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M&p Failure To Fire


sasquatch981

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So I bought a .40 M&P and took it to the range to see how it worked. I fire several magazines loaded to (5) rounds to see where the sights were at, and get an overall feel for the pistol. Once completed, I then went to the plate rack for practice.

Load pistol, pull slide to the rear, let go, and holster. Wait for the beep, draw, aim, squeeze trigger and click. :angry: Pulled the slide back thinking I did not have the mag inserted when I did it before, and a round dribbled out to the ground. Let the slide go again, and proceeded to fire the rest of the magazine. Second magazine, inserted, slide racked, holstered. Beep, draw, aim, squeeze, bang, bang, bang, bang, click. :blink: So disheartened, I continued to practice and every few rounds, it would click. I picked up the rounds that did not fire and found very light primer strikes, and the strikes appeared to be off-center. The rounds that fired seemed to have deep primer strikes that were on-center. I thought that maybe the rounds were not all the way in battery, but the I can't see the first round in the magazine being short stroked.

The loads used were light production loads, but still chrono out over 145pf. I used MasterBlasters 180's with 3.6 grains of Ramshot Competition, Winchester small rifle primers loaded to a length of 1.140 in mixed range brass. When I inspected the rounds after loading, there did not appear to be any high primers, or other problems.

The pistol is a stock M&P .40 with no internal lock, or magazine disconnect. The springs are stock, and I have not tinkered with anything at this time.

I have attached a photo of some of the cases recovered after practice.

Any ideas of what is going on, and how to fix it, or is it time to call S&W?

456484-big.jpg

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Get a Glock :ph34r:

Just kidding. Handling primers at any step of the loading process can cause them to become inert (dead) and should at least be considered.

Do you touch your primers EVER ? Ever drop a couple and pick them up again ? I hate doing it but I will throw them directly in the trash can if I drop any, and I load Federals.

Just something to think about.

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high primers could be the cause, a friend of mine just started reloading and has had some high primers that would not ignite, also to light of a trigger job can also be the culprit. Handeling the primers also is not at good thing either, but I cant see all those rounds going bad because of it, maybe a bad batch of primers also. Good luck

PK

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Could be a high primer thing....as the striker hits the primer it seats it the rest of the way. The small rifle primers could also be a source of the problem, but a stock gun should set them off...Back to my first answer, I have found winchester primers to be a pain in the ass to seat all the way in certain headstamps of brass. Federals are very positive seating and I can easily get them into the pocket and feel it. I know you checked the primers, but make some more and seat the crap out of them...or better yet run some factory ammo and if it is the same, send it back.

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You could be damaging primers with the issue you reported in the 650 Crushing Cases thread.

Other than that, primer contamination and high primers are the common causes.

If it is the gun, then it could be the cold weather lately. The M&P is a new gun so I don't know how well it generally performs in the cold. I'd still make my first troubleshooting steps to check on the primers.

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The off center strikes are weird. Well strike. The left two seem within reasonable tolerances.

There are two revisions of the striker for the M&P. One, if removed, is shaped like an 'L', the newer revision is shaped like a 'J'.

It in theory gives more oomph to the striker.

Also check that your breechface isn't messed up. (older versions have a plain round hole, newer revisions have a sort of tear-drop divot at the firing pin hole, but that's deliberate from the factory).

I have an older one with the L shaped striker and no teardrop cut, and haven't had light strikes other than me not seting primers fully cause I was rushing to get some ammo made.

Something to try first might be to check your striker channel in the slide if you haven't It is lined with a plastic sleeve. When mine was new, there was some plastic fuzz/dust/shavings in there. Don't know if it is enough to cause that, but it is cheap and easy to check.

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high primers could be the cause, a friend of mine just started reloading and has had some high primers that would not ignite, also to light of a trigger job can also be the culprit. Handeling the primers also is not at good thing either, but I cant see all those rounds going bad because of it, maybe a bad batch of primers also. Good luck

PK

+1 for high primers. Make sure that they are not flush with the casing.

+100 for using Fed primers

-1 for tossing touched primers. I am anal to the point of not using touched/dropped primers in my match ammo, but I'll be darned if I'm going to let it go to waste. Load that sucker up, and toss the round in your practice bucket. Worst case scenario, it fails to fire (unlikely w/Feds) and you pull the bullet and reuse it.

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I would not be too quick to blame the WSP primers. I have used well over 100,000 of them. I had exactly two that failed to pop. Both had no mix in the cup. All of these were fired in Glocks with reduced power striker springs.

Touching primers will not kill them unless your hands are covered with oil.

I would bet high primers. One of the pictures looks a little odd. Looks like there is another gun that has the dreaded "Glock firing out of battery" syndrome. I'll bet it has an "unsupported chamber" also. How many kabooms have you had? Wait till this spreads across the internet like wildfire! :lol:

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Same problem here. Found the rifle primers are harder than the pistol primers. No to me the gun should shoot either primers. I do my pencil test (place pencil eraser first down the barrel of an unloaded gun) and the pencil barely come out. In comparison my STI limited gun with a 15lb main spring shoots the pencil out and hit the ceilling in the house.

So I'm still a bit perplexed as to why the striker is hitting so soft. Thinking a stronger striker spring is in order but no one makes one that I know of. I have had light hits with factory ammo as well. And even a few with pistol primers. The of center hit in that one picture makes me belive the gun was not totally into battery.

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The off center strikes indicate an out of battery condition.

Out-of-battery would account for the light strikes, even the center hits (they would be less out-of-battery, but out none the less).

It is a bit weird that it happens with the first round. Perhaps the fully loaded mag puts enough friction on the slide that the recoil spring doesn't have enough power to fully feed the first round.

- I'd switch to factory ammo for a bit, as Merlin suggested.

- After that, I'd download the mags from full capacity to take some pressure off.

- I'd look into what RIIID was talking about too. And, Paul's pencil test..

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I had a couple of light hits with factory ammo in my 9mm and did some really intense investigating. I found that my striker was dragging on the safety plunger at the bottom & top of the firing groove in the plunger. I high polished the entire striker and radiused the bottom & top edges at the firing groove on the safety plunger. I now have about 1500 rounds through the gun without a hickup. Take your striker out and look at it. If it is dragging the plunger it will be really obvious as you'll see rub lines along the striker shaft.

I've attached a picture of the safety plunger with arrows pointing to the locations I radiused (borrowed the pic from you Dan. Thanks) in order to stop the dragging.

post-180-1165852641.jpg

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Not to hijack the thread here, but does touching primers really make them inert?? I've never heard that (though I'm new to reloading).

I suppose some peoples body chemistry could make them inert, mine does not. I do as PB does and any I drop and pick up I use for practice rounds. Over 75,000 rounds reloaded and never a primer failure. (knock on wood before the next match) I have only used winchester and cci. The body chemisty thing is like people who's sweat rust their carry gun if they do not clean it every couple of days. Those people would probably kill a primer.

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I had the who plunger assembley out and did my pencil test and it did not change a thing.

Yeah, I did it with mine as soon as I got home and it barely moves the pencil 3" but my STI's, 1911's and XD shoot it to the ceiling. I think you're right with the heavier striker spring.

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Try some factory loads and see what happens. I havent had any issues w/ Winchester primers, but that is small pistol, not small rifle. The small rifle are definitely harder.

My PD is transitioning to the MP and I been teaching most all the classes. We have 4 days left (we taught 3 weeks straight for every day) to finish the whole PD in the new gun/holster. When we are done in 4 days, we will have fired in the area of 113,000 - 114,000 rounds in 3 weeks. I havent seen or heard of more than 10 malfunctions total (of any type) so far and we have 4 days left.

We are issuing the MP40's. You might want to take the strikers out and clean in there very well to ensure they isnt any shavings or crud in there. Also check the loads to see if they're in battery completely. The gun is not supposed to fire out of battery as told by SW and everything we have tested. I actually tried to set it up to do so and havent been able to.

Id shoot some factory stuff out of it and see. If that doesnt correct it, call SW.

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FYI, an un-named State Police Dept decided to switch to M&P's without testing & evaluation. They're having the same problems you're having. To the best of my knowledge, no remedy has been diagnosed yet.

Personally, I've not had any problems with them so far...but that doesn't help you, huh?

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Will the Glock striker spring work on the M&P?

In the big M&P thread I read about guys experimenting with the Wolf reduced power Glock striker spring in the M&P.

I know that Wolf makes an extra power Glock striker spring.

Edited by chp5
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Will the Glock striker spring work on the M&P?

In the big M&P thread I read about guys experimenting with the Wolf reduced power Glock striker spring in the M&P.

I know that Wolf makes an extra power Glock striker spring.

With my curiosity up, I took a stock Glock striker spring and put it in my M&P. I then loaded one round (that's all I can shoot without alarming the neighbors). I intentionally didn't push the primer (Winchester small pistol) all the way down (i.e. a high primer). It popped the primer with no problem.

Obviously one round doesn't mean it works consistently.

A couple of observations:

* the M&P spring seems to be heavier than the Glock spring, but the Glock spring is longer.

* I did not trim the Glock spring and it fit fine.

* If you lose the M&P spring retainer cups, the Glock cups work too.

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Will the Glock striker spring work on the M&P?

In the big M&P thread I read about guys experimenting with the Wolf reduced power Glock striker spring in the M&P.

I know that Wolf makes an extra power Glock striker spring.

With my curiosity up, I took a stock Glock striker spring and put it in my M&P. I then loaded one round (that's all I can shoot without alarming the neighbors). I intentionally didn't push the primer (Winchester small pistol) all the way down (i.e. a high primer). It popped the primer with no problem.

Obviously one round doesn't mean it works consistently.

A couple of observations:

* the M&P spring seems to be heavier than the Glock spring, but the Glock spring is longer.

* I did not trim the Glock spring and it fit fine.

* If you lose the M&P spring retainer cups, the Glock cups work too.

Did you have a chance to try a pencil test with the new striker spring? If so, how did it compare to the stock spring? Any additional loft?

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