Girsan MC28 Problems

Andronicus

Andronicus

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So I picked up a Girsan MC28 SA at Cabela's a couple of weeks ago when they had them on sale for $350. Had really good reviews, so figured it was low risk at that price.

Was out shooting three types of 115gr 9mm rounds. Winchester Forged, Herter'z (Cabela's store brand), and some reloads. All of them had problems cycling the action on the Girsan. Not one of the reloads was able to cycle the action, and not one magazine of the others two brands finished without a stoppage. A guy at the range gave me 10 rounds of 129gr and they worked perfectly.

I suspect it is a overly heavy recoil spring. I read somewhere that Grisan handguns were developed for 124gr military or police rounds (not sure if that's true?) I'm planning to head to the range again with some 124gr or 147gr or whatever; something heavier to see if that solves the problem. I have also thought about trying to get a lighter recoil spring. I have read the S&W M&P recoil springs work.

Anyone have any tips?
 
All rounds extracted from the chamber fine.

The reloads didn't cycle at all, but extracted fine when manually cycled. Most of the factory rounds worked fine, but some didn't fully eject, sometimes the slide didn't retract far enough, closing on an empty chamber, and often, on the last round, the last slide didn't retract far enough to engage the hold open.

I'm fairly sure it is the loads being too light for the weight of the recoil spring.
 
The only ammo I had trouble with was Winchester white box. I have noticed one thing on my MC28 the firing pin seems to drag on the primers when it extracts it makes the primers look like they were struck at a downward angle other than that I have no issues.
 
Ammo not cycling the action probably means you have a pretty stiff recoil spring (unless something's broken). Don't worry about the "this gun was made for xx ammo" nonsense. Since you reload try some max loads to see if the cycling improves. If the gun cycles you might have to run them hot for a while or look into getting a lighter recoil spring.
 
WobblyHead said:
...I have noticed one thing on my MC28 the firing pin seems to drag on the primers when it extracts it makes the primers look like they were struck at a downward angle other than that I have no issues.
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I noticed this too. Is this likely to result in problems in the future?

EDIT: Googling seems to indicate that this is a common occurrence with striker fired pistols. Almost ubiquitous on Glocks and Sigs, common on others.

4n2t0 said:
Ammo not cycling the action probably means you have a pretty stiff recoil spring (unless something's broken). Don't worry about the "this gun was made for xx ammo" nonsense. Since you reload try some max loads to see if the cycling improves. If the gun cycles you might have to run them hot for a while or look into getting a lighter recoil spring.
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I did try heavier loads that a gentlemen at the range lent/gave to me. He gave me ten 129gr Sellier & Bellot rounds; this was the only magazine with no stoppage (the ten 129gr rounds worked flawlessly).

I don't reload, I was using professional reloads I bought. It seemed that they were likely loaded a bit lighter than standard factory loads.

I contacted North Sylva for warranty. I decided that since this is a new gun, this isn't my problem to fix. They quickly sent me a RMA number. We will see how that turns out.

EDIT: Anyone know how to disassemble the recoil spring assembly? Seems the small end of the rod may be a threaded cap? Maybe use soft jaws or something to unscrew it? Since I am sending this for warranty, I won't be disassembling, but I am interested to know.

The parts list in the manual indicates the same recoil spring for the 9mm and the 40S&W. Maybe these springs are always a little on the heavy side, and I just got one that is in the top percentile of the spring tolerance, making it too heavy for 9mm.
 
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in 2500+ rounds I've had a total of 5 stoppages and 3 of them were the ammo, one stovepipe and one failure to extract. The damned thing powered through pretty much every type of ammo that I fed it, even cheapo aluminum-case stuff (actually I think it liked the aluminum stuff more than anything else)
 
Reviving this thread. I just received this back from North Sylva warranty. I went to the range yesterday and did some shooting.

Much improved. It cycled all the factory ammo I tried, and I was able to get some of the reloads to cycle correctly by locking my elbows (preventing any backward recoil movement of the gun). It is now about 800 rounds through it so I don't think any problems would be related to 'break in'.

I'm not sure what they did to it. Nothing obvious, maybe replaced the recoil spring. I suppose I should have marked it before shipping it out so I could tell.

Anyway, I'm quite happy with it now!
 
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