Lite Strikes On Limited Custom Xtreme in .40

[Glenzo]

Have a  Custom Xtreme in .40, the 2015 model. Bought used and has worked great for a year. Has Henning xtended firing pin and unknown fp spring. Measured the Henning fp at 2.623 and the original Tanfo fp that came with the gun at 2.603.  Drop safety is removed.

I'm shooting CCI or Winchester primers with 4.5-6 gr of Titegroup and 1.130 oal.  This was totally reliable for about 3000 rds but now getting multiple lite strikes. About 6 today out of 80 rounds.

Firing pin channel and extractor are clean. The only change I have made lately is switching from Titegroup to CFE Pistol. Seems to be worse with CFE pistol.

Any suggestions where to start looking for solutions would be appreciated.

[johnbu]

1) primer depth - 0.006-0.008 deep

2) plunk test

3) give it more over travel. The hammer could be hitting the 1/2 cock notches.

 

4) put in new hammer spring. It could be weakening. Use a patriot defense firing pin return spring.

[Glenzo]

1 hour ago, johnbu said:

1) primer depth - 0.006-0.008 deep

2) plunk test

3) give it more over travel. The hammer could be hitting the 1/2 cock notches.

 

4) put in new hammer spring. It could be weakening. Use a patriot defense firing pin return spring.

Thanks John.

I'm pre priming with Lee Bench Prime so the primers are deep.

Every round I shoot is case checked.

It seems to have plenty of over travel but I will add in some more.

What hammer spring weight do you recommend for shooting .40 Maj? I need this gun to function with hard primers and factory ammo.

What recoil spring weight should I be using for .40 Maj?

Will order Patriot Defense firing pin spring.

[fellas]

seat the primers well and remove the fp safety , it should work like a clock 

[johnbu]

15 hours ago, Glenzo said:

Thanks John.

I'm pre priming with Lee Bench Prime so the primers are deep.

Every round I shoot is case checked.

It seems to have plenty of over travel but I will add in some more.

What hammer spring weight do you recommend for shooting .40 Maj? I need this gun to function with hard primers and factory ammo.

What recoil spring weight should I be using for .40 Maj?

Will order Patriot Defense firing pin spring.

 

If you don't measure the depth... it's just a guess if it's correct or not.  use the tail end of the caliper to measure depth.

 

Hammer spring i would not go lower than the PD 15.5. And wouldn't go heavier than the EG Medium.  Because you've had some issues, the EG medium.

 

Recoil spring depends on factors with the ammo and your grip. Henning sells a 10 3/4# for 40 major.  but i don't know what his loads are like.  heavier bullets like 200 or 220gr can make major with less powder / lower recoil than a 165 or 180 grain. 

 

I'd recommend filming from the side, 6-10 rounds fired as fast as you can and hit a target at 7 yds.  if the gun raises, you need more spring.  if it dips,  a lighter spring.  Do it with a timer start and compare total time, splits and HF. 

[Glenzo]

Thanks again John;

I have a Tanfo Xtreme medium weight hammer spring which I'm going to try until I can source an EG med.

 

I'm shooting 180gr plated flat points at 172-175 PF.  I think the recoil spring is a 11.5 factory spring.  Thats a good idea about the 6-10 rds at 7 yds. I'll give that a try.

 

When disassembling the gun I found the slide stop was damaged. The pin part was loose and could be wiggled around. New stop on order

[johnbu]

The extreme medium is the same.

 

Have you verified the rounds aren't too long? Plunk test them in the bare barrel, press down hard with a finger, it should spin and drop out freely.

[Glenzo]

No problem there. I'm aiming for 1.130 oal plus or minus a few thou.  They spin and drop out easily.

 

Just ordered springs from Patriot and a new Xtreme sear so I have a spare.

 

I need to get this gun reliable again.

[johnbu]

9 hours ago, Glenzo said:

I need to get this gun reliable again. 

 

Reliable should be #1 priority,  but chasing the best feeling DF trigger is more fun!

 

Do give the trigger a GENEROUS amount of pre-travel and over travel.  Limiting that to get a tiny travel, can really mess up timing of the gun and that causes funky stuff to happen. Usually on a stage you were just crushing.  I removed the over travel screws on all mt stock 2's. 

 

Remember too that on a SA only gun, the hammer spring going up a pound only increases the trigger an ounce or two.  Polishing the actual hammer spring and spring pocket and using a light grease on the spring will reduce pull by several ounces. AND those parts will move free-er and hit harder.

 

The PD firing pin spring also robs less strike force.  i also polish the firing pin channel (with the extractor out!). That also increases strike force to the primer.  Adding the PD firing pin also helps as it is heavier and longer.

 

Those things all increease reliability.

 

If you use the PD optimized trigger and sear springs that will drop 4-5 oz off the pull, but no reduction in primer strike force.

 

The new UNICA solid hammer is spendy, but maximizes the swing arc.  That will give more strike force. AND it has teeny tiny hammer hooks and a repositioned 1/2 cock notch so the sear won't ever hang on it. BUT!!!, That extra swing arc will solid coil bind some springs.  Wolff makes short and stout springs 16-22# range.

 

My motto is that springs are cheap,buy them all and experiment. Use that 6-10 round rip. Compare splits, muzzle rise and HF. Keep in mind the recoil is affected by both recoil spring and hammer spring. So you have to fine tune one, then the other then the first again.

 

 

[Glenzo]

Excellent information, there is a lot for me to digest.  The only tuning on my Glock 35 was whether to go with a 2lb or 3lb striker spring.

 

I hope the Henning FP will function properly with the PD FP spring. The trigger pull on the gun was 1lb 3oz as measured with a digital device. It had big pre travel and fairly long over travel which took some getting use to.

 

I have a Henning flat short trigger which may go into one of the two Custom Xtremes I have.  Also have both the PD optimized sear and trigger spring but neither are installed.

 

I can see I will be experimenting with plenty of different spring combos to get this gun up and running reliably again.

 

What is the best way to polish the FP and hammer spring channels?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[johnbu]

16 hours ago, Glenzo said:

What is the best way to polish the FP and hammer spring channels? 

 

I sacrifice a cleaning mop (the fuzzy one you soak with H#9).  i get it full of "blue magic" polishing compound and spin it with a drill.  A drill to limit any heat issues.  it should fit tight to the hole.

 

16 hours ago, Glenzo said:

I hope the Henning FP will function properly with the PD FP spring. The trigger pull on the gun was 1lb 3oz as measured with a digital device. It had big pre travel and fairly long over travel which took some getting use to. 

 couple things. If you have 1#3oz trigger pull ... you have a very very light hammer spring.

 

Just the trigger return spring will give that weight.   Get a new set of springs !

 

Also, my experience is the heavier PD firing pin sets off primers much more reliably than the very light Henning design. 

[Harlow]

Lots of good information in this thread. Thanks for the info, now I'm gonna do some tinkering to my own limited custom. 

[MemphisMechanic]

The biggest thing to takeaway is that there’s no reason to run a flyweight hammer spring in a Limited division gun. As @johnbu said, the difference between an ultralight 10 pound hammer spring and a 16ish pound EGD Medium is going to be half a pound or less in single action.

 

I know. I measured a Stock 3 in both DA and SA. There’s a post about this somewhere.

[deerslayer]

Long shot, but have you checked your primers?  Are they getting hit way off-center?  I had a STI 1911 that had an off-center firing pin hole in the slide and got occasional light strikes.  STI replaced the slide.  

 

[Avenida]

On 10/15/2018 at 9:37 AM, johnbu said:

 

 

My motto is that springs are cheap,buy them all and experiment. Use that 6-10 round rip. Compare splits, muzzle rise and HF. Keep in mind the recoil is affected by both recoil spring and hammer spring. So you have to fine tune one, then the other then the first again.

 

 

Hey John,

I am curious about this, how does the hammer spring affect recoil? ... what do you mean by that?

 

 

[johnbu]

The hammer is down and the recoil spring AND the hammer spring BOTH resist the rearward slide motion.

 

Compare the force needed to rack the slide with  a 10# hammer spring and a 22# spring.

 

The hammer spring can be used to "fine tune" the flatness,  especially a SA gun where the trigger is relatively insensitive to hammer spring rate.

[Earthpig]

I have a few of these also. With the henning firing pin. Use the

patriot defense Optimized firing pin spring and the long sear(stoeger proshop) is the one that comes with the gun. The extreme sear works but lota of polishing involved. 14 LB egw hammer spring. If you want ill tell you the entire setup. Also you could remove the firing pin block for Limited. Not necessary if properly set up

[Glenzo]

All good information here and I'm just waiting for my order to come from PD.  Unfortunately it looks like a postal strike here so may be a while.

I'm confident my ammo is good because it all worked perfect before and I changed only the powder but the PF was the same.

I have noticed that the fp hits were slightly off center with the Henning but it didnt seem like a problem. 

So far I have installed the PD optimized trigger spring with some difficulty and the Canik trigger pin. I hope that pin doesnt want to work its way out, seems loose.

[Glenzo]

Finally got my parts from PD that were stuck in Canadian customs due to the postal strike. I was getting light strikes on my Limited Custom Xtreme and decided to follow the advice of the more experienced Tanfo people here.

 

First off I stripped the gun down to its individual parts. Small stuff went in the ultra sonic cleaner and the rest cleaned by hand.

Thanks to the MM Youtube vids or I would not have attempted this.

Gun had a Henning Xtended FP with an unknown FP spring. Hammer spring was unknown but looked like the factory original spring. It measured about 3/16" shorter than the new EG medium spring i ordered. This where I think the lite strikes were coming from, weak hammer spring. Also the slide stop was loose and you could wiggle the pin.  Replaced that with new.

 

Reassembled gun with a PD reduced power trigger spring, Canik trigger pin. Next was the PD xtended FP and spring. Then the EG medium hammer spring. I had also polished the FP and hammer spring channel. New Tanfo return spring for .40sw.

Trigger pull is 1-8oz to 1-10oz.  Have a PD reduced power sear spring but did not install

 

Went to the range briefly and ran about 50rds of .40 maj with CCI primers through it and everything seems to work fine.

Thanks to all who steered me in the right direction. Just have to find a reduced power spring for the mag release now.