What happened? STI Full Auto

S

sks

New member
I really am curious as to what happened at the range today and am needing some of you folks with knowledge to chime in.

My friend was shooting his STI .40 that he uses for competition and was beginning a shoot and run sequence. After his very first shot, he had a jam. He dropped the mag, cleared the jam and then reinserted the mag. Here is when the fun began.

When he racked the slide again to chamber a round, the thing blew off three shots full auto! Talk about a trip. His hand was directly over the ejection port and got hit with brass and smoked with powder burns. Now the hammer won't stay back.

What happened and what caused this to happen?

We are very glad that no one was hurt as the gun was pointed away from everyone and down. But it was pretty cool to rip off three shots that way. :)
 
I would take a very close look at the hammer notch and sear the corners maybe rounded off, dirt or grit in hammer notch. Disassembly the gun and clean good and retry with only one or two rounds in the mag.
 
Ehem-notaglock-ehem.

The hammer isn't staying back? Just like Char923 said, look at the sear, and the hammer. Make sure there is no crud in there.
 
The "too much trigger job" and broken or sear/hammer hooks sounds about right. "Too much trigger job" removed more of the hammer hooks than was needed and then it would take very little to produce the incident mentioned.

If you had not said the hammer will not stay back, I would also suggest that your friend check the firing pin and it's spring to make sure that it is not jammed forward, producing slam fires. I'd still suggest that he/she check the FP to make sure that problem did not cause the hammer notches to fracture.
 
I saw a firestorm 45 do that just recently. The owner had done a "trigger job" after watching one of those do it yourself videos on 1911 gunsmithing...the 1st time it did it sucked because we weren't ready. But the next 2 times were kinda cool. You know, the tri-burst 1911 thing does have some serious novelty going for it. :eek:
The owner of the 45 is having it "fixed." Laughed when he told me the story of what happened when he dropped it off at the gunsmith's shop. :D
 
Thanks for the information guys.

I told him that it was because his STI is a "cheap" gun and that he needed a good Ruger. :D

sks
 
I've seen that before at FT Benning, GA.

Reason was his finger was on the trigger - but he wont admit that. If it was a mechanical malfuntion it would have fired the whole magazine.

User Error.
 
George,

It could very well be that his finger was on the trigger but I cannot say for sure. He is a very skilled shooter with lots of experience but even the most experienced make mistakes. In fact, after this experience, he told me about a firearms instructor that pulled a fully auto Glock from a holster in a speed draw and shot a 9mm right through his left hand. Needless to say, the class was very impressed.
 
All tuned competition triggers will go auto depending on how good the trigger is. If you have a trigger in the 1-2 lbs range, every few thousand rounds you will need to have your smith re-do the trigger.

A friend of mine had a trigger job done by Johnny Lim of Limcat Customs. The hammer started following the slide after 3000 rounds. He said it was the best 3000 rounds he's ever fired.

It's like a race car, if you push the limits of performance, you will need to rebuild it constantly.
 
My .02,
If the hammer didn't stay back after all the excitement, then the problem was definitely mechanical (hammer, sear, disconnector, sear spring, etc.). (You've probably figured that out by now.)

And on the - "light trigger jobs requiring continous maintenance" - that is usually only true if the trigger job was done using the "conventional" method, i.e., a two angle surface on the sear, where one of those angles is the "breakaway" angle. I learned the art/science of correctly setting up the trigger on the 1911 from the master himself - Jack Breskovich. (not sure on the spelling) It is a COMPLETLY different method than is used by every gunsmith I've met. The problem is that you can't do it with any jigs or gages, it's done completely by hand. It took a few years and a lot of ruined parts to get the hang of it. Nevertheless, I'm only saying this to spread the word that a light trigger does not have to be unreliable. I have shot a 16 oz trigger on my SVI 40 cal Stock gun for years. Once I do the trigger initially, I very seldom touch it. I may re-polish the sear once a year. When I was competing full time, I could shoot quite a few rounds in a year. :)

have fun,
Brian
 
Brian, you're right about the excitement, because there was plenty. My friend shoots competively and has done so for many years and has never had this happen. I am supposed to talk with him tomorrow and will relay all of the advice.

Before the incident, he let me shoot it and I have to say that the STI is a nice weapon.

sks
 
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