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Old 11-29-2011, 10:29 PM
Snoguy Snoguy is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Idaho
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeorgiaShooter View Post
My bodyguard was working so well I bought another for my son EAV####. Within an hour of owning, oiling and tuning it up and dry firing to loosen the trigger the firing pin snapped. Dealer sent it back to Smith a month ago and it might be lost in shipment (send them back yourself). The dealer and S&W CS told me this was a fluke issue (roll eyes). And I should be able to dry fire away.

Well fast forward.... my main #1 BG380 EATxxxx which I absolutely love now, broke the firing pin too a few days ago when firing only a few times. Broke exact same place right where the rear meets the first cutout. I've fired about 1000+ rounds maybe more. Originally broke the trigger in with about 400-500 dry fires with no issues. Laser buttons working great after fix. Tuned it up and polished the ejector and this thing runs like a sewing machine, or it did. Obviously I'll be using snap caps in the future.

I saw a comment on the web these pins are MIM manufactured. I guess meaning they are metal injected molding? Or a powder injected into a mold to make a metal part.

Honestly this sounds like pot metal, pig iron or something. Can anyone comment? I'm now worried S&W is using a less than wonderful type of firing pin. I see a lot of broken firing pin results on google too.
Dry firing with snap caps did not prevent my firing pin (S/N EAHxxxx) from breaking after about 300 dry fires. It's been fine since S&W replaced the firing pin, with about 300 live fires since on the new firing pin. I dry fire very little now.

Judging from the broad span of broken firing pins across a wide range od S/Ns, it's my opinion that the 380 firing pin has a design problem, which results in a stress point where all these things seem to be breaking.

The metal injection molding process is a widely used and accepted manufacturing process when done correctly, so I'm not so sure it is the source of these problems. However, problems with the MIM process could make a design problem worse. From what I've heard S&W tells everyone with a broken firing pin that their problem is an isolated case. I would recommend against much dry firing, even with snap caps.

Dave

Last edited by Snoguy; 11-30-2011 at 03:06 PM.
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