Tanfo Stock II Elite - light strike, HELP please!

[kneelingatlas]

I agree with John, the firing pin channel is where I would focus

[yigal]

PD will check it. and i hope they will publish what was the problem.

expert testing will be better than ours guesswork .

there could be 100 small  reasons for this problem.

( 12lb  recoil spring  will have better lock up for this situation)

 

Edited November 8, 2017 by yigal

[IHAVEGAS]

7 hours ago, johnbu said:

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.

 

Very interesting.

[IHAVEGAS]

2 hours ago, yigal said:

PD will check it. and i hope they will publish what was the problem.

 

+1

[johnbu]

1 hour ago, IHAVEGAS said:

 

Very interesting.

 

It's math....

 

Oil + powder residue = tar like gloop.

 

Oil without residue still slows motion.

[IHAVEGAS]

29 minutes ago, johnbu said:

 

It's math....

 

Oil + powder residue = tar like gloop.

 

Oil without residue still slows motion.

 

Since you have time to be Mr.Smarty Pants, would you take another moment to tell me brand info on what spray you are using?

 

 

[MemphisMechanic]

I ran my gun with a completely dry firing pin channel.

 

Always have - from Glock on down through the guns that have replaced it. Never had a problem.

 

Edited November 7, 2017 by MemphisMechanic

[SoCalShooter69]

Check your firing pin for drag marks. Or send back to Joe... He has a bore scope. 

[johnbu]

4 hours ago, IHAVEGAS said:

 

Since you have time to be Mr.Smarty Pants, would you take another moment to tell me brand info on what spray you are using?

 

 

 

Go to the hardware store and buy "100% silicone spray". Seriously.  

[IHAVEGAS]

 

4 hours ago, MemphisMechanic said:

I ran my gun with a completely dry firing pin channel.

 

Always have - from Glock on down through the guns that have replaced it. Never had a problem.

 

 

1 hour ago, johnbu said:

 

Go to the hardware store and buy "100% silicone spray". Seriously.  

 

Will try both routes. You folks are very helpful. 

 

Apologies for any diversion from the main thread topic.

Edited November 7, 2017 by IHAVEGAS

[Rockriverrenegade]

Not to revive an old thread, but I'm experiencing the exact same thing with my Stock II. Was there ever a resolution to your issue? What was the problem?

RRR

 

[IHAVEGAS]

On 11/6/2017 at 12:31 PM, JohnStewart said:

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?

 

 

Light strikes have a lot of potential causes, the o.p. probably got things started on the right foot by providing as much detail as possible. 

 

For what it is worth. 

[Rockriverrenegade]

Was hoping he found his solution and could post his findings. Reading his posts were like reading what would have been mine. I guess I'll head down the rabbit hole and start trouble shooting.

RRR

[IHAVEGAS]

10 minutes ago, Rockriverrenegade said:

I guess I'll head down the rabbit hole and start trouble shooting.

 

I don't know of a better way, unfortunately. 

 

My light strike problem was this (firing pin on the rights, oem, impact from hammer deformed pin & reduced amount of metal protruding past firing pin stop plate) 

Edited April 27, 2018 by IHAVEGAS

[Rockriverrenegade]

Is that the firing pin block safety? Was it dragging on the firing pin?

RRR

 

[IHAVEGAS]

Edited above picture with explanation. 

[JohnStewart]

10 hours ago, Rockriverrenegade said:

Not to revive an old thread, but I'm experiencing the exact same thing with my Stock II. Was there ever a resolution to your issue? What was the problem?

RRR

 

RockRiver... Yes, we did come to a resolution, but you aren't going to like it for your situation (unless you have the most awesome gunsmith in the world!).  I've been meaning to come back to this post and give a HUGE shout out to Joe at Patriot Defense for his OUTSTANDING customer service.. so thanks for the nudge.

 

In short, Joe at Patriot Defense took the gun and ran a bunch of tests with it and also even had a friend of his who had a 3D printer take it to make measurements across the gun and the various parts.  What he found was that in the original stock configuration, as shipped by EAA, it would not light strike.  In other words, it met their specs.  However, just changing the hammer spring down slightly - still using the original sear & hammer and everything else stock, they would reoccur.  THAT should not happen, by the standard of most every other Stock II out there.  He tried to get EAA to agree to replace the gun, he argued with them over and over, but they stuck firm to their views that it met their factory specs and refused to help compensate.  Unfortunately, the specs that we ALL use this gun for in the competitive shooting world presses those specs well beyond factory defined limits.

 

What he found from the 3D printer measurements was that I had a gun whose parts were all within spec, but all on the absolute very minimum side of spec.  His theory was that the combination of having ALL of these minimum-spec parts combined together were causing issues.  He was able to replace most all of the internals with components on the larger side of spec, and that did help greatly reduce the light strikes - but no where near to the level of reliability for a competition gun.

 

Now, here is the amazing and awesome thing about Patriot Defense.  He (Joe) was stuck between a customer's needs / expectations for the gun, and the distributor's expectations / specifications for the gun.  When it became clear that we couldn't eliminate the light strikes, or even get them down to a reasonable range (again, with ANY factory ammo), Joe offered me to buy the gun back in full.  He reimbursed me for the cost of the gun, and all of the replacement parts and tuning I had paid him in the beginning.  THAT is an offer that very few (if any) gunsmiths would ever make, and he clearly took a huge haircut on this (not even counting the hours he spent trying to debug these issues).  He told me directly that he wanted to stand by his customer service and even though it was very clear that this was an issue with the specs of the original gun (nothing related to any gunsmith work he had done) - he wanted to be sure I was made whole!  I took him up on the offer, with great appreciation!

 

That was around the end of last year, early this year.  At the time EAA didn't have any more Stock II's nor did any supplier in the US, I checked them all.  I called EAA and learned that they were expecting to receive about 20 of them, and they were spreading those out to 4-5 distributors around the US.  I had to track this on a daily basis, but I was able to get 2 the day they landed at the first distributor (I was really concerned that the pent up demand was going to cause them to be out of stock again within weeks).  So, now I have 2 - both of which I have made pretty much all the same modifications to as the first ones, and they both are shooting precisely as they should.  No issues with them!

 

So, again, this doesn't help you that much.  What I will tell you from my own experience in tuning these new guns, the BOLO and Xtreme sear make a significant different in the throw of the hammer.  You can shave those components (described in various posts) which will both increase the hammer throw, and likely reduce your hammer pull weight (a combination that I didn't expect was possible).  You might consider checking with Joe and see if he thinks that, or possibly some other trick he knows of, could help you there.

Edited April 27, 2018 by JohnStewart

[JohnStewart]

23 minutes ago, Rockriverrenegade said:

Was hoping he found his solution and could post his findings. Reading his posts were like reading what would have been mine. I guess I'll head down the rabbit hole and start trouble shooting.

RRR

I will further add a few tidbits I've picked up along the way:

 

- Federal primers light off easier than anything else.  So, buy some American Eagle ammo (which uses Federal) and see if you get light strikes there.

- Stick with RN ammo, not FP or other shapes (this is more for a reliable feeding)

- IMHO, firing pins don't make much difference.  The stock firing pin will light off pretty much everything a tuned one will.  With that said, I use the Xtreme firing pin when not using the stock one.

- Trimming the firing pin spring can definitely help, but I'm only trimming around 5-6 coils at this point.  I think this is a relatively moderate help, not a huge difference.  I would recommend the PD optimized firing pin spring to be the one to be trimmed.  Make sure the trimmed end is closer to the front of the gun, the untrimmed end should be what slides onto the firing pin

- I do think the hammer & sear operations are the largest opportunity for making a difference here.  The Titan hammer weighs a lot more than the factory one, but as I mentioned the Xtreme sear reduces the throw significantly and in my opinion, requires shaving/tuning to get it to throw far enough. 

- Track your rounds on your parts, especially your hammer spring.  Joe once highlighted that a hammer spring looses 20% of it's spring rate at 5000 rounds, and drops from there.  With that said, in my current gun I have a 14lb PD spring, which has nearly 10K rounds on it and it's lighting off Federal primers (factory and reloaded on 650) with absolutely 0 issues.  I intend to try a 13lb hammer spring at some point, but I figure my 14lb with 10K rounds is likely close to it already.  My point, while you are debugging this - replace that hammer spring every 5K-8K rounds.

 

I hope that helps, I feel for you!

[IHAVEGAS]

21 minutes ago, JohnStewart said:

The stock firing pin will light off pretty much everything a tuned one will. 

 

Good info in general!

 

My two stock 2's had very different oem firing pins (picture), my guess is that Tanfo buys them from 3rd party suppliers (??) the one that worked might have been good in the long run as noted, replaced both after I found the issue so I don't know. 

[johnbu]

4 hours ago, JohnStewart said:

I will further add a few tidbits I've picked up along the way:

 

- Federal primers light off easier than anything else.  So, buy some American Eagle ammo (which uses Federal) and see if you get light strikes there.

- Stick with RN ammo, not FP or other shapes (this is more for a reliable feeding)

- IMHO, firing pins don't make much difference.  The stock firing pin will light off pretty much everything a tuned one will.  With that said, I use the Xtreme firing pin when not using the stock one.

- Trimming the firing pin spring can definitely help, but I'm only trimming around 5-6 coils at this point.  I think this is a relatively moderate help, not a huge difference.  I would recommend the PD optimized firing pin spring to be the one to be trimmed.  Make sure the trimmed end is closer to the front of the gun, the untrimmed end should be what slides onto the firing pin

- I do think the hammer & sear operations are the largest opportunity for making a difference here.  The Titan hammer weighs a lot more than the factory one, but as I mentioned the Xtreme sear reduces the throw significantly and in my opinion, requires shaving/tuning to get it to throw far enough. 

- Track your rounds on your parts, especially your hammer spring.  Joe once highlighted that a hammer spring looses 20% of it's spring rate at 5000 rounds, and drops from there.  With that said, in my current gun I have a 14lb PD spring, which has nearly 10K rounds on it and it's lighting off Federal primers (factory and reloaded on 650) with absolutely 0 issues.  I intend to try a 13lb hammer spring at some point, but I figure my 14lb with 10K rounds is likely close to it already.  My point, while you are debugging this - replace that hammer spring every 5K-8K rounds.

 

I hope that helps, I feel for you!. 

 

American Eagle ammo (in my experience) DOES NOT use the same soft Federal MATCH primers that you buy.  My opinion is that to be compatible with the high speed automation equipment they use a stouter primer.  This is my thought, not a verified fact!!  But using a 10#  hammer spring,  i was 100% with Match primers and had non-fires with American Eagle.  

 

Also the firing pins in the competition guns (stock1, 2, 3, lim pro, limited, GT) are the same as the Xtreme part. Same weight, length, diameter.   The Xtreme Disco is used in the DA guns from the factory, too.  There is no gain from buying those parts.

 

I also want to caution people AGAINST trimming FP return spring coils. The Optimized part from PD is designed to reach "coil bind" and stop the pin from ever getting stuck (and snapped off!)  If coils are cut,  it won't protect you from a stuck in the slide firing pin.  When using the Xtreme spring, trimming was needed... not so with the PD part. 

 

 

 

For the OP and anyone else still battling  light strikes ... 

 

Aside from the totally odd case Joe found with a "in spec / out of spec" gun... ammo is the first place to look.

I have had really reliable use with my reloads.  tens of thousands with out a problem.  Then I bought a Dillon 650 and a "Hundo" case checker.  That dang hundo showed me that my ammo SUCKS !  LOL, well it doesn't pass by sitting flush in the checker.   Sadly, both my son's Lim Pro and my S2 did have a few random issues with light strikes which it turns out were due to the brass and ammo off the Dillon.  The Dillon ammo was actually "worse" than the ammo off the Lee Loadmaster.  (Yikes)

 

And it was all my fault.  I had  set the sizing die a little too high and it wasn't sizing all the way down. Fixed that.  Then found the crimp was a little too light.  Fixed that. 

 

BUT.... still had 15+ cases per 100 that didn't pass the hundo test.  And in some of my boxes of brass as many as 50%  had issues with the rim side of the brass.  So...had to get a  Lee "Bulge Buster" kit using a Makarov crimp die to size the whole case.  After squeezing the rim area of the cases down, 100% pass.  Success!! Yea!

 

My thought is that the free range pick brass I use has a variable percentage that was run MAJOR.  That brass gets slammed back hard and expanded by the ++P+++ pressure major guys run.  It causes the back end of the case (which a sizing die can't reach) to expand and fit overly snug in the chamber.  I did plunk test the bad cases round and the ones I tested,  passed ... IN A CLEAN BARREL, just barely.  But, I found that in a dirty barrel, the bad ones were NOT passing!  Is it a PITA to run brass on a single stage press thru a bulge buster?  You bet!    However,  the Lee kit is dirt cheap and I HIGHLY recommend it.  Most of the cases take a moderate force,  but some nearly bring my feet off the ground!   I'm guessing that those are the ones that are most likely to not fully chamber and cause a light strike.  Fixing them,  should ensure perfect function.

 

So, Hundo --- buy one.  Lee Bulge Buster (used in a single stage press) -- buy one.

 

When I prep a gun there are things I do beyond the normal. 

1) Deburr and polish the hammer gap in the frame. 

2) polish the hammer spring, spring strut, strut hole in the frame, pivot pins and holes in the hammer.

3) remove the extractor, file the part that bulges into the firing pin channel and polish it.  The spring can hit it and slow down

4) polish the back edge of the disco and bottom of the sear cage. 

5) make sure the front sight screw is not touching the barrel.  Even lightly touching the barrel can slow it from locking in to the slide.  That can keep it from reaching full battery until jostled by the firing pin. Which can "rob" enough energy to cause a light strike.  (and poor accuracy).

 

If these steps don't fix the issues (and youre using winchester or equal softness primers), it's time to send the gun to Joe at Patriot Defense!

[IHAVEGAS]

43 minutes ago, johnbu said:

 

BUT.... still had 15+ cases per 100 that didn't pass the hundo test.  And in some of my boxes of brass as many as 50%  had issues with the rim side of the brass.  So...had to get a  Lee "Bulge Buster" kit using a Makarov crimp die to size the whole case.  After squeezing the rim area of the cases down, 100% pass.  Success!! Yea!

 

Reamed barrels?

 

I use cheapest available brass, sourced from the ground at USPSA matches & similar locations so some of it is bound to have been loaded major. Usually rejects are about 7 per 1000 in the hundo for me, sometimes a little better and sometimes closer to the 15/100 you are getting. 

 

Anything that does not pass the hundo gets used in practice & left on the ground, but 99%+ of that runs fine. Using an egw sizing die in my Dillon but the Dillon die seemed to work fine also, both screwed down as far as possible. Sounds like you have a great solution that works for you but you are the first person I have heard of that uses a bulge buster for 9mm. I run federals deep set (Dillon 1050) . 

[Rockriverrenegade]

Thanks for the updates and such. I have ordered the PD firing pin spring. I think that's my next step. I don't feel the need to get down to a super low hammer spring weight, so between using a 14 or 15# hammer spring with the Hennings XL firing pin and PD firing pin spring I'm hoping that' will make for a reliable combo.

RRR

 

[Rockriverrenegade]

One other question, as my Stock II is the only one I've handled in person. Is the SA trigger typically a crisp break or does it have creep in it? Mine has more creep than any of my other DA/SA triggers. 

RRR

 

[MemphisMechanic]

They creep. I prefer a trigger that rolls back versus one that shatters like glass, but I know I’m the odd man out, here.

 

I’m sure there other methods, but running a Titan hammer really gives the Tanfo a more 1911-ish feel with it’s shortened hooks.

[johnbu]

1 hour ago, MemphisMechanic said:

They creep. I prefer a trigger that rolls back versus one that shatters like glass, but I know I’m the odd man out, here.

 

I’m sure there other methods, but running a Titan hammer really gives the Tanfo a more 1911-ish feel with it’s shortened hooks.

 

That "creep" is the sear crawling its way out of the deep hooks on the factory hammer. The Titan is much better and I hear (but haven't verified) that the UNICA hammer has even better hook geometry.  The Best way to solve the creep is to "throw money" at it by getting a Titan hammer, extended firing pin block (required 95% of the time due to the hammer geometry) and the Patriot Defense BOLO disconnector.  That will give you an awesome trigger when coupled with a full polish.  Seriously awesome.

 

Oh,  I'm also migrating my equipment views along the lines of my friend MemphisMechanic ... a little trigger roll is a good thing. Especially on weak hand only virginia count stages when you have all the touch and feel of an arthritic blacksmith wearing mittens.