Powder coated 45 ACP not fully chambering

7EB9E5EB-F1F0-4CE6-B513-C2988A897E82.jpgD5C9D706-7B69-40C1-A2D4-2AFFE4822E64.jpgSo , I just did a plunk test on 50 rounds, all 50 passed the test.

I then loaded a mag,from the 50 plunk test approved rounds, and still, first rnd failure.

Here’s a couple of pics.

First pic, you can see the slide is about an 1/8 of an inch out of battery.
Second pic is in battery, from me pushing it, which is very easy to do.

This happens from either slingshotting the slide, or using the slide release.
Also mostly happens on first round.
And it’s very,very hard to extract this first round , when this happens.

The rest of the mag , is smooth as butter.

Also, this only happens with my PC LRN cartridges.
 

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Eject the round that doesn't chamber and look for scuffs, etc. on the cartridge/bullet. That may give you an idea of where it is hanging up causing the FTF. Also, what is the weight of your recoil spring?. Assuming the gun is fairly new it's probably not an issue but a light/worn spring might not generate enough oomph to full chamber the round, especially if the chamber if fairly tight. I assume the rails, etc. are adequately lubed so there is minimal slide/frame friction.
 
4n2t0 said:
Why not? What happens if a round is too long?

P.S. PC won't stop a bullet from being crimped.
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Again I don’t reload but I don’t see the lengths interfering with complete chambering , may not fit in the mag etc but as far as I can tell the cartridge will chamber manually regardless of bullet lengths ?
 
Yes the gun is new, and lubed.
But I was wondering if the spring was strong enough, or if loads were not hot enough.

But, this only appears to happen on first rnd, today.

But it was occurring more frequently and on any rnd in the order, at the range.
 
83B46392-3CE4-4BB6-9DC7-7E763C73118F.jpgThere is a very noticeable cut/scratch on the case of the stuck cartridge. It’s in the exact same spot as the other stuck cartridges
 

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Brianma65 said:
View attachment 241550There is a very noticeable cut/scratch on the case of the stuck cartridge. It’s in the exact same spot as the other stuck cartridges
Click to expand...

This post and your others stating that it is only the first round in a mag-full leads me to believe you have a Mag spring problem. If you can under-load your mag (ie. 2nd round thru to empty) and have them chamber then I think the mag spring is causing the first shell to bite into the mag lips (causing the scratch) and this is slowing down/restricting your slide travel enough to hamper it attaining "battery position".

It could be as simple a problem as your mag spring or follower bunch up in the bottom of the mag causing more pressure on the first round and is released after the first one is out of the way.
 
Do you insert the mag with the slide closed or open? If you open the slide, then insert the mag and don't have the problem, but it happens when you insert the mag on a closed slide, then try to rack (and then it's hard AF), it means the first bullet is pressing onto the slide too much. It means you ammo is within spec for the gun, but it's a bit too large for the magazine.

It might seem crazy, but a 0.002'' too much is invisible to the naked eye, but multiplied by 10 rounds is 0.02'', or 4.5% of a round. Some magazine made for 10 rounds will barely accept 10, so that tiny bit pushes everything out of specs. I have badly crimped magazines that can in theory accept 10 rounds but in practice I have to use only 9.

Have you tried resized lubed instead of PC bullets? Resized with the same resizing die i mean. Those dies are usually made for cast bullets, which are usually a little bigger than jacketed or plated.

Anther test you could try is to insert 9 factory rounds in you mag, then top it off with one of your PC. See if you have the same problem.
 
Hrsplit said:
Again I don’t reload but I don’t see the lengths interfering with complete chambering , may not fit in the mag etc but as far as I can tell the cartridge will chamber manually regardless of bullet lengths ?
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Incorrect.

Like you said, you don't reload.
 
You need to bell your case mouths a bit more for the Pc bullets. There is a visible roll of pc at the end of the case mouth. That will stop the cartridge from going all the way into battery. Then some of that pc gets stuck in the chamber and the proceeding bullets don't seat fully either. Check you pistol chamber for pc. And in the future bell the case mouths a bit so your not scrapping pc off the bullet. Extract a bullet and see how much pc is scraped off of it.
 
tigrr said:
You need to bell your case mouths a bit more for the Pc bullets. There is a visible roll of pc at the end of the case mouth. That will stop the cartridge from going all the way into battery. Then some of that pc gets stuck in the chamber and the proceeding bullets don't seat fully either. Check you pistol chamber for pc. And in the future bell the case mouths a bit so your not scrapping pc off the bullet. Extract a bullet and see how much pc is scraped off of it.
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I put a bell on the cases, but did find a few that was tight, I’ll look into that as well.
 
You definitely need to flare the case more, although the pictures are pretty poor you can see that the PC is rolling at the case mouth. Are you using a combo seat/crimp?

Since you're only having problems with the first round now have you tried loading the mags to less than full capacity?
 
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Yes , I’m using a seat crimp die, I’m gonna try a few tonight with more of a flare.

I’ve always loaded to max, I’ll try some tonight, 5 rounds in the mag.

When the first round stops the slide from going into battery, it’s 50 50, on difficulty of pushing the slide, the last 1/8 of an inch.
Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s hard.

When it’s hard to push it into battery, that’s when the rnd is hard to eject and leaves that cut on the case.
 
Make sure your seat/crimp die isn't crimping before the bullets allowed to be completely seated (see video).

The scratch on the brass could be the follower, mag lips, chamber burr etc. The good thing about the scratch is that you should be able to see where the brass is being deposited if you inspect the firearm/magazine closely. This information will also help diagnose your feeding problems.


[youtube]4Cv66jiNgYI[/youtube]
 
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I've had lots of situations in tight chambered firearms, that won't chamber that last little bit with powder coating.
The first bit of the ogive is now larger and resizing doesn't touch it.
The NOE sizing system has a unit with which you can size the nose portion a bit. I haven't had good luck with it.

Some people are enthused over getting a nice, thick even coat on the bullet, but it's not necessary in my limited experience.
The colour pigment adds to the thickness and is just cosmetic. One of my most annoying rifles was partly cured when I used John Deere Green which produced a very mottled, anaemic coat.
Yet this thin coat chambered well and put ten shots into 2 & 1/8 inches at 100 yards over 2000 f/s with iron sights.

In my last batch of .45 ACP, I needed a bigger flare on the case, since a bit of the coating was scraped off and gathered at the mouth of the case. I then bought a Lee factory crimp die with the bulge busting ring and all is golden.

Of course, YMMV.
 
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