Hi everyone,
I want to share some of my experiences with bullet profiles and feeding problems I have experienced with my NP58.
A bit of a preamble: First of all, it is the nicest finished and fitted Norinco I have ever seen. I bought it because fate landed about 2000 spent cases of .40 cal in my possession; so I figured get something to shoot them with.
I started with Campro 180 gr. TC FCP and SH FCP ; the Truncated Cone fed perfectly, but the shouldered (round nose flat points frequently jammed on the left edge of the loading ramp. Both were loaded to COAL of 1.135 I spent some time with a pencil grinder and opened up the ramp on both the frame and the barrel; polished them up, and because the action seemed a bit sluggish, loaded to the listed max load. Everything ran perfect from that point on.
I also had some Caliber 180g FCP bullets when they were available and am still shooting some of that ammo, and it too is working amazingly well.
Now that Caliber is no longer available (regrettably) I started looking for something to try. Bulls Eye had some XMetal 180g "Sledge Hammer" target bullets; while not a flat point round nose, they appear to be more of a flattened spire point; I expected that with the smooth finish and longer lead in shape, that they would feed like magic. I was wrong. 6-7 out of ten would either jam against the bottom of the barrel feed ramp, or they would jam agaiinst the top of the chamber without going in. These were loaded to max load data to a COAL of again 1.135.
Thinking that it may be a length thing due to the different shape of the bullet, I tried different COALs loading 20 of each; 1.120 and 1.150; the shorter ones would not feed at all, the 1.135 behaved the same, and the 1.15 all started into the chamber, but again jammed against the top of the chamber.
I spent another hour further opening up the ramp areas and polishing, and finally got them to feed.
Has anyone else had similar issues with the NP58 or any other .40 cal pistols? If so, how did you resolve it?
Thanks,
Mark
I want to share some of my experiences with bullet profiles and feeding problems I have experienced with my NP58.
A bit of a preamble: First of all, it is the nicest finished and fitted Norinco I have ever seen. I bought it because fate landed about 2000 spent cases of .40 cal in my possession; so I figured get something to shoot them with.
I started with Campro 180 gr. TC FCP and SH FCP ; the Truncated Cone fed perfectly, but the shouldered (round nose flat points frequently jammed on the left edge of the loading ramp. Both were loaded to COAL of 1.135 I spent some time with a pencil grinder and opened up the ramp on both the frame and the barrel; polished them up, and because the action seemed a bit sluggish, loaded to the listed max load. Everything ran perfect from that point on.
I also had some Caliber 180g FCP bullets when they were available and am still shooting some of that ammo, and it too is working amazingly well.
Now that Caliber is no longer available (regrettably) I started looking for something to try. Bulls Eye had some XMetal 180g "Sledge Hammer" target bullets; while not a flat point round nose, they appear to be more of a flattened spire point; I expected that with the smooth finish and longer lead in shape, that they would feed like magic. I was wrong. 6-7 out of ten would either jam against the bottom of the barrel feed ramp, or they would jam agaiinst the top of the chamber without going in. These were loaded to max load data to a COAL of again 1.135.
Thinking that it may be a length thing due to the different shape of the bullet, I tried different COALs loading 20 of each; 1.120 and 1.150; the shorter ones would not feed at all, the 1.135 behaved the same, and the 1.15 all started into the chamber, but again jammed against the top of the chamber.
I spent another hour further opening up the ramp areas and polishing, and finally got them to feed.
Has anyone else had similar issues with the NP58 or any other .40 cal pistols? If so, how did you resolve it?
Thanks,
Mark
