TP9SFX Light Primer Strikes

[shakin_bakin]

I keep getting light primer strikes. Looking for some help. What I'm running: TP9SFX with Viper optic on it; tried 11LB spring, 13 LB Spring, 13 pounds spring with coil cut off, tried 5 pound striker, 6 pounds striker, 6.5 pound striker, and completely stock striker spring. 

I have two of these, one my wife runs, one I run. She has zero issues and our guns are identical (mine has had about 3500 more rounds than hers). I take her striker assembly out and put it in my gun and I have less issues, but still have issues. Put it in hers, runs flawless. 

Now, should I be lubing the assembly? Wondering if I have some type of friction point in mine that is dirty or that needs lube? I tried to clean it really good, but I didnt put any lube back into that portion. Looking for some guidance, help, tips, anything at this point. Some of these strikes are so light, i barely dimple the primer..... then others are deep strikes but didnt go off. all within a couple rounds of each other. 

 

Ohh, and when I went from a 5 pound spring, to a 6.5 pound spring, I had substantially more light primer strikes which makes no since to me... Maybe I'm putting this back together wrong? I dont know, I'm grasping at straws. 

I'm running CCI's but I have also tried other primers, such as winchester and federal and have the same issues. 

Edited November 3, 2018 by shakin_bakin

[shakin_bakin]

Hmm would the plunger spring have anything to do with it? I have replaced the plunger spring, and around that time is also when i started having issues... 

[Mlussoro]

Pull striker assembly from both guns and look at firing pins!  I have 2 of these as well both are complete different one runs cci the other won’t. Clean and lightly oil pin and striker assembly check slide where striker goes through breechface. 

       I run 11 lb spring 5 lb Glock striker in both guns. Also check for high primers if you’d reloading. Hope this helps if not call Canik ask for new striker assembly they are very good on replacing parts and customer service 

[shakin_bakin]

5 hours ago, Mlussoro said:

Pull striker assembly from both guns and look at firing pins!  I have 2 of these as well both are complete different one runs cci the other won’t. Clean and lightly oil pin and striker assembly check slide where striker goes through breechface. 

       I run 11 lb spring 5 lb Glock striker in both guns. Also check for high primers if you’d reloading. Hope this helps if not call Canik ask for new striker assembly they are very good on replacing parts and customer service 

 

Thanks for the help! 

Do you use oil or think something like slide glide would be better?

[Mlussoro]

I just Lucas gun lube basically a light oil, but you will need to keep up maintenance and cleaning 

[OPENB]

Pull out the firing pin plunger safety and shoot it. If it runs flawlessly, you're having interference with the safety plunger, robbing the striker of energy. Kinda common in other platforms, never seen a problem in the Canik.

[shakin_bakin]

3 hours ago, OPENB said:

Pull out the firing pin plunger safety and shoot it. If it runs flawlessly, you're having interference with the safety plunger, robbing the striker of energy. Kinda common in other platforms, never seen a problem in the Canik.

 

I'll pull it and give it a go, cant be any worse than what I currently have. I put a softer plunger spring in and polished the plunger.

[Weapon]

First, get some of the long gun cleaning swabs and some gun cleaner and blast out the channel cut in the slide for the firing pin to make sure there isn’t any build up in there slowing the firing pin. Do the same with the cut for the block plunger. Based on what you are saying, it probably isn’t that simple but it is worth trying as it is a possible cause and it requires minimal effort.

 

The light strikes are likely being caused by inference between the block plunger and the firing pin but I doubt the actual plunger is the problem. 

 

If you have calipers, measure the two firing pins to see if the one from the pistol that is having problems is significantly shorter. It may be within specs but also worth checking. 

 

With the slide and frame fully assembled but with the slide off the frame, paint the top edge of the two trigger bar tabs with a permanent marker or Dykem blue layout fluid. Also color the bottom of the block plunger. Look on the underside of the slide - you will see a ramped area that is directly above where the rear tab on the trigger bar normally makes contact. Paint a line on that contact area as well. Put the slide back on the frame and dry fire it a few times. Then pull the slide back off and check the marks you made on the trigger bar tabs, the bottom of the block plunger and especially the area in the slide.

 

You will likely find a clean spot on the top of both tabs, at least a partial clean line across the block plunger’s surface and then a partial line on the ramp in slide. The second (rearward) trigger bar tab is likely slipping off that ramp occasionally and letting the front tab lose contact with the block plunger. The block plunger then moves up and slows the firing pin’s forward movement. Issues with the second tab can also cause problems with partial trigger reset. 

 

The second possibility: the front tab is bent to one side or the other and losing contact with the block plunger too quickly. If the line on the block plunger goes down the middle of the block plunger it is likely the first option above.

 

If you send it in to Century, it would likely come back with a note indicating they had replaced the trigger bar, block plunger and firing pin assembly (kind of a catch-all approach). If you want to try to fix it yourself, put a piece of masking tape at the bottom of the rear tab and another closer to the top. Grab the bottom of the tab with one pair of pliers and the top of the tab with a second pair of pliers. If you are looking at the trigger bar from the rear, you want to bend the tab very slightly to the right. It usually doesn’t take much — maybe a quarter to a half of a millimeter or so.

 

If that doesn’t work, I’d fill out a service request with Century and send it in as something else is likely wrong with the trigger bar geometry. 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by Weapon

[shakin_bakin]

33 minutes ago, Weapon said:

First, get some of the long gun cleaning swabs and some gun cleaner and blast out the channel cut in the slide for the firing pin to make sure there isn’t any build up in there slowing the firing pin. Do the same with the cut for the block plunger. Based on what you are saying, it probably isn’t that simple but it is worth trying as it is a possible cause and it requires minimal effort.

 

The light strikes are likely being caused by inference between the block plunger and the firing pin but I doubt the actual plunger is the problem. 

 

If you have calipers, measure the two firing pins to see if the one from the pistol that is having problems is significantly shorter. It may be within specs but also worth checking. 

 

With the slide and frame fully assembled but with the slide off the frame, paint the top edge of the two trigger bar tabs with a permanent marker or Dykem blue layout fluid. Also color the bottom of the block plunger. Look on the underside of the slide - you will see a ramped area that is directly above where the rear tab on the trigger bar normally makes contact. Paint a line on that contact area as well. Put the slide back on the frame and dry fire it a few times. Then pull the slide back off and check the marks you made on the trigger bar tabs, the bottom of the block plunger and especially the area in the slide.

 

You will likely find a clean spot on the top of both tabs, at least a partial clean line across the block plunger’s surface and then a partial line on the ramp in slide. The second (rearward) trigger bar tab is likely slipping off that ramp occasionally and letting the front tab lose contact with the block plunger. The block plunger then moves up and slows the firing pin’s forward movement. Issues with the second tab can also cause problems with partial trigger reset. 

 

The second possibility: the front tab is bent to one side or the other and losing contact with the block plunger too quickly. If the line on the block plunger goes down the middle of the block plunger it is likely the first option above.

 

If you send it in to Century, it would likely come back with a note indicating they had replaced the trigger bar, block plunger and firing pin assembly (kind of a catch-all approach). If you want to try to fix it yourself, put a piece of masking tape at the bottom of the rear tab and another closer to the top. Grab the bottom of the tab with one pair of pliers and the top of the tab with a second pair of pliers. If you are looking at the trigger bar from the rear, you want to bend the tab very slightly to the right. It usually doesn’t take much — maybe a quarter to a half of a millimeter or so.

 

If that doesn’t work, I’d fill out a service request with Century and send it in as something else is likely wrong with the trigger bar geometry. 

 

 

 

wow... Thanks for that response. I appreciate it. I'll get on this tomorrow night and see what I can find out. 

[shakin_bakin]

Had equal wear between the working pistol, and the non working pistol on those marks. Cleaned the striker hole out, used a little bit of slide glide on it to try and smooth some things out to see if it was just getting to much friction.

This morning it struck me, could we not look at the light primer strikes and if they are off set a little, wouldn't that indicate the gun isn't going into battery?

[Bmeehan19]

On 11/5/2018 at 8:57 PM, Weapon said:

First, get some of the long gun cleaning swabs and some gun cleaner and blast out the channel cut in the slide for the firing pin to make sure there isn’t any build up in there slowing the firing pin. Do the same with the cut for the block plunger. Based on what you are saying, it probably isn’t that simple but it is worth trying as it is a possible cause and it requires minimal effort.

 

The light strikes are likely being caused by inference between the block plunger and the firing pin but I doubt the actual plunger is the problem. 

 

If you have calipers, measure the two firing pins to see if the one from the pistol that is having problems is significantly shorter. It may be within specs but also worth checking. 

 

With the slide and frame fully assembled but with the slide off the frame, paint the top edge of the two trigger bar tabs with a permanent marker or Dykem blue layout fluid. Also color the bottom of the block plunger. Look on the underside of the slide - you will see a ramped area that is directly above where the rear tab on the trigger bar normally makes contact. Paint a line on that contact area as well. Put the slide back on the frame and dry fire it a few times. Then pull the slide back off and check the marks you made on the trigger bar tabs, the bottom of the block plunger and especially the area in the slide.

 

You will likely find a clean spot on the top of both tabs, at least a partial clean line across the block plunger’s surface and then a partial line on the ramp in slide. The second (rearward) trigger bar tab is likely slipping off that ramp occasionally and letting the front tab lose contact with the block plunger. The block plunger then moves up and slows the firing pin’s forward movement. Issues with the second tab can also cause problems with partial trigger reset. 

 

The second possibility: the front tab is bent to one side or the other and losing contact with the block plunger too quickly. If the line on the block plunger goes down the middle of the block plunger it is likely the first option above.

 

If you send it in to Century, it would likely come back with a note indicating they had replaced the trigger bar, block plunger and firing pin assembly (kind of a catch-all approach). If you want to try to fix it yourself, put a piece of masking tape at the bottom of the rear tab and another closer to the top. Grab the bottom of the tab with one pair of pliers and the top of the tab with a second pair of pliers. If you are looking at the trigger bar from the rear, you want to bend the tab very slightly to the right. It usually doesn’t take much — maybe a quarter to a half of a millimeter or so.

 

If that doesn’t work, I’d fill out a service request with Century and send it in as something else is likely wrong with the trigger bar geometry. 

 

 

I believe this has helped me greatly. I replaced my springs with the reduced power plunger spring, 6.5 newton striker spring. It fired fine with no issues. Then I added the Freedomsmith trigger and at first I was having the partial reset issue. This was solved by bending the trigger bar as it was slipping out of the groove in the slide and getting hung up to the side of the safety plunger. Next I take it to the range and I am having about 20% failure to fire malfunctions. Most even a second try wouldnt ignite them. This was with WWB that I have used in the past without issue. So I started diagnosing by marking the tabs and the plungers top and sides(to see how deep its going in) I also polished up the striker assembly and plunger mating surfaces while I had it apart. I noticed that with the new trigger the plunger tab on the trigger bar doesnt utilize its full ramp and stopping a hair short, which in turn is not pushing the plunger in enough and dragging on the striker. So I filed the bottom shelf of the plunger a bit until it releases the striker a little before the dykemed mark that denotes how deep the plunger depresses is reached.  I went slow with this ensuring all surfaces were still square and that thevstriker couldnt fall prematurely. It releases the striker about .5mm before the trigger overtravel stops and well after the trigger safety clears the frame. 

[shakin_bakin]

I replaced my plunger spring to stock and put the 6 pound Glock 34 spring in and have no issues now. To be fair, I cleaned all of the junk that was in the striker channel out at the same time. There was a decent amount of random carbon.
 

I did just as Weapon said though and also added the #2 SS ring to the trigger return spring and that helped with the way the trigger feels.

[Weapon]

yikes - that i was two months ago - i haven't been on the forum enough recently. Glad to hear it is working now.