The Continuing Mag Problem, Part2 w/Pics

[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

[rm_fritz]

i have never, ever seen a malfunction like this, interested to see what the answer is.

[Mad Pick]

Outstanding photos and description, Charlie. Keep us posted.

[ThumperIII]

I think you may get more diagnostic input from the Ammo subforum on your reloads. You still have not posted anything specific on your loads -- not even generally about how hot or weak you are loading. Case length, crimp diameter, ect. so they could at least be considered or eliminated as a possible problem. Do your loaded rounds easily drop back out from the chammber if loaded into the barrel while it is removed from the pistol?

I do think you are going the wrong direction with (unspecified exact dimension) 'max' OAL. Federal HST HP's with large cavity are abt 1.201 for feeding reliability. Many reloaders are using 1.235-1.260 OAL's successfully with matching powder loads. When your max length loaded cartridge cocks (nose down) in the magazine, the diagonal dimensional length from the top of the truncated cone nose to the bottom of the case head may cause binding in the mag. Really slowing up the orientation recovery as the nose passes back through the tight spot after being depressed by the case of the extracted round.

The extracted case is always going to contact the next round in the mag, but if that round is binding in any way, it may be causing the deeper than normal gouging from the extracted case as it resists being depressed. Just a thought for consideration.

[The DRis]

No offense to you at all. I don't reload, and have no experience reloading. But I have noticed that most problems people have are when they use reloaded ammo.

[CDW4ME]

I have two XD45 compacts; I've shot approximately 300 rounds through each of them. The ammo has mostly been 185 JHP and 230 JHP. I replaced the factory springs with AGP because I had seen other threads about it and mainly because I thought the factory spring felt weak (I've got a XD9 sc and the factory spring does NOT feel weak). One pistol has not jammed at all either before or after the spring swap. The other jammed once, many rounds after the spring swap. Here is the kicker: prior to that single jam I had shot about 100 reloaded 185 JHP rounds through the pistol without a problem; the jam happened after about 300 trouble free shots and it was a factory Winchester Ranger T 230 JHP. Very disturbing, because that's my chosen self defence round and it had already fed 50+ rounds of it like butter.

I did have two magazines replaced by SA because of deformation (one even developed a slight crack after 100 shots) at the top rear of the magazine. The magazine developed an outward dent and slight crack after about 100 rounds of Ranger T and Hydra Shocks. It would catch it the magazine well when the mag release was pushed, it would come out if I pulled it slightly.

I'll do the check you mentioned with factory ammo and see if there is any deformation on case or bullet.

[XD45TACMIKE]

I think you need to stay with the same ammo until it can be narrowed down. I know SA will want it back to check it out....if they use all factory ammo and it doesn't do it then stay away from the ammo you have been using.... I personally wouldn't be looking at the gun or the mag as the problem....it sounds to me more like a recoil/ extraction issue dealing with the ammo..... is there anyone close enough to you that owns an XD45 that you could meet up with at a range and you two could try swapping mags and ammo etc to see how it affects each gun?

[Unholy]

Maybe it's just me, but looks like that brass was beat pretty badly even before shooting them on those reloads.
I'd try shooting some retail ammo through it before I went making "improvements" to the mags and asking for warranty work.

[ArmyGuy45]

when was the last time you cleaned those mags?

[CDW4ME]

Originally Posted by CDW4ME

I did have two magazines replaced by SA because of deformation (one even developed a slight crack after 100 shots) at the top rear of the magazine.

I'll do the check you mentioned with factory ammo and see if there is any deformation on case or bullet.

I checked.

If I load and shoot, then eject the chambered round there is no deformation on either the bullet or case. I tested with 230 Ranger T and a 230 FMJ handload.

The only thing I noticed is the fired cases have an indention on them in approximately the same location, as seen in pic.:


I fired 35 rounds of Ranger T and 20 of the handload without any problem; I don't know why I had that ONE Ranger T jam before. The pistol now has about 400 rounds + - with that one stupid jam.

This magazine is developing the same buldge and crack as the previous magazines, as seen in pic.:


I really like the XD45 compact, enough that I bought two of them. I've been carrying the XD45 compact I had night sights installed on. Obviously, I trust it's reliability (that one has had zero malfunctions in 300+ mixed rounds)

I'll send the magazine back to SA for replacement, like I did for the two others. Seems like the rear of the magazine is the XD45 compacts weak link.

Extra info: I ran 5 shots of each ammo over the chrono:
Winchester Ranger T 230 gr. JHP: 863 fps, ES=32, SD=12
Handload 230 gr. FMJ: 769 fps, ES=23, SD=9

I used a single stage Lee press, 12+ year old "new" Starline brass, 12+ year old AA#2 and Win. primers that I've kept in the garage. Yea, it's been awhile since I reloaded any ammo; the 185 JHP I mentioned before were loaded in 1998.