New Member seeking Beretta Tomcat advice

N

nobodieschild

New member
Hello, I am new here and could use some advice on my new Tomcat. It's an inox model with the wide slide, brand new. Was excited to shoot it yesterday after getting a few boxes of ammo for it but was disappointed with it. Ammo tried is Magtec 71gr fmj , Aquila 71gr fmj , underwood 55 gr extreme defender and some magtec 71 gr jhp.
Cleaned and oiled the pistol then went down to the range with it. Experienced failure to load on the first 3 or 4 rounds in each magazine with all brands of ammo. Nose down in front of ramp. Seemed it would run the last few rounds in the mags ok.
Came back up to the house and cleaned and oiled the pistol and all the mags. Polished the feed ramp a little and scratched my head some. I remembered a short comment on some forum somewhere that if you gripped the Tomcat with your finger wrapped under the base of the mag it could cause malfunctions. It just feels natural to hold it that way to me.
Anyway I went back down and fired off what ammo I had left and tried the modified grip. It did seem to make a big difference if I kept my pinky off the base of the mag. At this point all I had left was about 30 magtec fmj and 6 of the underwood. Had one fail to feed in each magazine and it ran all six underwoods as long as I kept that pinky stuck out.
Sorry so long but is this just normal break in for the Tomcat? 159 rounds so far. Does anyone think you could put enough pressure on the base of the mag with just wrapping your pinky under it to affect the gun's operation.
Waiting to afford more ammo
Any advice will be appreciated......Nick
 
First, welcome home. Pull up a stump and set a spell.

Let me make sure I understand your issue.

You load a round in the barrel and it fires and ejects but the top round in the magazine fails to load. Is that correct?


attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • Tomcat-01small.jpg
    Tomcat-01small.jpg
    301.8 KB · Views: 367
Yes, that is correct. Seems like the first 3 or 4 rounds would not strip off the magazine. Just slight pull back on slide would load it in the chamber.
 
I just got a Bobcat a few weeks ago NIB. I shot it with mix of 22Lr HV ammo. It ran like a clock. Bought 2 new magazines Beretta, not aftermarket’s and it does what OPs Tomcat does. First 3 in new mags don’t want to nose up. You can pop the mag and 1st round will cycle but next 2 hang up. Cleaned mag, still doing it. I’m thinking it’s too much spring. It’s only thing that makes sense. Mag is under no finger contact in all cases.
 
nobodieschild said:
Yes, that is correct. Seems like the first 3 or 4 rounds would not strip off the magazine. Just slight pull back on slide would load it in the chamber.
Click to expand...

Okay, slightly more information needed. Is the round not feeding at all or is it not chambering fully?
 
Sounds like the dreaded rimlock. Try this: When you load the mag, take care to keep the rim of the top round in front of the rim below it. Worth a try anyway.
 
Sorry to hear about your trouble, mine own TC has run like a champ since 08. Later the frame cracked and Beretta replaced it with a Stainless Steel model free. Contact Beretta and send it back....this should not be on you. PS The TC is the most accurate pocket gun I have ever encountered. Won a lot of silly bets ringing 50 yard steel with it.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. The top round seems to be not releasing from the lips of the mag when cycling. Fires the first round but then stops with slide back and the next round nose down at the feed ramp, not touching the ramp. Pulling the slide back loads the round into the chamber. Basically you have to manually cycle each of the first 3 or 4 rounds. The last few rounds in the mag run just fine. Tried polishing the lips of the mag and have had then sitting loaded for a couple of days. Gonna give it another try later today. Going to experiment with my grip also, It could just be my fault. I'll check for rim lock also. The ammo is expensive enough that it feels like I'm wasting money trying to troubleshoot this thing.
 
"Rimlock" will not allow the rounds to come out of the magazine. It's pretty rare-especially with FMJ ammunition.

It's possible you are not holding the gun firmly.
 
Thanks Bill, I have paid careful attention to my grip as I suspected also that it could just be me. I took the pistol down to the range this afternoon and fired my last 40 rounds, a mixture of magtec fmj and jhp 71 grain. Experienced failure to feed at least once and sometimes more than once on each magazine. If I hold the slide back and drop the mag the top round looks just like it never tried to feed at all. However my last 2 mags I only loaded 5 in the mag with 1 in the chamber and they both ran fine. I am now suspecting that the springs are still too tight on the mags to feed reliably. Around 200 rounds thru the gun so far. Time will tell I guess
 
I think what should be done here is a manual cycling of the slide a few hundred times to knock down and smooth out any burrs that may be present and they could be interfering with the slides return and power to strip a round out of the mag.

Since OP said things improved when he didn't touch the base of the mag with his pinky, that could be the fix as with these small pistols any change in the angle of the mag can cause issues.

Could also be a faulty mag, IDK if the Tomcat comes with just one mag, but if so buy a second mag and see if things improve.
 
Thanks everyone for your advice. I have 3 mags, same problem with each one. I started a ticket with Beretta and they sent me a label so I may ship it off next week. I've run 220 rounds through it and have yet to get through any full mag without feed issues. I've polished the feed ramp, cleaned and dried the mags and let the mags sit full for a few days. I still feel it is a mag problem, the rounds are really tight when it is full but short of cutting the spring I'm running out of ideas. Got some more ammo so I'm going to shoot a few mags with just 5 rounds tomorrow and see if it cycles. If not it's going home. Thanks again !!
 
So I have opened a ticket with Beretta and they have sent me a UPS label. They say expect 6 to 8 weeks and don't even bother checking the status for at least 10 days. The worst part is with UPS the package has to be dropped off at a UPS Customer Center which is 50 miles away at their distribution center and only open from 3 to 7 pm daily. NO UPS store allowed to be used. This is probably my last Beretta firearm.
 
6 to 8 weeks? I think Taurus these days is about twice or even thrice as fast.

Guess I dodged a bullet as last year when they were doing the rebates for these I had considered getting one. Then last weekend I saw an NAA .32 for sale at a really nice price. Even tho the NAA and Kel Tec have drawbacks, they all appear to just work. Beretta's pocket pistols, if the design isn't antiquated the execution is flawed and from what else I've read about their customer service it's that in name only.
 
nobodieschild said:
So I have opened a ticket with Beretta and they have sent me a UPS label. They say expect 6 to 8 weeks and don't even bother checking the status for at least 10 days. The worst part is with UPS the package has to be dropped off at a UPS Customer Center which is 50 miles away at their distribution center and only open from 3 to 7 pm daily. NO UPS store allowed to be used. This is probably my last Beretta firearm.
Click to expand...

My experience is that if you drop it off at your local PostNet it gets handled exactly the same as if you made the 100 mile drive.
 
I called the local UPS store and they said they are not authorized to ship fire arms. Beretta explicitly said in their email not to take it anywhere but the Distribution center . So I'm not ready to risk going against their instructions. Not going to give them any excuses for denying my claim. Overall my Tomcat experience has not been a good one but hopefully they will fix it eventually.
 
I actually just purchased a Tomcat as well, but built in December of 2021. I don't believe it had ever been fired previously, or very little, if it was.

I actually did a fair amount of research on this gun before buying it and one of the things I recall reading about was with someone having difficulty with the first couple of rounds that were being fed from the (full) magazine. Same issue that I believe you're having. After that, the rounds seemed to feed ok.

He came to the conclusion that there was too much tension coming from the mag spring, so he clipped a couple of the coils off the end of the spring, and this seemed to solve the problem. Someone else piped in and said that that probably wouldn't be a good idea in the long run, and suggested that he instead should load up the magazines with ammo and let them sit for a week or two, and that this should help reduce the spring tension.

I don't recall whether this latter suggestion helped at all, but that's what I'm trying. Not that I had that same issue, mind you, but I figured I'd do this as a preventative measure. In fact, after I bought the gun, I didn't even try loading a full mag. I just loaded four rounds into the mag, and one in the chamber, so I never experienced the problem.

Anyway, I hope that helped somewhat, even though I realize you may be well on your way to sending it back to the factory.

I'll report back in another week or so after I've had a chance to let the mags sit fully loaded and let you know how I made out.


Frank
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top