Tanfo Stock II Elite - light strike, HELP please!

[JohnStewart]

I have a Tanfo Stock II Elite in 9mm I bought from PD earlier this year, and I have struggled with light strikes using factory ammo continuously.  I’ve read through those related posts on this forum, repeatedly – but haven’t found a solution for my gun.  I’m looking for confirmations on others who are running similar configurations, with *factory ammo* and also soliciting other suggestions (aside from reloading related solutions).  I keep a detailed record of my gun, so I’ve tried to summarize my config and what I’ve done to debug this below.

 

First, the gun was purchased NEW from PD earlier this year.  I had Joe at PD do the following, before I first received the gun:

• Tanfoglio Tune: Polishing & Assembly, Barrel Reaming, PD Hammer springs, PD Firing Pin Spring, Reduced Sear & Reduced Trigger return springs

• Titan Hammer

• Sear

• BOLO Interrupter, BOLO pin

• Firing Pin Safety Block

• PD Optimized firing pin-extended

• PD Optimized Aluminum Guide Rod – Hard Anodized Coating

• EAA Witness Fullsize RP Recoil 9 lb (Wolf 49709)

• Initially started with PD 14 lb hammer spring

 

Basically from day 1, I was unable to get the gun to fire any factory ammo without light strikes.  They were usually in DA pulls, not in SA.  At Joe’s recommendation, I bought a wide range of factory ammo and started testing.  I tried Winchester white box, Freedom Munitions 147, Blazer Brass 115, Stand 1 Chubbies, Stand 1 full power, etc.  I tested them all in DA modes, some failed much more frequently than others, but none of them could get below a 1% failure rate with 150 rounds.  The ammo that performed the best, was Freedom Munitions 147gr.  Winchester white box was one of the worse ones for me – which confused me since I started hearing people explain that Winchester and Federal primers are “softer” and easier to ignite. 

 

Eventually, Joe offered to re-examine the gun, ream the barrel again and look things over.  I was also having a problem with failure-to-extracts, which Joe successfully resolved at this point by installing a higher power extractor spring, and doing some additional reaming of the extractor area.  After Joe’s 2^nd reaming and testing, he suggested we go up to a 15.5lb hammer spring and returned the gun to me.

 

At first the light strikes were infrequent, but they increased as time went by.  They also started happening in SA mode instead of just DA.  Joe explained that the hammer spring would lose 20% of its power at 5K rounds and continue degrading from there.  I attributed the increase FTF with the fact that the hammer spring was at 7K rounds, and I put a new one in.  I also installed a fresh PD optimized firing pin spring at this same time – since the original one was close to 10K rounds at this point.  My light strikes went up immediately following the install of these 2 new springs! 

 

Ever since then, I’ve been trying to resolve these light strikes.  I have tried:

• 4 different firing pins (Henning G5, Xtreme, PD and factory) – with minimal difference

• I have also now trimmed my PD firing pin spring, removing around 7-8 coils (any further trimming and the spring gets stuck)

• I removed the firing pin safety block, and found no difference by doing that

• I also did another test of a wide range of factory ammo, and have started using Winchester “Train” ammo and found it to work better than the other ammo

• the pencil test, and confirmed the firing pin kicks my pencil a couple feet into the air (a friend who works on CZ’s a lot says mine goes 8-10” higher than his)

• I clean my gun pretty frequently, at least every 1,200 to 1,500 rounds – but because I’m frequently trying different springs/pins I usually end up cleaning it every 300-800 rounds

• I don’t use “grease” except a dab on the sear and trigger return springs, everywhere else I use oil.  Currently I run my firing pin & fp spring without any oil/lube

 

So, I’d like to hear from those who have a Tanfo Stock II Elite (large frame) 9mm, *especially* those who use factory ammo:

• What config do you have in your gun, especially hammer spring (brand and strength), firing pin brand & firing pin spring brand

• What factory ammo do you use, and how often (if at all) do you have light strikes?

• What is the pull weight of your DA trigger, with whichever hammer springs you use?

• Do you put any oil on your firing pin or firing pin spring?

 

Again, I don’t have a press and I’m wanting to initially resolve this without going to reloading as a fix.  I may go there later, but for now please assume reloading is not an option.

Finally - a THANK YOU in advance to any insights / help you might be able to lend..  I am running out of ideas!

[Tanfastic]

Have you tried putting the factory hammer spring and disconnector back in?  

[JohnStewart]

6 minutes ago, Tanfastic said:

Have you tried putting the factory hammer spring and disconnector back in?  

No, actually... I haven't tried that yet.

[yigal]

50 minutes ago, Tanfastic said:

Have you tried putting the factory hammer spring and disconnector back in?  

i hope it will work.

if this will not help and fp  don't have signs of peening check head space. that after reaming ammo seats properly .

and about cleaning the gun .always clean and lube it after shooting .

Edited November 6, 2017 by yigal

[SoCalShooter69]

Just to be clear - your pencil gets launched multiple feet in the air, yet you are still getting light strikes? A 15.5# should light factory ammo off with a full tune. You have another issue, my friend...

[JohnStewart]

4 minutes ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

Just to be clear - your pencil gets launched multiple feet in the air, yet you are still getting light strikes? A 15.5# should light factory ammo off with a full tune. You have another issue, my friend...

Yeah, I tend to agree, and my friend that has been helping debug this with me is saying the same.  We just don't know what else could be causing this, or how to debug it further?

 

To quantify, I just measured the climb with a brand new pencil - it goes over 22" straight up on a DA pull... and that's with the factory orig firing pin installed.

[SoCalShooter69]

10 minutes ago, JohnStewart said:

Yeah, I tend to agree, and my friend that has been helping debug this with me is saying the same.  We just don't know what else could be causing this, or how to debug it further?

 

To quantify, I just measured the climb with a brand new pencil - it goes over 22" straight up on a DA pull... and that's with the factory orig firing pin installed.

 

22" os more than sufficient power.

 

How do the lugs look? My guess would be a lock up issue while you have a round in the chamber, or some sort of barrel issue, as in from the factory, not PD.

Edited November 6, 2017 by SoCalShooter69

[PatriotDefense]

@JohnStewart send the gun back and we’ll be happy to look at it for you. We stand behind our work and even if it’s not on our end we’ll help you get through it! 

[SoCalShooter69]

2 hours ago, JohnStewart said:

 Basically from day 1, I was unable to get the gun to fire any factory ammo without light strikes.   

 

I'll say this as a side note - there's no way that gun left headquarters not being able to fire factory 100%

 

Did you swap or change anything when you got it?

[IHAVEGAS]

5 minutes ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

 

I'll say this as a side note - there's no way that gun left headquarters not being able to fire factory 100%

 

Did you swap or change anything when you got it?

 

Bought a fine gun from a talented and well known custom gunsmith (Triangle shooting sports).

 

On the way home from my ffl, I was sorta coon fingering it while driving. Racked the slide and felt parts dropping in my lap. 

 

A bit of crud had wedged between the firing pin and firing pin hole, apparently when I was dry fire testing it earlier, and the parts were the firing pin spring & stop. 

 

TSS sent me a new firing pin & I cleaned the crud away & that was that.

 

Point being that $hit happens, I'm sure the gun was aok when TSS sent it out. 

[MemphisMechanic]

Run the Xtreme Medium hammer spring. It does hit harder than the 15.5 PD, and it lit that last 5% of the brick-hard CCI primers that my gun wouldn’t other wise eat.

 

Stroking the bolo for a longer DA hammer travel also seems to have been helpful. 

 

If you put the factory disconnector back in the gun, it’ll drag the hammer back noticeably further than the BOLO did, and will light primers that an (unmodified) BOLO won’t.

 

If you want a BOLO equipped gun to hit really hard, you have to shave the nose of the bolo down slowly and custom fit it. It’s not Patriot’s fault: there’s a hilarious variance in the shape of the ramp on the frames they had to account for. 

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by MemphisMechanic

[JohnStewart]

2 hours ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

 

22" os more than sufficient power.

 

How do the lugs look? My guess would be a lock up issue while you have a round in the chamber, or some sort of barrel issue, as in from the factory, not PD.

I've been testing various firing pins, ammo and hammer spring combinations - so I have several pics I can share (only can upload a couple at a time here though).

 

The first picture below of 6 casings were my friend's reload ammo where the primers were intentionally raised.  Those 6 rounds fired on first DA pull, with a 15.5 lb hammer spring and Xtreme firing pin. 

 

The 2nd picture below of a single round was a LS on factory new Winchester Train, using 15.5 hammer spring and factory original firing pin.

[JohnStewart]

2 hours ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

 

I'll say this as a side note - there's no way that gun left headquarters not being able to fire factory 100%

 

Did you swap or change anything when you got it?

No, I didn't make any changes to the gun on my end - I just started shooting it.  I was rather excited to get this gun .. day #1 I put 400 rounds through it - and immediately found the LS issue.  I reached out to Joe and then started testing other brands of ammo to see if there was any specific ammo it would take reliably.  It might go through 50 without an issue, but when I went to 100 or 150 rounds I continually found issues.

[JohnStewart]

3 hours ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

 

22" os more than sufficient power.

 

How do the lugs look? My guess would be a lock up issue while you have a round in the chamber, or some sort of barrel issue, as in from the factory, not PD.

Here is a pic of a bunch of rounds of Winchester Train which fired on first DA pull, using the 15.5# hammer spring and the factory original firing pin.

 

The 2nd pic is again using my friends reloaded ammo which had the raised primers.  For this test, I had the 14lb PD hammer spring in and the Xtreme firing pin installed.  These were all 1 DA pull per round.  You can see how many fired (primer down) versus how many were LS (primer facing up) - in 20 rounds, half of them didn't fire with my 14lb hammer spring - and the strikes look pretty light to me.

[SoCalShooter69]

So Win factory fired on first DA, and your buddy's garbage reloads didn't? Look how high his primers are. The strikes aren't light - the firing pin is pushing the primer deeper. Look at the strikes on the Win factory - those are solid. 

 

To recap, so I'm clear - Win factory OK, reloads no?

Edited November 7, 2017 by SoCalShooter69

[JohnStewart]

1 minute ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

So Win factory fired on first DA, and your buddy's garbage reloads didn't? Look how high his primers are. The strikes aren't light - the firing pin is pushing the primer deeper. Look at the strikes on the Win factory - those are solid. 

 

To recap, so I'm clear - Win factory OK, reloads no?

Sorry for the confusion, no - that's not what I meant to communicate. 

 

I can't get any factory ammo to run 100% right now.  As part of our debugging, my friend asked me to try some high-seated primer ammo to see what the strikes looked like.  I probably shouldn't have shared those pics, I didn't mean to confuse the issue.  I am getting better results from Winchester Train factory ammo than anything else at the moment... and for ~600 rounds I didn't have any LS's using that ammo.  I thought that at least with that combination of an Xtreme firing pin, 15.5 lb PD hammer spring and Win Train ammo I might finally have 1 combination that would work reliable.  That stretch of 600 rounds was the longest stretch of being issue free than I have had in many, many thousands of rounds.  Then, recently in a match, I had a round that wouldn't fire at all (I made 4 or 5 pulls before racking a new round and continuing the stage).  Typically, my LS's would always fire on the 2nd pull.  Rarely would it not fire at all.  Since then I've been testing different combinations.

 

I'm curious to know how reliably others can fire factory new ammo with a 14lb and also with a 15.5lb hammer spring?  I have a couple friends here locally who have an identical setup as my gun and say they can run most any factory ammo with a 14lb hammer spring.  Is that an experience many people have?  Is it reasonable to expect to be able to configure this gun to fire most any factory ammo with a 15.5lb hammer spring?  What about with a 14lb hammer spring? 

 

Also, at what round count are people changing their hammer spring out?  I'm starting to suspect that I may need to replace mine around 4-5K rounds.  I can do that, but I'm curious if that is the same experience others have with this gun?

[SoCalShooter69]

You already answered your own question - local identical guns have no issue. With a full tune and ream, you should not be experiencing any of these issues. 

 

I suggest you put the gun back to 100% factory comfiguration, sans the reamed barrel and try running it. You have a gun problem, not a Patriot Defense parts/tune problem.

 

I'm going to be honest with you, in that you're experiencing an outlier condition. Which makes me think you have a Tanfo QC issue or you're messing with the gun after its being sent back to you. The only inquiries we get these days, are how to increase DA, and how to fit a 2nd gen trigger bar.

 

Can you post a picture of your lugs and the lock section of the slide.

Edited November 7, 2017 by SoCalShooter69

[YVK]

John, I've had these issues recurring from my early stages with Stock 2 for two years now. Joe worked mine over as well, I've tried different firing pins as well. They have become less frequent but never went away. I could go for several hundred rounds no issues, but two last majors, including nationals, I got one light strike each. I haven't clipped fp coils and haven't gone up to 15.5 lbs hammer spring. I got Shadow 2.

 

I do have one observation. I don't think that factory Federal ammo means the same as Federal primers in quality hand reloads. I've gotten some AA ammo to run through my Stock 2 but frankly I am fed up and Shadow 2 now has its chance with me.

[JohnStewart]

1 hour ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

You already answered your own question - local identical guns have no issue. With a full tune and ream, you should not be experiencing any of these issues. 

 

I suggest you put the gun back to 100% factory comfiguration, sans the reamed barrel and try running it. You have a gun problem, not a Patriot Defense parts/tune problem.

 

I'm going to be honest with you, in that you're experiencing an outlier condition. Which makes me think you have a Tanfo QC issue or you're messing with the gun after its being sent back to you. The only inquiries we get these days, are how to increase DA, and how to fit a 2nd gen trigger bar.

 

Can you post a picture of your lugs and the lock section of the slide.

Thanks for the confirmation... that's good to hear.  I thought that these were reasonable expectations, but I wasn't sure.  I don't mind putting the original parts back in and giving it a try.  I always assumed that would work fine, but maybe it is useful to test that and see if I can learn anything via that route.

 

A couple of points I'd like to make.. first, I'm not trying to point the finger at anyone or place any blame here.  I'm just trying to get my gun to work as well as so many others have been able to do.  No agenda here.  Finally, while I'm trying to learn about this gun as quickly as I can, I can assure you that I'm not messing with the gun after its being sent to me.  At least not knowingly I'm relatively new to guns, and I'm constantly learning more every week.  A year ago I didn't even own a pistol, now I shoot 1,000 rounds a week. 

 

Here are a couple pictures I just took of my slide while I was cleaning it.  When you ask for a picture of my lugs... what does that mean?  Are you wanting to see pictures of empty shells, LS un-fired shells or something on my gun?  Sorry, but I don't know what a lug is.. but I'm happy to share what I can if it might help me get my gun working reliably.

 

[JohnStewart]

5 hours ago, PatriotDefense said:

@JohnStewart send the gun back and we’ll be happy to look at it for you. We stand behind our work and even if it’s not on our end we’ll help you get through it! 

Thanks Joe, I think I will take you up on that.  I'll email you separately to coordinate the logistics.

[SoCalShooter69]

Very clear images of what I've circled.

[JohnStewart]

36 minutes ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

Very clear images of what I've circled.

OK, great!  I took 5 HD pics, here is a link to a Google Drive with those pictures:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ptuEAqWseqpKwfTwWhEs7Ad0csuS-6H4

[SoCalShooter69]

1 hour ago, JohnStewart said:

OK, great!  I took 5 HD pics, here is a link to a Google Drive with those pictures:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ptuEAqWseqpKwfTwWhEs7Ad0csuS-6H4

 

It's still a little out of focus, so don't take this for gospel - that forward most slide lug looks slightly funky.

Possibly also have a weird looking spot on the rear most lug of the barrel.

 

If the barrel wasn't fit right from the factory, in the 45 minutes they get to assemble the whole gun, it may sit just enough out of lock up. Could also be why your pencil gets launched, since it sits directly in the barrel over the breach face.

 

@kneelingatlas may be able to chime in. He has a lot more experience with fitting barrels, and can prob give you a better assessment. I could very easily be wrong. 

Edited November 7, 2017 by SoCalShooter69

[yigal]

8 hours ago, SoCalShooter69 said:

 

22" os more than sufficient power.

 

How do the lugs look? My guess would be a lock up issue while you have a round in the chamber, or some sort of barrel issue, as in from the factory, not PD.

+1

probably this is the reason. not full lockup sometimes.

[johnbu]

Interestingly,  i also suspected locking lug problems as i read your note.

 

But, they don't look that bad.  

 

My assessment is that the rounds are NOT getting firmly held in battery when the firing pin hits the primer.  The question is, "why"?

 

1) barrel not locking into the slide. Inspect the lugs and the "peanut" area that the slide lock lever goes into. Lightly polish the slide lock lever "pin". Inspect for burrs or other issues.

 

2) slide not going fully forward. Slather the rails in the slide and frame with "blue magic" and rack 100x pushing down, pulling up, pushing left and right.

Even barely moving, it should lock the barrel lugs into the slide.

 

3) brass not getting up the breech face slowing the lock.  Remove the extractor and polish the breech face. Inspect the extractor and polish as needed. Keep that area clean.

 

4) keep the firing pin, channel, spring etc clean and free of oil based lube. I use a 100% silicone spray.  i also polished the channel well.  do NOT oil the extractor as the oil will get into the firing pin and slow it.

 

5) the trigger OT screw could be too tight and not allowing the FPB to move enough or soon enough. I remove the screw from mine.

 

6) the extractor could be impinging on the firing pin spring. (Rare) if so, you would need to file it where it goes into the firing pin channel then repolish it.

 

 

I have a s2 with thorough polish and pd parts. With 15.5 spring it launches pencils higher than yours and eats all factory ammo.  but i normally shoot winchester primers. Guns that have your symptoms have a gun issue or ammo issue. since you have it with multi-brands.... gun.  Random light hits among good DEEP dimples tells me all the strike energy is spent elsewhere.  My suggestions above may allow you to find / solve it.

 

But given your history, expert eyes / hands need to go over it in depth. Ship it to Joe. He will be able to figure it out. And not have to guess like I'm doing!