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9mm failure to extract

Pickle Rick

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Dec 24, 2018
132
36
My 9mm loads 124gr Berrys, 5.2gr CFE pistol, are not extracting. About one in every five round the spent case stays in the chamber. It’s not stuck in the chamber though. Fall right out. What was cause this?? Using RP and Fed brass.

I deprimed, wet tumbled, sized, flared, crimped..all the hits, all the big ones…what gives?
I do not have this issue with factory ammo.
UPDATE
So…after investigating, I appear to have noticed two things. 1) Some of the rounds are off-center with the case head. The case head is getting stuck on the top edge of the case gauge. Verified by rotating and dropping case back in. The clearance/gap follows certain areas of the case head.

2) some of them may be undersized. I post-size them with my Lee post-size and crimp die but that appears to not size some of them enough? I tested screwing in the die for cam-over but that didn’t do anything.

Idk fuck
 
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Pull the slide off and push a few pieces of brass up under the extractor. Does the extractor hold the brass in place, or does the brass fall out easily?

I learned to check this from a gunsmith buddy of mine... he was on the range one day with a new pistol belonging to a customer. I don't recall if cycling malfunctions included a total failure to extract, but the extractor was not holding onto spent brass. This was a lot of years ago... I don't remember what he did to that extractor there on the range, but I do remember him saying that loose hold can cause problems.

Fwiw.
 
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Pull the slide off and push a few pieces of brass up under the extractor. Does the extractor hold the brass in place, or does the brass fall out easily?

I learned to check this from a gunsmith buddy of mine... he was on the range one day with a new pistol belonging to a customer. I don't recall if cycling malfunctions included a total failure to extract, but the extractor was not holding onto spent brass. This was a lot of years ago... I don't remember what he did to that extractor there on the range, but I do remember him saying that loose hold can cause problems.

Fwiw.
Thanks. Yea I tried this and it secures it well. I’m at a loss
 
How many times have you reloaded the brass that is having a problem?

If you have one of the cases that failed to extract, slide it under the extractor and try to pull it out straight/away from the breach face.
 
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How many times have you reloaded the brass that is having a problem?

If you have one of the cases that failed to extract, slide it under the extractor and try to pull it out straight/away from the breach face.
I’ve only loaded it once. It should all be once fired. I loaded about 6 different spent cases and extracted it and it all worked fine. Need to test more though
 
I could possibly be that the brass is seating too deeply into the chamber preventing the extractor from grabbing it. I had this issue with an HK P30L. I sent the barrel to hk and they replaced it
Problem went away.

Another option, is it always the same BRAND of brass that is doing it? Perhaps the rim is too short (still an extrsctor issue)
 
No idea based on your comments, but stream of consciousness and food for thought....
If it is important, stop running that batch if you don't have time at that moment to slow down and troubleshoot.

Any time you encounter a function issue, save that brass and isolate it. Also, keep samples of "good".

You will want to do a very close inspection on it, versus ones that function normally.

The drawings are on the web, and it doesn't require sophisticated lab facilities to run a micrometer and caliper.

It pays to have a chronograph handy to catch examples that are out of family in terms of fast or slow and determine if the failures correlate to those. It can be hard to catch unless it happens reliably.
(Now that chronos are smaller and work from your side of the line, it is trivial to set one up and take data. I don't always carry one, but I do when working with anything new, pistol or recipe.)

Failing to find issues with the ammo in terms of dimensions or velocity, that leaves us with a focus on the pistols.

I agree the odds are bad that two of them with a clean history on factory ammo are not likely to blame this time, so I would focus on the loads.

There used to be an old saying in the troubleshooting business, that the simplest solution is usually the explanation.

If you have not already done so, I would take the rest of the ammo batch and drop it all into a min-chamber cartridge gage to make sure it passes minimum chamber dimensions. If you don't own one, use the barrels.

Take a close exam of the rims on everything you have left of that batch, loads or empties.

If you have a borescope, check the barrels up front to make sure they are clean and no issues. Check the extractor function, bolt face, and firing pin hole. On the next test run, isolate and save samples of "good" and "bad" brass.

Good Luck and in for the range report.