The Continuing Mag Problem, Part2 w/Pics

[Charlie Xray]

Originally Posted by xcpd69

It may be doing both.

The cartridge feeds under the hood at an angle first, then goes horizontal as it slides up the breechface, under the extractor. Initial strike by the ledge with the nose, then down the ogive of the bullet until the second strike near the casemouth, as the cartridge gets horizontal.

Shouldn't require much, just a light radius to break the sharp edge. Let us know how it comes out.

Checked on the burr and was able to get the mark on the nose match it. It is not really a burr as much as a sharp edge right at the base of the loaded chamber indicator cut in the barrel hood but not intruding in the chamber at all. Only the nose of the bullet would be able to contact it. In examining the marks on the lead bullets they are shaped like the rim and do not match this mark at all. The edge has been filed off now.

CX

[Charlie Xray]

Here are the numbers so far. They are all over the place. Going back to SA.



CX

[Tx1911]

Originally Posted by Charlie Xray

I began this discussion here and this is a new thread with new info on the problem.

Brief summery:
First 100 rounds 1 FTF with factory 230 RN. Round jammed against the forward edge of the mag. Researched the problem here and found this was sometimes an issue with the XD45 with the fix being AGP extra power mag springs. All mag springs were replaced.

Next 200 rounds were LRN reloads and 1 FTF with the same jam. I then beveled the forward inside edge of the magazines and polished their feed lips. Cleaned all and lightly oiled.

Now the rest of the story:
Next 130 rounds were 200gr TC reloads with copper coatings. Three failures and one rather spectacular, upon which I folded my tent and went home to write Springfield Armory and send them the story and pics you will see here.

The problem is the extracting empty case drops slightly below the breech face and slams into the top round in the mag as it is being extracted. This is violent enough to drive the string of rounds downward in the mag with the top round pointing in a nose downward attitude. The spring sometimes cannot reposition the rounds before the slide returns to battery and the top round gets jammed against the forward edge of the magazine. Some have reported the round even got turned around. After today I can believe that.

This photo is of five rounds showing damage to the bullet and in some cases even the forward edge of the case. Note the varying OAL. They were all set the same OAL and given a tight taper crimp.



The next 2 images show the round jammed downward in the magazine. In the second one you can see the peeled back brass of the mouth of the case. Think about this for a moment: It took a lot of force to do this! I should have counted remaining rounds but it was about half or a little more of the 13 rounds remaining and against an AGP extra power spring!





These next two are of the round you see jammed in the magazine above. Note how far back the bullet has been set into the case. I set the OAL of all these out near max to get the shoulder of the bullet well past the mouth of the case to avoid the case mouth catching on the extracting case's rim. All these were given very tight taper crimps.





At least three of the five FTFs were in the same mag, but I used it for at least 200 of the total shots, favoring it to test after I marked it as a problem mag. As you can see from the images, it is not likely a mag issue. Some of the rounds in the first photo were done as suggested by a poster in the linked thread. I fired a round and extracted the round it chambered, saving that round as evidence of damage. I did this in three of the mags and those are the four to the right in the top picture.

I just compiled an email with these images and sent them off to SA. I was polite, but obviously I am disappointed in my XD45. I expect they will ask me to send it in, which I will, but unless there is some fix to keep that empty from going below the breech face on extraction, like maybe a tighter extractor(?), then I can't imagine what they can do to fix this.

Meanwhile, I urge all XD45 owners to run a simple test. With a loaded mag, fire a round and then eject the round that chambered. Do this several times and examine the ejected rounds for damage to the bullet near the case mouth like you see above. If the sample rounds exhibit this kind of damage you may have reliability issues to be concerned about, not to mention the problem of setback bullets and possible overpressure.

CX

Those are blued mags ? Not factory ... factory ones are shiny.

[Charlie Xray]

Originally Posted by Tx1911

Those are blued mags ? Not factory ... factory ones are shiny.

Nope. Stainless factory mags with the logo and they are brushed stainless. The camera was set at outdoors and the images taken indoors. My mistake.

Also bought some stainless factory mags w/o the logo that are polished. Came with SA information insert. As far as I know no one yet makes after market XD45 mags.

CX

[danp]

I saw the same issue on a Sig P226 last year. We changed mags several times and the problem continued. At one point rounds were even tumbling inside the mag.

We never figured out what the problem was and it was a department-owned gun, so we downed it and put it out of it's misery.

It will be interesting to see what Springfield Armory says.

[DPGDirk]

I sent mine back to SA.

They called me today to let me know my gun was heading home.

They replaced my barrel with one of their match barrels and fitted it to the gun, so evidently there was an issue with mine.

They did say that they have new improved mags available now, so they replaced my mags too. Not sure what the difference is there, but I'll take 'em...

[rm_fritz]

so if someone were having an issue with mags they'd be able to turn them back in?

[DPGDirk]

Originally Posted by rm_fritz

so if someone were having an issue with mags they'd be able to turn them back in?

I think it would depend on the issue...

[Laramie]

Originally Posted by DPGDirk

They did say that they have new improved mags available now, so they replaced my mags too. Not sure what the difference is there, but I'll take 'em...

Interesting. I bought an XD9 Service back in 2004 and another just a few months ago. Mags looked exaclty the same and both seem to run the same.

I wonder if they got a bad lot?

[DPGDirk]

Originally Posted by Laramie

Interesting. I bought an XD9 Service back in 2004 and another just a few months ago. Mags looked exaclty the same and both seem to run the same.

I wonder if they got a bad lot?

They didn't say they changed the XD-9mm mags...