Light Primer Striks / Hard Primers

[Pugs]

Yesterday, ActionAl, Hower610, and couple of non-XDTalk member friends got together at the range to slay some paper (paper is a mutha and needs to be dealt with harshly!).

In the course of the afternoon, about 250 rounds of Winchester White Box were run through my XD-45, mostly by my buddy who is a new shooter.

He had three failures to fire. One of the rounds went boom the next time it was run through, the other two went boom the second time they were run through.

My question, is this likely to be a problem with hard primers or am I looking for someting mechanical with the weapon?

The reason why I was thinking hard primer is that two of them went click one more time before finally going boom on the third try. On tries two and three for those two, all the other rounds in the mag went boom as expected.

Thoughts?

[rgeliske]

Originally Posted by Pugs

Yesterday, ActionAl, Hower610, and couple of non-XDTalk member friends got together at the range to slay some paper (paper is a mutha and needs to be dealt with harshly!).

In the course of the afternoon, about 250 rounds of Winchester White Box were run through my XD-45, mostly by my buddy who is a new shooter.

He had three failures to fire. One of the rounds went boom the next time it was run through, the other two went boom the second time they were run through.

My question, is this likely to be a problem with hard primers or am I looking for someting mechanical with the weapon?

The reason why I was thinking hard primer is that two of them went click one more time before finally going boom on the third try. On tries two and three for those two, all the other rounds in the mag went boom as expected.

Thoughts?

The first ting I would look for is dirt, give the gun a good cleaning. You didn't say what the strike mark on the primer looked like.

[Pugs]

Originally Posted by rgeliske

The first ting I would look for is dirt, give the gun a good cleaning. You didn't say what the strike mark on the primer looked like.

Sorry, the primers had little dimples that were just visible.

A thorough cleaning is in the plans for later today.

[Mercmar]

There shouldn't be any oil, AT ALL, in the firing pin channel. Thoroughly degrease it with a few blasts of non-chlorinated brake cleaner and leave it dry. (After taking the firing pin out, of course.)

[CTrider XD]

I had this problem with my XD. The firing pin wasn't striking the primer hard enough. I sprayed solvent into the firing pin channel to really clean it throughly. I blew out excess with air hose. I then sprayed a very light coat of thin oil in channel and blew out excess. Since then I never had another problem. When dry firing I can actuall hear the firing pin slam home with more force now. As was mentioned before, don't put grease or any type of heavy oil in the firing pin channel.

[agalindo]

Have you installed any trigger job drop in parts? This can cause light primer strikes.

[eightmillimeter]

It sounds like a detail strip of the slide is in order, paying close attention to the striker assembly and the area in the slide where it lives. I would rank a dirty striker number one, the ammo number two, but either is possible.

[Mercmar]

Any oil in a striker channel is too much! Sooner or later, it's going to gunk up.

[Loves2Shoot]

Some of the primers being used in commercial ammo are very hard. We have an extra power striker spring we made for folks who must use hard primers in their XD.

[Drybeaver]

I have both the XD45 compact and the XD9 subcompact, they have both experianced FTF due to light primer strikes. FOR SURE!!! clean the oil out of the striker channel, very! very! lightly oil. You want to hear a definite Ting!! of the striker spring to know all is well. Some don't like to admit that these guns have their own distinct issuses.