380 ez just wondering

[britbike1]

Was thinking about getting one of these, but there has to be a solution to the stove pipe issue. So here are some questions I haven't seen brought up.
1. does the slide lock back when there is a last round stovepipe.
2. is there a proper orientation, front to back, top to bottom of the mag spring. I know on M-1 carbines it makes a difference.
3. could the shape of the follower be different between good and bad mags. Also the underside of the follower where the spring contacts it.
4. has anyone measured the feed lips of the different mags for width
5. if this is only a last round issue does it happen when you load 7 instead of 8 in the mag.
Appreciate any information, Thank you

 

[christak]

1. No, the live round is caught in the ejection port. (Well, I think it does if the live round is completely ejected.)
2. Yes, front to back, but not top to bottom (I've tried both ways).
3. Hard to say, but I'd say no based on comparison of my replacement followers and original ones...they all look the same and all have issues.
4. A gunsmith buddy that works at my regular gun range measured mine with calipers. The five I have varied by a few thousandths of an inch. I have trouble with all five mags.
5. It happens when you load 2, 4, or 8 for sure...it is truly a last round issue. You can get a live round stovepipe or a completely ejected live round.

 

[D.L.Quick]

Gentlemen, I have been following every thread that comes up about the EZ. My man. date 012919, pur. date 4/24/19. I believe the feed lips on the mag. are not long enough to force the last rd. to go into the chamber before it is flipped upright by the follower. The other rds. are held in place by the next rd.on top. Lock the slide back, place a casing or a snap cap in a magazine, slowly push the casing or the snap cap forward and watch the follower push it upright caught between the feed lips. Now carefully insert the magazine and notice the case position. Release the slide and see what happens. STOVE PIPE. Who knows? I was a sucker for the Walther CCP and they still haven't figured it out. best of luck to all, Quick

 

[christak]

Gentlemen, I have been following every thread that comes up about the EZ. My man. date 012919, pur. date 4/24/19. I believe the feed lips on the mag. are not long enough to force the last rd. to go into the chamber before it is flipped upright by the follower. The other rds. are held in place by the next rd.on top. Lock the slide back, place a casing or a snap cap in a magazine, slowly push the casing or the snap cap forward and watch the follower push it upright caught between the feed lips. Now carefully insert the magazine and notice the case position. Release the slide and see what happens. STOVE PIPE. Who knows? I was a sucker for the Walther CCP and they still haven't figured it out. best of luck to all, Quick

Certainly possible. My gunsmith friend was looking over my mags and, with a single round in the mag, simulated the loading action manually (outside the gun) by holding the tab on the side of the mag down a bit and then releasing it. He was able to occasionally make the live round pop up so its nose was pointing straight up while the casing was still in the mag (with the primer basically sitting on the top of the follower). I'm convinced this is a mag design issue, but that's not what S&W customer support said when they asked me to return my gun (without the mags). I'll be shocked if my gun is fixed when it's returned to me by S&W. But if it's not, it'll be going back again. I won't keep a gun that behaves like this...

 

[MikeAEZ]

Certainly possible. My gunsmith friend was looking over my mags and, with a single round in the mag, simulated the loading action manually (outside the gun) by holding the tab on the side of the mag down a bit and then releasing it. He was able to occasionally make the live round pop up so its nose was pointing straight up while the casing was still in the mag (with the primer basically sitting on the top of the follower). I'm convinced this is a mag design issue, but that's not what S&W customer support said when they asked me to return my gun (without the mags). I'll be shocked if my gun is fixed when it's returned to me by S&W. But if it's not, it'll be going back again. I won't keep a gun that behaves like this...

Well I did get mine back yesterday. All they did was ship back the mag with new springs and included three more for my other three magazines. Nothing done to the gun.

I will say that the new springs are longer and stiffer, noticeably. Loading the last round is nowhere near as easy as the old springs.

I am going to the range in a few hours and will report back. I wish I could say my hopes were high.

 

[christak]

Well I did get mine back yesterday. All they did was ship back the mag with new springs and included three more for my other three magazines. Nothing done to the gun.

I will say that the new springs are longer and stiffer, noticeably. Loading the last round is nowhere near as easy as the old springs.

I am going to the range in a few hours and will report back. I wish I could say my hopes were high.

Anxious to hear... Not really surprised they did nothing to the gun. It's got to be a magazine issue, but I don't believe springs are the complete solution. We'll see.

 

[trikerdon]

I wonder why some have this problem and I assume others don't? I have almost a 1000 rds thru mine and have never experienced a stovepipe. I have the original magazines and a couple of others I purchased off of eBay.

 

[TBird55]

My EZ has had nearly 2,500 rounds through it. Had a few live round/ last round stovepipes in the first 200 rounds, with one mag only (Winchester white box 95 grain FMJ flat nose), none since.

I have four magazines, original springs & followers, all four are now reliable. I have them numbered for identification, in case a mag feed issue develops again.

My EZ loves Tulammo, Geco, and Winchester white box FMJ. I shoot only FMJ ammo. I prefer a bullet to go all the way through the target, vs not far enough. Is the fact that I shoot only FMJ an issue regarding last round stovepipe? I don't know.

I found that a firm grip on this pistol is the best for accuracy, and reliability. The grips are thin and flat, and this may well be an issue for some shooters who are used to larger, rounded grips.

Now, this thread has a more positive review and opinion of the EZ. It's a great pistol, and I trust my life to it's functionality.

 

[christak]

I wonder why some have this problem and I assume others don't? I have almost a 1000 rds thru mine and have never experienced a stovepipe. I have the original magazines and a couple of others I purchased off of eBay.

I would love to know the answer... I have 2700 rounds through my EZ and have had the issue the whole time. Early on it wasn't as bad as it's been in the last 6 months. I've replaced my five mag springs twice since January. Changed the followers and springs just over 2 weeks ago along with my recoil spring assembly. The gun was having the last round issue about 20% of the time before I returned it to S&W. I've had no issues with the gun except for this pesky last round issue that seems as though it will be with me until I get rid of the gun. Waiting for S&W to return the gun. We'll see.

 

[MikeAEZ]

Anxious to hear... Not really surprised they did nothing to the gun. It's got to be a magazine issue, but I don't believe springs are the complete solution. We'll see.

Well, here is my report. I'll try and lay out what I did.

S&W sent me back the mag I had sent with new springs, and springs for the other three. All of the springs had yellow paint near the ends. They were roughly two links longer than the old springs. When I replaced them, it was obvious that they were much stiffer. One, in fact, was so stiff that it was almost impossible to load the last round. I loaded them up on a Thursday and put them in the safe. Went to the range on Friday.

First ammo type was Federal American Eagle 90 grain. Loaded all mags up. Stovepipe on last round 3 out of 4 magazines, stovepipe on next to last round on one. Not a good start. Loaded them all up again. Stovepiped on last round on only one magazine, rest were fine. Isolated this mag.

Loaded 4 mags again, all fired fine except noted isolated mag which stovepiped last round.

Did it again, same result with the isolated mag.

Down to 13 bullets, loaded one with 8 and one with 5. All fired. Did not use the isolated mag.

Switched to Magtech, had a box of 50. Loaded all four mags.
Isolated mag stovepiped next to last round. Of the others, one stovepiped last round with only 5 loaded in magazine. One mag failed to lock slide back after last round fired. The above mentioned isolated mag also failed to lock slide back after last round fired.

Switched to Fiocchi 90 grain.
One stovepipe in first three mags (not counting bad mag). The bad isolated mag failed to lock slide back after last round. On a subsequent loading it "stovepipe-ejected" the last live round. All the rest were fine.

So of the 200 rounds I fired, what did I learn?

I have a very consistent live stovepipe on last round with one mag. Maybe it's the follower or the feed lips- not sure. I did note with this magazine it was extremely hard to load the last bullet. In any case, I am taking this mag out of the rotation.

Of all the others, nearly all the live round stovepipes seemed to be the very first time I used the magazines with the new springs.

The failures to lock back are a little odd. Most occurred with the bad mag. One occurred with one of the others. I would think this might be a function of the recoil spring.

Next time I will do more testing. I feel the gun is stovepiping less when I factor out the bad magazine.

One last comment. I was explaining the issue to the range safety officer. He knew of the problem with the EZ and said that when loading the magazine, make sure to slingshot the slide- don't just release the slide lock lever. He claims this cures the problem. I tend to use a mix of slingshotting and slide release. I wasn't paying attention to this but will be careful to only slingshot next time.

 

[Redcoat3340]

I will follow this thread with great interest. I've put about 500 rounds of mixed stuff through mine and haven't had a problem. But I'll be watching much closer the next time I take it.

(Mine is 2.0, purchased new about a year ago. Serial is NBZ97**. Not sure of date of manufacture.)

 

[Old and Grumpy]

I will follow this thread with great interest. I've put about 500 rounds of mixed stuff through mine and haven't had a problem. But I'll be watching much closer the next time I take it.

(Mine is 2.0, purchased new about a year ago. Serial is NBZ97**. Not sure of date of manufacture.)

Look on the box end if you still have it ,the date will be on it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[D.L.Quick]

I think the mother ship will sometime make a modification to the follower or to the mag. itself. Wish I had several followers to try different ideas with. Working on one at the time but haven't had a chance to get to the range. By the way mine came with yellow painted springs and had a black mark across the followers. Thought that have had some meaning. Quick

 

[Doug M.]

With many things, not just firearms, I will note that various batches of the same thing will be just slightly different. Shortcuts, poor QC, a little cheaper design, any of the above or more, and the outcome at the user level will be different. I've shot an EZ briefly, and it seemed to work fine.

While .380s can be finicky, and vary in tolerance of different ammo, I am seeing descriptions here that do not match the kind of issues I have seen with different ammo. The only .380 I have is a Glock 42, and it is just now, after at least 600 rounds, being more tolerant of lighter loads. It seemed fine with a couple of types of ball and Fiocchi JHP, but would not work consistently with Black Hills Honey Badger until the last range visit.

 

[christak]

...

One last comment. I was explaining the issue to the range safety officer. He knew of the problem with the EZ and said that when loading the magazine, make sure to slingshot the slide- don't just release the slide lock lever. He claims this cures the problem. I tend to use a mix of slingshotting and slide release. I wasn't paying attention to this but will be careful to only slingshot next time.

Thanks for the update. Sounds to me like the magazines are indeed the root of the problem. I think S&W needs to step up and redesign the EZ mags. They need to replace the magazines of those having issues. I'll be interested to hear what they say about my gun (after they claimed the magazines weren't the problem with my gun).

...and for the record I always slingshot my slide...it doesn't cure the problem.

 

[MikeAEZ]

Thanks for the update. Sounds to me like the magazines are indeed the root of the problem. I think S&W needs to step up and redesign the EZ mags. They need to replace the magazines of those having issues. I'll be interested to hear what they say about my gun (after they claimed the magazines weren't the problem with my gun).

...and for the record I always slingshot my slide...it doesn't cure the problem.

Interesting. I'll let you know how my wife's gun progresses. I wonder if I always had the bad mag and that was the source of the error. But I agree, I think the magazine has a design flaw. Unfortunately, the gun is cheap enough I don't know whether S&W will address it. I wonder if the new Performance Center EZ's use the same magazine. I bet they do.

 

[christak]

Interesting. I'll let you know how my wife's gun progresses. I wonder if I always had the bad mag and that was the source of the error. But I agree, I think the magazine has a design flaw. Unfortunately, the gun is cheap enough I don't know whether S&W will address it. I wonder if the new Performance Center EZ's use the same magazine. I bet they do.

If S&W doesn't find something wrong and modify my EZ in some way while they have it, I'm going to press them to replace all five of my magazines. Maybe that will help because my current magazines all exhibit the last round issue, even with new mag springs and followers. If new magazines don't fix the problem, I'll try to get a new gun or alternative model from Smith. Not keeping this EZ/mags "as is" and certainly wouldn't sell it to someone.

 

[D.L.Quick]

Get out your calipers guys, check out the opening at the feed lips on the EZ 380 and any 9mm mag you might have. The ones I checked show 9mm to be tighter than the EZ mag. The EZ mags are surely a little looser than a mag. that holds a larger rd. Could be allowing the rd. to jump out sooner from not being held tight enough at the feed lips. Just looking at all the angles. Quick

 

[D.L.Quick]

K! Gents, Run this up the flag pole. As the mag. sits in the grip, the top round is compressed by the bottom of the slide. When next to the last rd. is fired, the slide, still compressing the last round onto the follower, commences to retract. As the bottom of the breech face[ the area that pushes the rd. into the chamber] passes back over that last rd. the downward pressure on the back of the rim forces the round down and flips it upright.The" Tiddily Winks" effect. The rd. sitting upright on the follower causes the "nub" on the follower to not activate the slide catch and therefore does not hold the slide back, result---Stove Pipe on unfired rd. How to fix? Simply grind more of an angle on that bottom of the breech face that pushes the rds so as not to catch the case rim on the way back. Now maybe I'll be able to go back to sleep until another idea pops up. Anxious to hear how S&W finally figures what to do. Quick

 

[sotexas]

I am one of the fortunate people, I have 2 and have had no issues. Combined approaching 1000rnds. My wife shoots hers (approximately 200 - 250rnds) every time we go to the range. Very nice guns for their intended purpose.