Have 5 VP9s of various flavors. 115gr has always been questionable on brand new HKs for me, but I recently bought some low quantities of Federal brass 115gr and some new Blazer 115gr because they were dirt cheap. I generally stay away from 115gr anything.

Yesterday I had my VP9TOR and VP9OR with a slew of different ammo, suppressed/unsuppressed. Neither gun would run the brand new 115gr stuff. We’re talking FTFs and stove pipes every-other to every round out of 5+ mags in each gun.

As soon as I switched back to older 115gr (Federal and WWB) not a single malf out of either pistol.

One pistol has around 500rds on it, the other a few thousand at least.

This new 115gr stuff sucks bad. It’s loaded so light it can’t even run a broken-in HK pistol properly. *Mostly no issues with the 124gr & 147gr stuff. My VP9TOR came so freakin tight, the first 3-4 mags of even 124gr and 147gr had a few malfs, but it has cleared up 100% since when it was new.


TLDR - this latest 115gr ammo is crap - it’s even worse than normal.

Sounds like you need a lighter spring.

Sounds like with the higher ammo prices came crap quality.

I’ve read of the same issue in other 9mm pistols such as the M&P M2.0 9mm. The problem seems to be the recoil spring is too stiff for 115gr at first. The suggestions were to shoot 124gr NATO ammo at first and after a few boxes try 115gr again. Repeat until problem goes away.

Still works ok in several Glocks and my FTM AR-9 and my Scorpion...  
All suppressed and Un...

A few years back I was having a lot of trouble like this with the Winchester White Box...

Thats odd, my 1st gen M&P has never had a malfunction with any 115gr. Well over 1K rounds through it.

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Same, I’ve had no issues in my new or old M&Ps.  The problem seems to be new production 115gr ammo is just a bit too weak to function reliably 100% of the time in some handguns.

Is there a SAAMI standard loading for 115gr and are manufacturers always sticking to it?

SAAMI Z299.1 does not call out minimum pressures or velocities in their specs. Only maximum pressure.

He addressed that in the original post, the HK is already broken in.

Thanks.  Reading is fundamental LOL

Well, in that case I got nutin’

I just took my new to me VP9 to the range with some 115gn blazer brass that I have had for a few years.  First four mags ran without any issues.  Reloaded and the next four mags had quite a few FTF and a couple of stovepipes.   I took it home and broke everything down and did not see any issues.  

It appears to have the black VP9/VP40 recoil spring.  I have some newer 115gn federal I could try.   My only other 9mm is my USP9c that ran 115gn blazer brass and everything else with no issues.  

Guessing I can try to find some 124gn to help break it in but still a bit disappointed.   When it did run it shot great, accurate and trigger was nice.  

If anyone had this problem before how many rounds did you have to go thru before it ran 115gn reliably?