Bad 3rd gen fail (probably ammo?)

[Jim PHL]

3953 failed to go fully into battery last night on the range. We had been shooting it for a while, had about 50-60 rounds through it. My first instinct was to try and nudge the slide forward to close it fully but it wouldn't budge. I dropped the mag and attempted to rack the slide but it wouldn't come rearward, either. I tried really hard to pull the slide to clear it but no luck. It looked to me like the extractor hook passed over the rim and the round was not fully into the chamber. I really could not budge the slide. I finally put the top of the slide against the cleat in the side of the booth that holds the shelf. When I pushed hard the slide finally cycled. At my feet I found the bullet but never found the empty casing with the unstruck primer. It may have gone forward of the booth. We were the last ones on the range last night and there was a ton of brass out there. There was no way for me to find it and examine it. I examined it carefully, cycled the slide by hand, dry-fired, etc. Everything appeared in order and I ran a few more mags through it without another incident.

My 3953 is extremely reliable. If I've had a failure in the past I don't remember it. I bought it used and have fired hundreds, maybe thousands of rounds through it without fail. I replaced the recoil spring when I first got it and it is kept clean and properly lubricated. I am thinking it was probably a bad round, bullet loaded crooked so that the tip of the bullet entered the chamber and the case was tilted down allowing the hook to pass over the cartridge rim. Does this sound like a possibility or does anyone have another theory? This is my carry gun so I am hoping there is agreement out there that this was probably a bad round.

 

[Badkarma 1]

Was it factory ammo? I had an Edwardsville cop give me a box of their training ammo, which was once fired Win.+P+ brass that they reloaded with 115 gr. FMJ bullets. I had too check each round for various things like bullet seated too deep, warped cases, and crooked bullets. Plus the brass wasn't cleaned either! My SIG ate all of the correct rounds like candy, and even though it was CRUDY, it ran perfectly! So yeah it sounds like you had a bad round! Always check your ammo. Dale

 

[Fastbolt]

No way to know without having been able to look at the stoppage, and then examine the loaded round that failed to fully seat and allow the slide to go forward into battery.

If the gun appeared in normal and good working condition, my first inclination would be to suspect an ammo problem. What were you shooting?

I've had a fair number of folks not give rounds more than a cursory glance when taking them from a box and loading them into a magazine, missing some defects that prevented feeding, chambering or firing ... and which were "obvious" once the rounds were removed and checked a little more carefully. The last time I was present when someone had it happen, it involved a deformed & crumpled case mouth on one side (which had apparently not been either felt, or positioned so it had been seen, when the person was loading the magazine).

Some of them can be more obvious, though. This one was actually seen by someone who thought it might not be a good thing to shoot when loading the magazine for a qual course-of-fire.




One like this one got loaded and chambered, but the case mouth created problems when the shooter fired the gun. This round was actually caught before being loaded into a magazine.

Even something as simple as a case rim tolerance variation can cause feeding trouble, though.

BTW, if it were my 3953, I'd have replaced the recoil spring sometime between 3-5K rounds (or at least no later than 5K rounds, as that's the recommended interval when it comes to rounds fired).

 

[Jim PHL]

Thanks for the replies so far. I am sure I am not near 3-5000 rounds on the new recoil spring. Maybe somewhere between 1000-2000. I am also pretty confident I would catch a round in as poor condition as those in Fastbolt's photos of badly damaged cases. What I'm thinking is maybe the bullet was not seated properly and not seated straight in the case. It was Winchester white box 115 gr from Wal-Mart in the 100 round pack. I think I would FEEL a case that badly shaped in my hand before actually putting it in a magazine. With both bullet and case smooth and in good shape I may have not noticed if the bullet was slightly 'cocked/crooked' and not perfectly straight. If this was the case, would a cartridge so-shaped cause this type of failure?

 

[Treeman]

Sounds like a bad round ....It isn't fair to call this a "bad" gun failure. Nothing blew up. Nothing became permanently inoperable. It would be nice to know WHAT actually happened but the gun didn't fail.

 

[Fastbolt]

I had 2 rounds out of a box of low-bid duty ammo that stopped short of fully chambering in my pistol, keeping the slide out-of-battery.

Both rounds appeared fine to the naked eye.

It wasn't until I checked them more carefully back at the bench that I discovered both cases had been trimmed just overly long enough to prevent them from being fully chambered.

A couple of years later one of our guys pulled a round of another caliber (from another major manufacturer's contract duty loads) and experienced exactly the same problem. The case had been trimmed improperly and was just barely too long to permit proper chambering. Another .

Fortunately, both instances were discovered on the practice range and not on the street.

I've lost count of the many ten's of thousands of both brands/calibers of these duty loads that have been fired by our folks and have been just fine.

When you think about how the big companies can run their automated equipment 24hrs a day, and turn out up to 1 million rounds in 24hrs, it's rather amazing they do as well when it comes to QC as they do.

I remember several years ago when one of the gun companies was trying to resolve some reported feeding stoppages reported by at least a couple of their customer agencies. When the company couldn't duplicate the reported problems, they eventually asked for one of the agencies to send them the duty ammo being used.

Testing at the gun company using the specific duty ammo revealed that not only were some occasional rounds exhibiting significantly reduced velocities (below required spec on the bid), but the case rim dimensions were found to be a bit out at the "generous" end of normal tolerances, and it was felt this could have contributed to the feeding problems (the case rim sliding normally up under the extractor). The gun company said they routinely test-fired with an assortment of commonly used duty ammo, but they hadn't tested that particular brand/line recently and were surprised by the tolerance variance.

Sometimes an ammo problem can come along.

 

[Jim PHL]

I am going to continue the presumption that I had a bad round...but, strictly for safety's sake of course, it might be a good idea to get back the range asap and run a couple hundred rounds through her, "just to be sure". (Any excuse will do.)

I really like the 3953. My 19-year-old daughter has been coming to the range with me lately. She loves the Ruger MkII and S+W model18 .22's and also thinks the Marlin Model 60 is cool and fun. I think her favorite is the Ladysmith M65. Imagine a teenager from the 21st century preferring a steel revolver to a Glock!
She had fliching issues with the Hi-power and Glock triggers, but seemed to like shooting my revolvers in DA. This last range trip she held and fired the 3953 for the first time and shot it better than any of the other centerfires she has tried. She really likes it and I think stroking the DAO trigger vs. staging another trigger up to a let-off point has helped her fight the flinch. I also amazed both her and myself with just how much a little dry-fire practice, especially with this DAO trigger can actually help you when live rounds are chambered.

I think she is already deciding whether the 3953 or the Ladysmith will become "hers". Not sure I'm going to have any say in that matter!