Malfunctions

I have a good friend who was my XO in my last Guard unit. He had a stroke a while back and has been working hard at recovery. He still has a bad leg and arm on the Left side, but he can walk, drive, and do a lot. He still thinks he will continue to improve, and that kind of perseverance can often lead to great stuff.

He and I often went shooting in the past, but since the stroke he has not felt up to trying to shoot. Until today. Today he decided to once again try to do some shooting.

Since I don't think he could actually hold a rifle, we decided that we would shoot .22's. I put my ACE conversion and a 226 with a DAK with a .22 conversion on it in the bag. I also brought my 227 to try out some .45 ACP shooting.

Long story short, I tossed in a brick of old Winchester .22 pistol ammo that my sisters recently brought over from the old house. It's been around from the 70's. Frank took up the 226 - and proceeded to have a couple malfunctions. Tried a couple other rounds and found a similar problem. So I gave him my ACE and shot the 226. The ACE did gangbusters with no further malf's.

Meanwhile I shot the 226. Seems out of 10 rounds I would have 2-3 that would take multiple hits to go off. Some failure to feed. Some double feeds. Some failure to extract. I did a quick wipe down, scraped some of the crud from off the bolt face, and maybe got some improvement. But it still had the regular issues. And none on the Colt. So it isn't the ammo.

I will accept it is quite possible that it has something to do with cleaning. I'm just not sure. I have had it on my other 226 frame before and never had this kind of issue. So while it was interesting to watch the sights when nothing happened unexpectedly, and it was often rewarding with a shot if you pulled the trigger again, I am still wondering just what might have caused this problem. ?Could the DAK hammer not hit as hard.

?Any ideas guys.

I'm worthless when it comes to Sigs. However, I have had semi-auto FTF malfunctions in the past that disappeared after a very thorough cleaning of the upper assembly (especially disassembling the hammer/striker area and channels and cleaning out impressive amounts of gunk).

For the last few years, every Christmas season I take down all of my semi-autos that have been fired over the year, all the way down to pins and springs, and clean it all out very thoroughly.

Beyond that, I'm not gonna be of any assistance on this one. Sorry.

Worn spring? I would probably do a really good clean job, lube it, and test it to see if it still gives you problems. Then if it does, I would try a different brand of ammo. I know that it works fine in your other gun, but I've seen some instances where certain guns just hate certain brands of ammo. then, if that doesn't fix it, I would take a look at replacing the spring.

I would be with the dirty sense. This is a pretty new upper, so I doubt the spring is weird already. I wonder about the frame, though. It's a 226 but it's a DAK. Interestingly, one could often make the round fire by clicking the trigger a couple times. i suspect the DA/SA hits a bit harder. Just a suspicion.

The ammo is old. But I've been shooting the same vintage ammo for all this time and never had this problem. It IS pistol target ammo, though. WAY back when another guy and I tested it against a couple other boxes in a Nylon 66 rifle at 50 yds. This was the lowest shooting, but it DID group. So it never was really hot. Target guns are like that.

I also got 8 ammo cans of .39 SPL midrange wadcutter and .45 ACP Target loads (185 semi-wadcutter). I need to clean my two bullseye guns that shoot the .38 SPL. They don't make that stuff anymore and it shoots really well.

To test the impact of the hammer and the resulting strike of the firing pin on the primer, why not try the pencil test.  With your DAK and a DA/SA, triple check the guns are both clear with no mags in the mag wells.  Holding the muzzle pointing straight up into the air, drop your basic #2 yellow pencil down into the bore, eraser first.  Let the pencil drop all the way in, the eraser resting against the breech face.  Pull the trigger and observe how high the pencil bounces.  (Be careful, I've had pencils stick into the ceiling with this test!)  Do this with both frames, the DA/SA and the DAK, and compare which, if either, gives you more bounce.  Of course, you won't be able to do this with your 22lr conversion barrel, use a 9mm or larger barrel, I don't really think the caliber of the barrel will make a difference in this test and the results you will attain provided you have a fairly new and long pencil.  

How many rounds do you have on the DAK frame?  A light primer strike is a sign that the main spring needs to be changed.  SIG does not make a recommendation on how many rounds the main spring will last and at which point it needs to be replaced other than watching for light primer strikes.

I'll be passing through your neighborhood next weekend, visiting family in Madison. I'd be more than happy to swing by and swap out mainsprings for you, should there be a need. And I am a SIG Classic P-Series factory certified armorer, should you have any concerns in that regard.

I'll give that a try. I have two 226's, one DAK and the other DA/SA. The DAK is in .357/.40 (not sure which barrel is in the slide at the moment) and the other is a 9 mm. But both should work with your test method.

Loved the part about double checking for it being empty. I could just see my wife if I put a pencil AND a 9mm round in the ceiling!

I can replace the hammer spring if it comes to that. I have done it on my 229 as I put the E2 grips on it and that required that I put the newer hammer strut and spring on it. I also took the hammer out on my 227 - and then took a good hour to figure out just how that stupid little spring on the hammer had to go - AND to get the spring strut to fit CORRECTLY. That little bugger is hard to get right. Almost seems like I get it by accident as the common approach doesn't seem to work.

ever get this figured out?

Not yet. I tried the pencil on my regular 226 and it worked nicely. But I only recently swapped out the tops on the DAK, and it went back into the safe.

I'll get to it - sometime.