Firing Pin Failures....MIM!!!???

[Randy Lee]

Possibly. But I know that the short conical Ti pins of late have a surface treatment to reduce abrasive wear which could be removed and expose raw Ti alloy. Smith does have some of the .49+ firing pins sitting in inventory and all of those that I have seen have spherical tips.

 

[tomcatt51]

FWIW the only S&W conical tip pin I've seen came out a JM 625-8. It measured.49+, I left it in. The fired primers do look different, no doubt which pin it has.

When I was speaking of broken pins I wasn't referring to fractured tips. I was refering to the C&S pins I've seen which have to whole tip broken off thru the tip to body transition (radius). BROKEN not just fractured or chipped.

 

[Randy Lee]

Hi tomcatt51,

I too have seen such failures with non OEM pins.
It was in part one reason I had my own version made. Had there been two design changes in the C&S pins, I would probably not be selling and using my own.
Many would assume that making a firing pin is a simple task. For me, it took two full years of testing before I would release my parts to the general public. My prototype pins were installed and used by several shooters to see if any failures would occur in competition. One gentlemean has been documenting dry fire cycles without dummy rounds and at last count is up to 18,000. So far so good. My second generation competition only firing pins will be available sometime this year. I need to pay for my engineering degree somehow...

Most of my commentary was directed towards the factory Ti pins which I have seen fail.

 

[allglock]

Originally posted by Randy Lee:
Possibly. But I know that the short conical Ti pins of late have a surface treatment to reduce abrasive wear which could be removed and expose raw Ti alloy. Smith does have some of the .49+ firing pins sitting in inventory and all of those that I have seen have spherical tips.

Whats the part #, or do you have to ask for these type? Also how do you know this?

 

[Randy Lee]

It's based upon observation of guns coming into the shop. Of the guns that were made in the last year, some of them had .49+ pins in them. So my guess is that they are mixed in with the inventory. You may have to talk to CS and ask for a longer than .483" pin as I have no part number for it.

 

[nicky4968]

I am very late to this discussion. (It's post this or start on first transcripts of the year).
I bought a used 625 Mountain Gun. After several hundred rounds I realized the firing pin was broken. There had been no mis-fires. I told S&W of my problem and they sent me a new pin (and spring, which was thoughtful). Pistol runs fine now.
Take your pistol with the MIM frame-mounted pin. Point down toward the floor. Look through the frame at the rear of the cylinder. If you see the pin protruding, it is "broken", as mine was, but probably still functioning.
Had this happened with a hammer-mounted firing pin (which I've done), that's the end of it until you get it repaired.
Six of one and half a dozen of the other, as far as I'm concerned. But I was impressed that the two-piece pin functioned so well.

 

[bountyhunter]

Originally posted by tomcatt51:
When I was speaking of broken pins I wasn't referring to fractured tips. I was refering to the C&S pins I've seen which have to whole tip broken off thru the tip to body transition (radius). BROKEN not just fractured or chipped.

That's the ones I have heard so much about. The comp shooters threw them away and won't use them because they are so unreliable, but they say the factory pins are much better.

 

[Schofieldkid81]

Hey Randy, I was searchin the net because I had recently had a pierced primer and noticed the firing pin had a chip on the tip. I found these posts and it describes exactly what has happened to me. My gun is a new 610-3 and it has the more conical shaped firing pin. I have a lew horton 24-6 that has the more spherical shaped firing pin, and it has at least 1,000 rounds with no problem.
Is you firing pin "extra length"?

 

[tomcatt51]

Randy's pins are .500"-.501"

 

[Ultima-Ratio]

Ummmm? Which comp shooters Mr Bounty Hunter (ragwriter) and whom do I call first?

Bill@C&S or Jerry (a serious comp shooter)

It appears to me (a casual board reader)(and Guncrank who depended on C&S quality) that someone is denigrating C&S without documentation.

 

[bountyhunter]

Originally posted by Ultima-Ratio:
Ummmm? Which comp shooters Mr Bounty Hunter (ragwriter) and whom do I call first?

Try looking up the subject on the Brian Enos forum where the knowledge level exceeds what you could ever aspire to. Ask any of the revo comp shooters if they would ever use a C+S firing pin again.

And FYI: if you keep slinging the flame insults like "ragwriter", you are going to get your sorry ass banned and nobody will remember you were ever here. And we will say good riddance.

 

[bountyhunter]

Originally posted by Ultima-Ratio:
It appears to me (a casual board reader)(and Guncrank who depended on C&S quality) that someone is denigrating C&S without documentation.

Show me where it says I have to educate the members of the short yellow bus club... but, since you are the one slinging the smart mouth accusations that I can't document what I say, I will waste the time to answer your post:

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=78298&hl=C+S+firing+pin

Good grief... Another side effect of the C&S garbage pin. As if them just breaking wasn't enough

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=65591&hl=C+S+firing+pin

C&S Ext. Firing Pin, My thoughts

I have an old 686 with one, and it's been working for years. I have a brand new 625 that i put one in, and in less than 400 rounds it broke. I guess i just liked the idea, but honestly, there's no point in them.

Interesting.... The one in my 686 has gone over 5k rounds so far but the one I put in my 627 broke after about 500.

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51596&hl=C+S+firing+pin

Cylinder and Slide extended firing pin broke

Broke on me during a match today. Luckily I had the take out factory pin in my bag so I swapped it out and finished the match. Less than 2K rounds on it and no dry fire without snap caps.

Add me to the list of those who've learned.

Man, it is SO tempting to say "I told you so" to all those who wanted to argue with me about this.

C&S extended firing pins seem to do one thing: break.

the QC problems with the extended pin are enough to put it out of contention for a revolver used for any sort of serious purpose (including serious competition)

What ever causes extended firing pins to break caused mine to break. I finished a stage fine went to the next stage, LMR, beep, click click, click, click. Firing pin had sheared at the edge of the shape change from diameter into the pin itself.

 

[bountyhunter]

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=56801&hl=C+S+firing+pin

My comments regarding the extended firing pin are based on my personal experience with three (3) defective pins, and I know they were installed correctly and not abused in any way. Many other contributors to this forum, and others, have echoed my experience. There is clearly a problem with the product.

Forum guidelines do not allow me to fully express my perspectives, based on my personal experience, on C&S and its owner. To put out such a product for competitive use is unconscionable enough, but it's truly scary to consider that many people have installed them in revolvers used for defensive purposes.

First I replaced the factory pin with a C&S Extended pin, fixed the problem until the C&S pin broke.

That's exactly why I've been consistently warning people against the junk C&S pins for several years.

(Wonder how many times we have to hear from different shooters who have experienced broken C&S pins before people quit defending them??)

Dave,

Nothing against Randy and his product, but I had mis fires right off the bat with the pin I got from Randy. I replaced it with a S&W new stock pin and had no more problems.

Is that "documented" enough for you?

 

[bountyhunter]

As for "denigrating C+S", I only tell the truth about the firing pins that were poorly made for SW revolvers. Every one of the three I bought had to be fitted (shaved) to get them to work at all. They never broke because I pulled them and replaced them with the originals before they did.

I never said everything C+S makes is junk, I happen to have C+S sears and hammers in both my HI Powers. They are very good parts, but the SW replacement firing pins are not.

 

[Randy Lee]

Hi all,

It seems that there are several factors which are being discussed here regarding firing pins, pin design, breakage, misfires, chipping, etc.

Pin breakage is a fact of life. Any part can fail, but if you look at the raw numbers of guns out there the percentage of broken factory pins is well less than 1 percent- it just happens to suck when it's your pin that breaks. I disclosed that I have one documented failure of my pin design to date. In order to improve the performance and service life of my parts, I require honest input- so I encourage all my customers to keep me informed if their pin fails.

Failures to fire in factory sprung revolvers vs. competition platform revolvers. I have replaced roughly 100 factory short firing pins this past year in off duty j-frame revolvers because of failures to fire factory ammunition. My pin was designed to be slightly longer and work reliably with factory mainspring forces.

The competitive revolver is a very different beast. We use Federal primers pretty much exclusively, the hammers are often lightened to the point that they look like matchsticks. The mainspring forces are so light that only soft primers can be used. The quote used by Bountyhunter mentioning the misfires with my pin is from a thread on Brian Enos's forum which is devoted to the competition revolver and NOT a general purpose revolver. I encourage people to read the posts on that particular thread in its entirety.

My firing pin requires a bit of modification to improve function when trigger pulls are less than 5 lbs on the double action.
Most of the comp DA guns I ship out are between 4 and 4.75 lbs- but primers must be federal primers which are set to .008-.010 below the surface of the case head. With light hammers and in this weight range, primers will shift forwards in the primer pocket and dampen impact of the firing pin. My prototype light action revolver runs reliably with my handloads at just below 3 lbs on the double action. This is at the ragged edge of the operational envelope and uses my pin(albeit modified). A factory pin will not work in this case.

I have designed a new firing pin which is intended exclusively for competition revolvers which will improve ignition at the lighter weight pulls.