to work,very frustrating.Typically the first round in a 10 round mag would nosedive,but there were also many other rounds that jammed in any sequence in the mag.I eventually solved the problem by replacing the mag release with a standard release(I didnt like the raised mag release of STI anyway)and used Tripp cobra mags exclusively(I had no luck with CMC,metalform or wilson mags)and they work great.Strangely enough,the gun works best with SWC's loaded short to 1.234".I also replaced the recoil spring with an 18ib ISMI,which seems to help feeding.

As an aside I also polished the feedramp,breechface and this seemed to help the feeding as well.The extractor was also completely out of spec,being far too long and jamming into the shell groove .I replaced this with a wilson extractor.

Ive had about 1500 trouble free rounds through the gun now with no jams and I otherwise like the Trojan,but I nearly sold the gun in the beginning after almost giving up getting it to work.After seeing the numerous other posts of people having similar problems with their Trojans,its a pity that this happens so often in a pistol of that price that you would expect to work properly out of the box.(OTOH,at about the same time that I bought the Trojan,I bought a NIB Norinco 45,which while not as smooth as the STI,certainly has given me much less problems,at a 1/4 of the price of the STI!)

[XRe]

GASMAN, the fact that these $1200 (when you get done paying the taxes) pistols (when new) don't want to run - and the factory can't seem to get them to run - does make me scratch my head a little. I let someone else take the depreciation hit and bought mine used for a steal (I suspect the original owner couldn't get it to run, either), and even with the work at Tripp, and the six Tripp mags I bought for it, I'm still over $100 cheaper than a new pistol - and that doesn't count that it came w/a Wilson mag catch, and S&A magwell. If Virgil proves to have strong Kung-Fu (and I have no doubt that he does), I'll have a heck of a piece for that price....

Again, my understanding is that the new ones have these problems fixed - I don't have a new one to try out. It's a shame - other than this (admittedly major) feeding problem, it's extremely well built.

[XRe]

Got my pistol back from Tripp today. As promised, here are some pics. Keep in mind, the "before" pictures below are *after* STI reworked my feedramp once.... So, it doesn't have the even stranger angle that it originally had...

The "before" Tripp pictures:

And the "after" Tripp pictures:

Hope that makes things a little clearer BTW - my work was $127 w/ shipping - I had to pay sales tax, since I'm in Texas...

[shred]

Those before pictures except #2 hardly show how freekin steep that ramp was. Looks a lot better now.

[benny hill]

You will notice how the bottom of the ramp sit's foward in the frame instead of flush with it when it comes from sti. these are PRODUCTION guns. The ramp should fit flush with the frame & the only way to get this is to have someone fit it that cares, not an hourly employee. If it's not flush, it won't feed.

[bountyhunter]

Why doesn't STI acknowledge the .40S&W feed issue on the Trojans and correct it, as it is a quality control / design issue?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

IMHO, it is not a problem unique to STI. I have three .40's and they all had a feed ramp that was too steep. The Para was by far the worst.

The "unsupported case" issue with .40 cases blowing out back by the rim forces the barrel maker's hand. If you want to keep the case fully covered, the ramp comes up pretty steep. None of mine would feed correctly until I re-worked the ramps to reduce the steepness and slightly lower the "entry area" which has an angle at the bottom.

This results in "uncovering" maybe an added .060" of brass case at the rear where the shallower ramp enters the thraot.

GOOD TRADE.

Guns feed smoothly, function perfectly, and (as long as you shoot good ammo) will have no problems.

I suspect the rework I put on my ramps is basically what Mr Tripp does. Bottom line, you have to reduce the steepness and make sure the area that the nose of the round drives into has some upward angle.... or you will get the previously mentioned "hard jams". In some of mine, it would drive the bullets back into the case past the crimp anywhere from .020 to .050". Not good, but that was reload ammo.

[XRe]

I suspect the rework I put on my ramps is basically what Mr Tripp does.

Sounds very similar, anyhow. The way that STI has cut the ramp, he has to add a little bit of material back onto the bottom of the ramp to make it long enough. He also cuts a smaller radius into the almost flat original ramp.

  Bottom line, you have to reduce the steepness and make sure the area that the nose of the round drives into has some upward angle....  or you will get the previously mentioned "hard jams".  In some of mine, it would drive the bullets back into the case past the crimp anywhere from .020 to .050".  Not good, but that was reload ammo.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have several rounds sitting here waiting to be pulled that suffered that same issue Don't trust 'em to "go off w/o a hitch" right now.... heh heh... Oh, and that was factory ammo....

[XRe]

Time to resurrect my (apparently) favorite thread. I had the Trojan in with Alan Tillman at ART Enterprises over the past two weeks to have the underside of the trigger guard checkered. While Alan had the gun, he also noticed that the thumb safety was misfit. It would allow the sear to creep about halfway off the hammer hooks under trigger pressure. A simple weld and recut will fix it.

Benny would comment that this is yet another reason not to buy a factory pistol

I'm just mentioning it as a reminder that we don't have custom built guns w/ these Trojans (as if the feed ramps weren't enough to tell us that). They're a lot cheaper than a custom built gun, and they're generally well put together and accurate. But, don't expect that there won't be some tuning. Maybe the newer ones are better....

I'm a little concerned that they'd let the pistol leave the factory like that on at least two different occasions, though..... Do they have a competent gunsmith up there??? Hmm....

[walangkatapat]

So are the Trojans feeding problems been fixed before they are shipped out?

[cking]

Does anybody else feel like they are getting ripped off. Expensive guns that are needing work like the old Colt 45's use to.

I thought the purpose of all this CNC machining was to keep the tolerance tight enough to control problems and limit the hand work needed.

Those before pictures look like barrel fit job off a $300.00 gun.

jus my HO

[XRe]

cking, I'd agree with you. It was kind of silly. However, I think I need to re-stress that mine turns out to be an early model. They've basically "un-reinvented" the wheel - apparently, current models use the original mag catch dimension, they fixed how they were cutting the trigger tunnel, etc.

walangkatapat, I have no idea how the new ones run, at least first hand. I haven't had a chance to play with a new one, yet. I'd be interested to see, myself.

Oh, and I can answer my own last question up there. David Cupp (see Brian's *old* photos.... ) is now working in quality control up there, and apparently kicking some butts around. I've handled a gun he built from the ground up - very nice, very professional job. I'd expect the quality to improve, perhaps more than it already has since my gun was built...