Light Primer Strikes

[bigwilly11189]

First off, I have owned my XD since 2004 and have never had a problem with it, till this past weekend. I went to the range with the wife on V-day , and as always the first set down the range is my defense ammo that is already loaded in my XD (allowed to carry). I setup the target and click, no bang. Hmmm....ok maybe a bad primer. Clear the round and aim, pull trigger and click, no bang. A horendous feeling came over me b/c if I had to use this in self defense I would be screwed. I changed ammo in case it was a bad lot and same thing. I tried dry firing a few times and repeated to where maybe 4 out of 10 would go bang, at this point I was fuming.

I took her home and cleaned her out without taking out the firing pin assembly, put a pen in the barrell and it only came out about 2 feet or so. Ran out of time and had to put her back in the safe by my bed for the night. Next morning, had off of work so I took apart the firing pin assembly and noticed a small glob of something stuck to the firing pin. I cleaned out the firing pin chamber, springs, pin, and the saftey portion (pull out the pin and that piece pops out with the little spring). I reassembled everything making sure not to oil any part of that assembly and put a pen back into the barrell, held the gun low and click, the pen shot up to the ceiling (oops ). So I was extremely happy and once again faith has returned.

So the moral of the story is, take the time to clean out your firing pin assembly every once in a while (first time for me in 6 years), If you keep on top of it, it could be as easy as a little squirt of Gun Scrubber down the assembly. Also, never oil that area. I know I have placed a dab (a couple of times over the years) of Eezox not thinking that it would gum up over time with dirty ammo. So, please even if its not showing signs of lighter strikes, clean it, its soooo easy a caveman can do it. Overall, my mistake not the gun's. I still have 100% faith in carrying my XD.

[Heavy]

Good post!

Good advice and I'm glad you found out at the range when it wasn't life or death...


Keep 'em clean fellas!

[AwPhuch]

That's so condescending!

[Ski098]

I've put 200 rounds through my XD and felt it was time to "get to know my weapon" last night. I'm an incurable "tinkerer" and I love to know exactly how things operate.

This site helped me last night, and it's posted in many other places here on XDTalk, but I figured I'd drop it in here in case someone else wants to take the time to learn how to disassemble the slide. I had a blast at it, and it's really pretty simple to do. The only difficult part was removing the roll pin to release the firing pin mechanism. If you don't have the right punch tool... then you may want to go get one.

Springfield Armory XD and HS2000.com

[bigwilly11189]

That is a great site, I should have posted the link. Thank you. Luckily I had the 3/32" punch in my "cleaning box". It is very easy to disassemble the upper and the only tricky part is getting the back off and putting it back on. I have completely disassembled a Browning Buckmark down to its frame and was able to put it back together. I did take pictues at each step just in case I forgot a step but never needed them. The only b!tch was the sear spring, and I figure it would be the same with the XD if one took the lower apart. Maybe I'll look into one of those sonic cleaners

[bigwilly11189]

Originally Posted by AwPhuch

That's so condescending!

HAHAHA...Awesome.

[pleasantguywhopacksAXD]

This caveman uses a ultrasonic cleaner and Ed's Red. No gunk ever.

[carstensxd45]

although, I have never taken apart the firing pin assembly, I will clean around it and blow it out with comp. air. Have had my xd for about 2 years, don't have any "light" primer strikes yet, but don't want any either. Once when I got over excited about polishing the sear, the sear would reset the firing pin but it was not letting the firing pin hit with the force needed. after "roughing" up the sear a little, it went back to normal anyway, anything I might want to do as preventitive maint.

[bigwilly11189]

As Prev. Maint. I would just take some Gun scrubber or non-chorlinated brake cleaner and there is a small "drainage" hole maybe 1-2cm's back from the firing pin hole on the underside that you can see the forward most spring and you can probably squirt some gun srubber or the like down into that hole and then follow it up with some compressed air (like the computer dusters with the little red straw). The good part about the gun scrubber is that it dries quickly and won't leave a residue.