9mm, pierced primers, over pressure, chamber issues?

S

Shadow9mm

New member
My friend is having some problems with his 9mm 1911. I think it is a fusion forearms? The gun had 100-250rnds through it during all this, he was working on getting it broken in.

In addition to the issues listed, the safety plunger was not properly staked. the front sight was loose in the dove tail and moving around. And the set screw for the rear sight came loose. Not a great start, he's pretty unhappy with the gun. Experienced shooter. But I digress, onto the main issue.

He contacted the manufacturer and is sending it in for service.

A couple weeks back we went shooting and he was having some cycling issues and was swapping out the return spring. During this time I noticed the cases were bulged at the top pretty good. He though the spring was allowing it to unlock too early.

A couple days ago we went out and the gun seemed to run ok. Shot 3 factory ammos, some Federal Syn tek 124g, some underwood 90g lehighs, some Blazer brass 115g (which did not cycle reliably) and some of my reloads, 125g coated lead with a mild load of N340 at about 1050fps.

I collected the brass and when I got home started sorting, checking head stamps, to make sure I had not grabbed any 380 or 40s. I found 3 with pierced primers. Also they seems to have a ledge on the rim on all 4, although is it less noticeable on the nickel casings. One of the casings has a heavy swipe on the primer.

After looking again all the cases were bulged at the top as well

all the primers looked flattened, but not necessarily flowed.

As near as I can tell none were my reloads

The underwood puts a Significant crimp on their ammo, which did not seem to come out...


Trying to see what I can learn from these pressure signs as a reloader, some odd stuff I have never run across.

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The bulges are not excessive IMO, and should come out during sizing.

I had trouble with pierced primers with Cor Bon ammo in a 9mm Springer.

9mm 1911s require some spring balancing to run right. But once done even Blazer 115 should be plenty of power to cycle a tuned gun.

In my Kimber I went with a 22# mainspring and a 10# recoil spring. It will cycle very light handloads now.

That second case from the left has some nasty rim grooves from a bad magazine.
 
The flats are because the back end of the extractor claw is sitting proud of the breech face in the slide. The primers don't look over-pressurized. The way some are punched out looks more like excessive firing pin protrusion. That should be measured and the factory contacted for the correct specification for the gun. It may be only softer primer cups punctured, but none should. The swipes on the primers happen in a number of handguns due to unlocking commencing before the firing pin has fully returned into its tunnel. I would check not only the protrusion of the firing pin but its tip's condition, which should be smooth and hemispherical.
 
That is an ugly firing pin, as said, should be hemispherical and smooth.
The lines across the case heads are from a poor "J cut." Not unknown but a sign of careless manufacture.
 
I take a degree of satisfaction from calling something correctly, but even I don't want to be THAT correct. I can honestly say that I have never seen a firing pin stick out like that before. That thing is so extended I wonder if a part is missing or if the slide was drilled too deeply from the other end or if the firing pin itself was turned incorrectly. No knowledgeable gun designer would do that on purpose, AFAIK.

In your friend's shoes, I would pull out the firing pin and chuck it into a drill use a diamond hone or some wet-dry sandpaper to take the edges off the tip and arrive at a more hemispherical shape. The excessive protrusion might be handled with a spacer turned to stop it earlier. I suppose the whole thing could be shortened, but I don't know how it was heat treated, so I hesitate to recommend that.
 
Unclenick said:
I take a degree of satisfaction from calling something correctly, but even I don't want to be THAT correct. I can honestly say that I have never seen a firing pin stick out like that before. That thing is so extended I wonder if a part is missing or if the slide was drilled too deeply from the other end or if the firing pin itself was turned incorrectly. No knowledgeable gun designer would do that on purpose, AFAIK.

In your friend's shoes, I would pull out the firing pin and chuck it into a drill use a diamond hone or some wet-dry sandpaper to take the edges off the tip and arrive at a more hemispherical shape. The excessive protrusion might be handled with a spacer turned to stop it earlier. I suppose the whole thing could be shortened, but I don't know how it was heat treated, so I hesitate to recommend that.
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I assure you, your being right is much appreciated and helps a lot. He's sending it back to the manufacturer to have the issues addressed. Curious to see what they do to it.

From what he told me fusion makes a lot of high end and custom 1911s. This is one of their "freedom" line of stock factory guns I think. He was expecting a lot better quality, hes pretty upset with it. He contacted them with the issues. they e-mail him a shipping label the next day. I hope they get the gun squared away for him. Personally I feel 9mm 1911s are a touch sacrilegious, but that is just my personal opinion, and he likes it.

Also, he texted a friend who has one. said the firing pin was smooth. he was thinking the firing pin might not have been hardened properly.
 
The firing pin is poor, but the only thing that limits 1911 firing pin protrusion is a primer or if dryfired, the spring stacking up. There is no mechanical stop, it isn't a Glock.
 
Yep. My bad there. Despite the photo, I completely forgot it was a 1911 just because the protruding pin's profile looked so out of place. Let's see what they do to the nose of it. The photo looks like the tip profile is currently a truncated cone. I hope the owner sends one of the cases with a punctured primer back with it. Otherwise, an aftermarket firing pin would be in order.
 
He sent the pix I posted. I still have the casings. But they e-mailed him a label the next morning after he sent them the pics. I'm curious to see what they do to it.
 
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