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by BioGuy
Fri Dec 28, 2012 12:57 am
Forum: General Gun, Shooting & Equipment Discussion
Topic: Good Range Day
Replies: 13
Views: 1939

Re: Good Range Day

I have had a lot of FTE issues with my Sig P238. It is even mangling the business end of the casings more than a third of the time. I tried 8 different types of ammo for it and waited until it was past any break in period before contacting Sig. They sent me a postage paid overnight return label to send it in for repair or replacement.

This really presented me with a conundrum because my only other conceable pistol is a S&W/Walther P99 which suffered a broken recoil spring after 1000 rounds or so and after two heavy days of shooting. Unfortunately S&W and Walther no longer provide parts for this series and sold the parts manufacturing to Umarex, which wont actually take it over until Jan 2013.
So rather than go without a pistol while I wait for the 238 to be repaired, I decided to get another pistol, and to step it up to a subcompact 9mm.

I really like the little Sigs and have seen many posts about them being reliable and that if they did have a problem Sig usually corrected it quickly and with excellent CS. Since they were so good to me on the 238 and since I really like the SA only subcompact frame of the 238, I purchased a Sig P938 today.

I got them to throw free range time in with the pistol (and a free Dr. Pepper) and put 50 rounds of Federal Range and Target (white box) 115gr FMJ, 20 rounds of PMC Starfire 124gr SFHP (the only self defense 9mm they had left), about 25 rounds of Winchester 115gr FMJ (100 round value pack), 25 rounds of Winchester 147gr JHP Personal Protection (it was on sale a long time ago somewhere and was in my shooting bag), and 1 Federal Hydroshock I found in my bag (lol).

I had 0 FTE. I had 2 FTF with the first round of the FMJ rounds in the 7rd magazine. It is really hard to get the 7th round in the magazine when loading and when the FTF occurs it seems to not fully engage the round on the primer side, pushing the slide a little sent it into the chamber correctly. None of the JHP's exhibited this problem during range testing or at home. The FMJ's only do this when I manually pull back the slide and release it. I noticed that if I release it crisply it will not FTF and if I release the slide from the locked back position to engage the round it will not happen. The 7th round noses up in the clip more than the first 6. I decided to keep it loaded with 7rds for a few days at home to try and get the spring to relax a tiny bit, and carry it with 6+1 since I cannot get it to FTF with 6 in the magazine and did not have this problem at all when shooting, only when trying to insert a new clip into the unloaded pistol.

I ordered a second magazine so we can see if it is the magazine or something else. I am betting it is the magazine and some of the cheap white box FMJ's being a tiny bit longer than they should be.

I will post a second range report next time I go out.

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