NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

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LantanaTX
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by LantanaTX »

wlockridge wrote:My recommendation is sort of a conglomerate of above but the suggestions are what I've personally found to work for me. Don't know what kind of horsepower that red army is pushing but I'd be willing to bet that It's not as much as a modern day ammo such as Buffalo Bore, Hornday ect, just guessing as I've never seen the specs. As to the mag falling out it's most likely that 17# hammer spring, had the same issue, go back to the 18# and that should go away. Second is your mags, dissemble them completely and run a cotton ball soaked wit you favourite gun cleaner through the insides several times and them push balled paper towel through them till it comes out nearly clean. then lightly oil another cotton ball and push it through. Make sure that the follower is good and clean and free from any type of burrs that might interfere. if you find any take a emery board to them until smooth. oil and replace. The follower should slide up and down inside the magazine smoothly. Next stretch the mag spring out just a little bit, don't get carried away. Lastly check the lips on top for any kind of bending or cracking.
As far as the recoil spring goes, it's kind of particular to the power of the ammo that you're using. Mine will not fire a CCI Blazer reliably with the 22# spring in place, I have to change to the 20# and it works flawlessly. The reason being that it's just not powerful enough to push the slide ALL the way to the rear. If the slide doesn't go all the way back, the pistol will NOT function properly resulting in jams, and the slide failing to lock back on the last round. If you know that you're going to be shooting lower or higher power ammo it's a simple 30 sec. procedure to change the recoil spring. Last try a different brand of ammo. Ammo that sits on the shelves or in a warehouse for multiples of years can lose some of it's potency no matter what brand, and there's a lot of that out there now as manufactures have been scrambling to keep up with demand.
Lastly clean, clean, clean. 90% of the time when these guns don't fire it's because poor maintenance. When cleaning don't forget those mags. These are blow back pistols which means a lot of crap ....... well blows back every time you shoot them and some right down the mag. I clean mine, mags and all, every time I shoot. Hope this helps.
Bill
Thanks Bill,

Just to clarify, Yesterday I was not using the 17# main spring. I was using the super heavy stock one. I also started of using the stock recoil spring which I believe is around 18#. The ammo I was using is not old ammo. Red Army Standard is new ammo and similar to Silver Bear, but I am going to try other ammo as well.

I guess I would love to know more about what is happening mechanically when the mag drops. I would think with the super heavy OEM main spring this could not happen. I was also wondering why the mag drop (which I believe causes the failure to lock back) is now happening only on the last round? Like I said earlier, with stock springs, I had much better luck and had no FTF of any kind. I guess it would be nice to know what is happening internally to release the mag?

With the 17# main spring, I could only fire 1 or 2 times without a Jam/FTF. Anyone watching me on Saturday would have thought I brought a complete POS to the range.

I have cleaned this gun extremely well as well as the mags before going to the range each time. I wanted to make sure I eliminated that as possibility to my issues and clean my guns as soon as I get back from the range anyway. I will take another look at the mag springs and give them a little stretch, but keep in mind, I had no problem firing the last round at all yesterday. I am Just getting a mag drop after the last round now with no lock back of the slide. I may switch back to the stock mag release just to see if it could be the issue. However, I love the new release as it makes it a fast one handed operation to release it.
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Hurryin' Hoosier
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by Hurryin' Hoosier »

Could it be that the slide stop spring is stronger than the magazine release? In other words, instead of the magazine follower being able to push the slide stop up, the slide stop won't budge and the pressure exerted on the magazine follower (by its spring) pushes the magazine itself down and the after-market magazine release can't hold it. :?: :?: :?:
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LantanaTX
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by LantanaTX »

Ok here is what I did today:

I cleaned the gun thoroughly. With the stock main spring it extreamly hard to pull. I removed the hammer strut and found some roughness on the sides at the top. I polished this area and put the stock mag release in. I also disassembled the mags and cleaned them as well. The gun could not be any cleaner. The action seems way smoother now and DA pull is really not all that horrible. Everything feels very smooth and SA is really sweet.

I am hoping the gritty hammer strut was the issue and will be testing the gun again tomorrow. The gun is 100% stock right now expect I have the 22# recoil spring in it but will take the stock one to the range with me just in case. I really like the 22# recoil spring and hope that works well as I can comfortably shoot 100 round with it in. The stock spring starts to wear on me a lot sooner.

I think a little fluff n buff helps smooth the action and makes that stock main spring not so bad.
LantanaTX
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by LantanaTX »

I am back from the range after shooting 100 rounds of Red Army Standard and am happy to report the gun was flawless!! The only non stock piece on the gun (besides wood grips) was the 22# recoil spring. The difference in recoil isn't huge at first but is after shooting a lot of rounds. The gun was also dead nuts accurate. I wasn't very accurate on DA though. Now that the gun is functioning perfectly, I may experiment with lighter main springs and see if I can keep reliability. As mentioned earlier, the top of the hammer strut had some roughness which made DA pull and cocking noticeably harder and seemed to cause mag drop on the last round. Polishing this smoothed things out and noticeably easier to operate. I am loving the gun now.
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Hurryin' Hoosier
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by Hurryin' Hoosier »

So, you're saying that you did go back to the OEM magazine release?
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LantanaTX
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by LantanaTX »

Hurryin' Hoosier wrote:So, you're saying that you did go back to the OEM magazine release?
Yes I did. I am not sure that was the problem thought. However, the extended mag release was easy to use one handed except one small detail. On the extended mag release I had to hold it open until the mag was free. On the stock release, I could just click it and let go and the mag pops right out. I am not sure if the extended release is supposed to require you to keep pressure on it until the mag is all the way out or if that is just how mine worked. I will experiment with the softer main springs but am not going to sacrifice 100% reliability. I really the suspect the polishing is what helped it. I could have changed one thing at a time but I don't have that much time to keep going to the range.
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Hurryin' Hoosier
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by Hurryin' Hoosier »

At the risk of saying "I told you so", I think that I might have been right. I fully intend to bring this to my wife's attention!

Seriously, I'm glad the problem has been rectified. :wink:
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LantanaTX
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Re: NEED HELP! First Time to the range, Not good

Post by LantanaTX »

Hurryin' Hoosier wrote:At the risk of saying "I told you so", I think that I might have been right. I fully intend to bring this to my wife's attention!

Seriously, I'm glad the problem has been rectified. :wink:
You could be right and I will do more testing to find out for sure. I am going to keep the stock mag release in and work my way down on the main spring pressure. I doubt I will end up with the 17# since the action is much smoother now. I probably won't put the extended mag release in unless I can get the mag to pop out with just a click and not have to hold it back until the mag is completely out. I have been practicing one handed mag release with the stock release. It is possible.
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