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Light primer strikes SR 45

5K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  kyhunter 
#1 ·
Shot my Ruger SR 45 with the Galloway reduced trigger installed now and it is much improved for a striker fired gun being about 5 1/4 lbs. Bought a Lee 230 grain round nose bullet mold because the pistol would not consistently feed less 200 grain SWC like my Ruger 1911 will. Loaded up 20 rounds each of different Bullseye charge weights and shot off a rest. It liked the each one but could see a preference.
Where I ran into a snag was light primer strikes. I bought a Lyman chamber go no/go gage just to test them before loading. OAL was 1.250 and had no issues in the chamber gage or what I could tell when firing them. The slide seemed to be fully in battery and I could not get it to move any further forward when hitting it with the palm of my hand. I honestly think it was in battery but maybe missing something. Some would fire when retried and others would not. There was a slight firing pin mark on the unfired primer but not sufficient or deep enough to fire it.
Are there any thoughts- I would appreciate hearing a few.
Thanks
KY
 
#4 ·
Hey KY,

This is the first I have heard of this or any trouble after installing the trigger kit.

I do have a suggestion for you. The test is relatively simple.

Get a pencil, unsharpened, or break off the point, stick the eraser end down the barrel and fire it with your hand a few inches away. That pencil should hit your hand with a good amount of force. May even sting some.

This is just to give you an idea of what kind of impact you are getting. If it is very weak there is a big problem

Either way, I would then take apart the slide and give the striker and the channel a good clean. I believe the videos I posted have slide disassembly in it.

While you have it apart, it is a good time to think about whether you want to keep the magazine disconnect safety in it.

It is one of the most useless and I think stupid safeties I have ever heard of. At least if the gun owner has a lick of sense.

If the magazine or magazine release malfunctions for whatever reason or you accidentally hit the release, your gun is a paperweight.

If you take out the magazine safety at least you can get off one shot as you retrieve the magazine.

The gun works just fine without it. In fact it even works a little smoother as it is one lest moving part that gives a little resistance during the firing function.

You can always put it back later if you want.

I have removed that stupid safety from all my guns that have it.

Anyways, give the things a try. It can't hurt and it will narrow down possible culprits further if that does not fix the issue.

Let us know.

Doc
 
#5 ·
Hey KY,

This is the first I have heard of this or any trouble after installing the trigger kit.

I do have a suggestion for you. The test is relatively simple.

Get a pencil, unsharpened, or break off the point, stick the eraser end down the barrel and fire it with your hand a few inches away. That pencil should hit your hand with a good amount of force. May even sting some.
[...]
Um, Doc, that may need a little clarification. ;)
 
#6 ·
ah, ok

With the gun completely unloaded, magazine empty

Rack the slide, put in the empty magazine (you have to put the magazine in because of the idiotic magazine disconnect safety) can you tell I hate that thing! :rolleyes:

Stick a pencil eraser end first into the barrel.

Tip the gun up and hold your palm about 6 inches away, pull the trigger.

The pencil should hit your palm with a good bit of force... that's why you dont want it sharpened.


Oh, I also should have added..

When the striker is out, take some very very fine sandpaper, put it between your fingers, and grip the side of the striker tip and squeeze and rotate just a couple times.. just making sure the sides of the striker pin is extra smooth

Hopefully, I said it clearer this time.

Doc
 
#7 ·
KY,

Just to give you a little insight, I have had a few, just a few, Winchester large pistol primers where they fail to fire even though I had a good strike on the primer. I am using my SR1911 but in last weeks session, I had 2 FTF. It's a rare occasion, but it does happen. One thing you might try to do is re-fire the round and see if the round goes off. Your COAL is a good size to use as I use the same and sometimes vary from 1.250-1.257. I am using a stock trigger but did have a trigger job done on it to make it smoother and brought the trigger pull down to 4lbs. Don't know if this helps but am giving you some things I have encountered.

Tommy
 
#8 ·
Thanks guys for the info. I'll try the pencil trick and report back. I really don't think the issue is is from the trigger reset bar though. I had a few light strikes before the trigger reset bar was installed using the lead swc 200. Grain cast bullets. I was having so many feeding problems the light primer strikes was thought to be from the swc bullets.
I bought the 230 grain round nose mold and now it feeds fine but the light strikes are more frequent.
I'll give the cleaning and pencil trick a try and report back. I also will try some factory rounds up to my dislike in the future. I have some of the rounds that didn't fire and will check them in he Lyman case gage and report back.
Again thanks for the ideas.
Stay tuned.
KY
 
#9 ·
OK Here is the update.
Last evening I tried putting the pencil in the barrel and seeing how high it could be shot upwards when the firing pin hit the eraser. Well trying it several times I could only get it to go up about an inch. I knew this wasn't right or it would never fire a primer. So ( don't laugh too much) I looked around the basement shop and found a few chop sticks. Round, long and flat on the end. Had to give it a try. Put the big flat end in first, pointed it up and with a great deal of enthusiasm the chop stick ejected up hitting the basement ceiling. Tried it a few times and every time it shot the chop stick out of the barrel very quickly hitting the ceiling and rattling around on the work bench.
I think the pencil eraser was hitting or not seating correctly because it was hitting the loaded chamber indicator. Just a guess.
So right now, with the chop stick test, think the firing pin might be OK.
I did remove the slide and clean and put just a bit of oil in the firing pin housing. I did move the firing spring back and forth several times to work the oil into the spring and pin. I didn't take it apart yet but seemed free and not restricted

I did take the barrel out and drop both a factory round and one of the reloads that didn't fire to look at the seating depth. Both were identical and both freely dropped in. Both also dropped into the case check gage freely too.

Next will be to try a box of factory shells. Stay tuned. KY
 
#10 ·
If the factory load primers come out looking like your loads do, it pretty much has to be a problem with the pistol and not the ammo.
Duh! There I go stating the obvious again. :eek:

Luckily Ruger will take care of you. Unluckily they may need to!

Not trying to be all negative here but......
I've seen and heard of toooo many light strikes happening with the striker fired SR series Rugers.




:GadsdenFlag:
 
#11 · (Edited)
I think the pencil eraser was hitting or not seating correctly because it was hitting the loaded chamber indicator. Just a guess.
This is my fault, KY

I neglected to take into account the width of the 45. You are quite right, the eraser would not have sat over the striker pin hole well enough for a solid hit like it does for the lower calibers.

Brilliant thinking of the chopstick which has a thin enough end to sit perfectly over the hole.

What your chopstick result does not indicate however is if the pin is being extrude "far enough" consistently.

Meaning lets say there was some kind of gunk at the base of the striker pin itself. Then it extrudes with plenty of force enough to send the chopstick flying, but not as far as it needs for consistent proper primer strikes.

Your continued experimenting will be telling. If you are still having trouble with factory ammo, then as Magnum said, you know the trouble lies in the gun.

Either way, one thing I want to touch on is that out of all the things incessantly argued about, such as calibers, trigger pull, safeties, etc, one issue that gets pretty much universal agreement, is that of not putting oil/lube etc in the striker/firing pin channel.

Powder and residue and other gunk you get in blowback after the explosion can make it into the channel via the pin hole. True, it most likely wont be much as the pin is returning to place, it is leaving only a very small room for the crap to get in, and usually the next firing pushes some out such that the buildup takes quite a long time.

BUT, with an oiled channel, the crap adheres to the oil, and it will build much faster until your failure to fire because of the gunk (which will happen) will happen sooner.

Now what some people will use is called "dry lube" such as like 3-in-1 makes that goes on wet, but then dries and will not attract any dirt or gunk.

Anyways back to your trouble. Proper firing of the factory ammo would indicate maybe a bad/inconsistent batch of primers.

In any mass produced product (especially something as tiny and produced in the billions as primers) there is going to be defective products. It WILL happen, it is the nature of mass production. And someone has to end up with the defects.

Doc
 
#12 ·
Very good and well thought out comments. Next plan is the factory rounds ( being a reloader struggle buying factory rounds but in this situation is the best option) and see the performance. Agree if all fire with out any issue, will think about changing to a different box of primers. If I have even one FTF I will need to give Ruger a call. Just would not want them to undo to trigger work I did as it was a nice upgrade. I did read where this was an issue in 2013 with the SR9 and some folks were getting Ruger to send new firing pin striker assembly rather than send the entire gun back.
You know this has turned into quite a project but a learning more than ever. Kind of a challenge if you know what I mean.
Thanks guys.
KY
Maybe I should just shoot chopsticks?????? No FTF.
 
#13 ·
Update to the original post so hopefully it helps someone else.
I shot about 70 rounds today using the Ruger SR45. The original problem of this post was light primer strikes. All 70 fired with no light primer strikes. Before the changes I had 7 to 10 in 50 reloaded rounds.
These are the changes or things I did differently

1 called Ruger and got a new firing pin (striker) spring and installed it.
2 removed the mag disconnect safety
3 Completely cleaned the striker channel again.
4 purchased 100 Federal primers and reloaded 50 rounds
5 sorted my brass and only used brass that was .890 to .898 in length which is close to max length

Here are the results after this work

All 50 reloaded round nose bullets fired the first time with the federal primers.
20 brand new Winchester rounds fired the first time
I had 7 rounds from a previous outing that would not fire and 6 of the 7 fired the first time and the 7th fire after a second try today.
Seems one or more of these combinations of changes made a huge difference from previous outings. Anyway it was a good feeling to maybe have the light primer strikes issue fixed.
Since both Winchester factory and my reloads worked 100% and before had up to a 20 % FTF, I may again try reloads with Winchester primers. If it takes Federal that's what I will stay with but hope either or all will work.

Final note, the new factor firing pin spring resulted in my trigger pull to go up from 5.5 to 6.5 so I have to believe it is a bit stronger.
Still better to have this trigger than a pistol that won't reliably fire. If anything more is discovered I will try to update.
KY
 
#14 ·
KY,

Have you ever tried Remington primers. My brother got me 200 rounds of them and I am going to try to load them in some Starline brass casings. I know the casings are heavier than most of the casings, as I have mushroomed some of them, but have yet to try them out. It will be a while before I load them, so should you do it before I do, let me know how they turn out please.

Tommy
 
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