BG380, What am I doing wrong?

[MountaintopPA]

I own a EAF series BG380 that I purchased new back in January 2011. Thus far, I have put about 450 rounds through it. The last two times I have fired the gun I have noticed an increase, one out of six rounds failing to load. The gun fires, ejects normally and the new round hangs up. I tap the mag on the bottom and then rack the slide and the round goes in. This past Friday it hung up like this about a dozen times while shooting a box of 50 Federals. I use mostly Federal ammo. The gun is clean.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
g

 

[OKFC05]

Tried disassembling, cleaning and thoroughly drying the magazines?
I use CRC Silicone as a cleaning and dry lubricating agent.

 

[computeruser]

When you shrink a gun down enough, these troubles seem to pop up. At 450 rounds, you may even be coming up on time for a recoil spring change.

A number of associates had these sorts of problems with the Kahr PM9, and all of them retired those guns as back-up pieces for that reason.

Any gun that is this finicky is not suitable for defensive use, frankly.

 

[jdh]

Do you have more than one mag? If so does it do it with all of them or just one in particular?

 

[MountaintopPA]

No, I only have the one mag. They are, so far, hard to find.
I did notice oil on top of the mag where the first round sits when I first loaded the gun on Friday. I need to strip it down and give it a good cleaning. I also noticed that the recoil spring fits either way and I wonder if that makes a difference?

 

[reerc]

Have you always been using one make/model of ammo, or have these issues spanned multiple ammo manufacturers? I had a pistol once that choked and puked on one brand, but does fine with others.

FWIW.

 

[Janster]

How often do you clean it?

I've had mine since the end of January. Everytime we take it out to the range (twice a month??), we'll run about 50 rounds through it and always clean/lubricate it when we get home. The thing has worked flawlessly (I'll have to ask the husband what ammo we use). I have three mags.

 

[Copnomore]

Clean the mag and dry completely with a cloth and/or compressed air. Do not oil the mag or its components. Definitely do not use WD-40 on you weapon. The WD-40 penetrates so well it has been known to penetrate the cartridges causing FTFs.

 

[MountaintopPA]

I have used mostly Federal ammo. I too break the gun down after each use and give it a good cleaning. I have not pulled the mag apart but will do that later today. No, I don't use WD-40 on any of my guns and follow the S&W direction on oiling. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Copnomore]

MountainTop, I would recommend not using any cleaning solution on the mags. There are no "real" moving parts in there that would benefit for the use of oil or solvents, just a good dry tooth brush cleaning should suffice. I was instructing one day and a student asked a specific question about the use a bit of oil on the spring in the mag. I told him sure, but wipe it clean. I just happened to be getting audited by a fellow instructor, former Secret Service instructor and holder of more that about 20 assorted national shooting records. The statement was not even completely out of my mouth when his head looked like it was going to explode. After I was done, he politely made a correction to my statement and gave the advice I just put forth. I consider him an expert and I always follow his advice.