Stovepipes

[taxil343]

I have an open gun (38SC, mid-length, stroked, hybrid barrel with 4 popples) that was stove piping on every round. I checked extractor tension, seemed more than adequate. When the stovepipes occur, it’s almost like the fired case never left the chamber. It will fire, slide travels fully to the rear and returns fully into battery, but the spent case is still in the chamber. When this happens, it is always just as described above. It won’t try to feed another round and hang up on the spent case, the only way you would know there has been a malfunction is after dropping the hammer on the spent case. Racking the slide ejects the spent case and chambers the next round in the magazine. I have increased extractor tension the point where the gun should not feed (it still does) and still get an occasional stovepipe, maybe 1/100. Is there anything other than lack of extractor tension that can cause stovepipes? Gun currently has an 8lb recoil spring with 5 coils cut, I’m not sure what the main spring is. Could too light of a main spring cause the gun to unlock too quickly causing the case to slip past the extractor?

[HI5-O]

Sounds like a failure to extract instead of a stove pipe.

The extractor slipping over the rim and not traveling back far enough for the stripper rail to catch the next round from the magazine.

Did the gun and ammo combo work before?

Is the slide being slowed down by your thumb? Or rubbing against some other part of the gun?

Do the rounds feed and extract if you manually cycle the gun with dummy rounds?

Why do you need to remove 5 coils from the recoil spring ?

Ammo making Major PF?

 

[taxil343]

Gun and ammo has worked in the past. The slide cracked, top end was replaced by the builder and when I got it back it has been unreliable. I don’t think I’m riding the slide with my thumb. Safety is SVI wide ambi so not shielded but I don’t have a problem with riding the slide on my other guns without shielded safeties. Function is perfect when manually cycling. This gun is a stroked, mid-length gun so I cut 5 coils on a standard length spring just to keep it from coil binding. 5 coils is just short enough to allow the slide to travel fully to the rear. Ammo was chrono’d two weeks ago at 171PF. 

[rr4406pak]

When the slide speed is too slow is what can cause this sometimes.

What powder are you using?

Also, have you tried a 7lb recoil spring?

[taxil343]

Powder is Accurate #7. I started with a 7lb in the gun but It was returning a little high so I went to the 8lb.

[Glk21C]

 

23 hours ago, taxil343 said:

Gun and ammo has worked in the past. The slide cracked, top end was replaced by the builder and when I got it back it has been unreliable. 

IMO, sounds like you need to send it back to the builder and have them figure it out

[HI5-O]

Hopefully he used a 9/38 slide 

[taxil343]

8 hours ago, Glk21C said:

 

IMO, sounds like you need to send it back to the builder and have them figure it out

I agree but that’s just not feasible. The first time it was sent back it was in for over a year just to replace the slide. Sent it back again after receiving a non-functional gun, it was in for another month and actually came back worse... I’ve gotten it to 99% reliable, just searching for that last 1%. 

[taxil343]

5 hours ago, HI5-O said:

Hopefully he used a 9/38 slide 

After measuring the breechface and extractor tunnel location I can confirm it is a 9/38 slide. 

[TONY BARONE]

I had a barrel that wore in the upper chamber when the case expanded it would freeze in the chamber and not extract . A new barrel solved the problem. Not saying that's your problem.

[taxil343]

14 minutes ago, TONY BARONE said:

I had a barrel that wore in the upper chamber when the case expanded it would freeze in the chamber and not extract . A new barrel solved the problem. Not saying that's your problem.

I’ll check it out. Thanks