So, I had a long post here about tuning a new WC extractor for this SA RO Elite Operator in 9mm. Todays was it's first 600rds, and it was sloppy outside here in OH. Good news was I had the whole range to myself.


First things first. 10-8 live fire extractor test. During this, which I'm sure uou are all famliar with here, it passed with flying colors. not malfunctions. Nore shooting position had brass falling at about the gun's 4o'clock a few feet away. That seems right.



Second thing, accuracy test. This target was 10yds. This is about the average size groups I was getting when I did my part. Seemed to always throw one. I did have to adjust my rear sight slightly, luckily I remembered my sight pusher and was able to do it right there at the range.





With those two things out of the way, time to just start sending rounds down range. I only had 115gr Winchester Whitebox and Sellier Bellot 150gr subsonic. I only shot about 50rds of the S&B, but no hiccups. Then on the Winchester White Box. I was loading 7rds per magazine, x4 magazines, and doing reload drills. this meant that every 7rds, one of my Chip Mccormick 10rd mags was falling into the soupy OH mud pictured above and below.



After about the 5th reset of the drill, I could no longer get the slide to lock back on an empty magazine, even while manually racking the slide. (I'll also say my 9rd Springfield mags behave the same way). Slide did not lock the rest of the day. After cleaning the gun and magazines, slide will now lock back manually with CM mags, but still not Springfield mags. I'm guessing just too much grit for the follower to overcome? Never had a problem getting rounds to the feed lips though.

Early on, I experienced one failue to fire. It was the onlyh one of the day. Ligjht primer strike, or hard Winchester White Box primer? What do you think?



After about 400rds, I started getting frequent (3-4 times per magazine) failure to feeds. These occured both by not having anough power to strip the round from the magazine (5% of the time) and by not quite getting the round to fully seat in the chamber (95% of the time). I know this gun has a tight chamber because it will not chamber my reloads when it is sparkling clean. I'm thinking maybe I'll send this out to have it worked on and hopefully it reduces malfunctions?

Rounds 400-600 were all painful, requiring a smack to the rear of the slide 3-4 times a magazines and every reload requiring manual cycling of the slide. at 34 degrees F., my fingers were feeling some pain an the rear sight doing this so many times.

All in all, I don't know what to think honestly. I severly handicapped the day against the gun by immediately dropping all my magazines into the mud. I'm not sure if the feed issues related to fully seating the round in the chamber were becasue some of that mud had made it's way toward the chamber, or if general dirt and carbon from firing lined the chamber and made it even tighter than it already was, or if the recoil spring lost all it's momentum just trying to strip the round from a filthy magazine. Because of this, I guess I'll have to run the test again without dropping the mags. Either way, it preformed worse than the P10C (which didn't care at all about the mud) but that's to be expected I think. What do you think?

I would have been disappointed.

Were you lubing the gun durring? I normally wouldn't unless i was dropping mags in mud.

How much lube did you start with?

I may have missed it but were the mags new?

Mags were new as far as I know. I bought the gun used. Original owner stated 50rds through it, which appeared accurate. It was lubed liberally beforehand with a mix of Slip2000 30 weight and Cherry Blamz. Additional club was applied after 400rds when malfunctions became normal. It helped, but did not resolve the issues. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to expect from 1911, havent had one in years, it was a .45, and I never ran it that hard.

Sounds like it got a good amount of mud/grit in it which will slow things down. Combined with how lightly sprung 9mm 1911s seem to be (12-14 lb recoil spring, whereas .45s are usually at least 16.5 lbs and often more) I’m not surprised it didn’t have the power to go into battery. Particularly if the extractor tension was on the heavier side and a tight spec chamber.

I would clean it well and see if problems persist but it sounds like it ran fine before getting muddy.

Gunna agree with this poster.

So I don't know as much as Kenmays or some of the other guys here (feel free to jump in )
But I'm thinking the extractor tension might explain some of it too. On a 1911 the extractor is involved in the feeding.
It might have thrown the cases into next week, but that may have been "overtensioned" into causing feed issues.

For debris getting into the mags, I'd take a look at these:


One of the things Vickers/WC did with these mags, get rid of the holes in the side for people dropping them in dirty/sandy environments.
You might want one or two!

I'd clean the gun up, lube it and keep it lubed - it is a nearly new, tight gun, with a light spring, that was probably getting hot.
The mag's followers might have been getting caught in the grit causing the failure to lockback.
And when I mean clean it, I might open up just about everything.
See if there's a tiny bit of sand in the firing pin channel, if there's stuff in the mainspring housing, you name it.
This is just to rule things out.
Dirt got into/onto the magazines, when then went into the gun. They could have gotten out and into a lot of places once inserted into a hot gun like that.
IIRC once upon a time Larry Vickers ran a test on a G21, a bit of dirt got under the trigger dingus and the gun was toast until cleaned.
Pretty much no matter the gun, an unfortunately placed bit of sand can be bad news. I can't think of a platform that's immune.

OK, so in my experience, SA doesn't quite set these up correctly out of the box.   They use a Ti firing pin to make it drop-safer and a heavy mainspring to hit that pin harder.  Sometimes this can result in primer shear and filling up the firing pin channel with bits of shaved brass, also not good.

Since the slide has to spend so much energy cocking the hammer with every shot, they use a really light recoil spring to compensate... which doesn't always return the slide reliably.  The last one I measured ran about 9#.

I generally replace the pin with a steel firing pin from EGW and swap out the mainspring for a 19# weight.  Use this opportunity to ditch the ILS parts if the gun is so equipped.  Then I would replace the recoil spring with a 11 or 12#.

This should resolve both the light strikes and FTRTB issue.

Interesting.
I'm thinking I might have to do some of that to my SA RO Champion 9 - I won't hijack OP's thread though

This makes sense though for OP, not a lot of "oomph", gritty mag, hot gun that's brand new.

A full tear down and clean might be revealing

Thanks for the replies. For what it's worth, I was running a Wilson flat wire 13# spring. I will see about changing firing pin and main spring.

Also, a polish of the cartridge pickup rail might be worthwhile, as it'll reduce the drag on the slide as it cycles.  And on mine, the disconnector had so much spring tension on it that it would hold the slide back if you eased it closed.

I've ordered a 19# mainspring and steel firing pin. Also exploring having the chamber reamed if I can find a good place to send it off.

I’d lay money that your chamber is fine, unless you reload and may be getting bullets stuck in the rifling due to fat ogive bullets or loading long.

These are my further findings I wrote on another forum. I'll paste them here. Tell me what you think, I'm no expert but this added to why I feel the chamber is tight

Still trying to diagnose some things with my SA RO Elite Operator 9mm. It wouldn't chamber my reloads, then would start having trouble to chamber rounds after about 400rds fired through the gun.
I was suspicious of a tight chamber. So, my testing begun.

My reload OAL is shorter than the Winchester white box. My reload does't chamber, but the white box does
Winchester


Reloads



To be sure, I pulled the bullet from my reload and tried to drop the empty case in the chamber. Same result, wouldn't drop in.


Out of curiosity, I attempted to drop a fired Wolf steel case in the chamber. I didn't have any unfired Wolf cartridges to try. This was a no go by a long shot.


I then measured the diameter of all the cases.
Reload:

Winchester:

Gold Dot (also drops fine into chamber and feed correctly):

Wolf Fired Steel Case:


Based upon the measurements and testing, I'd say the chamber is indeed tight. It was suggested elsewhere that maybe the leade was too short, but that doesn't appear to be the case. What do you all think?

I think you have a couple things going on with your reloads.  First, I'm pretty sure that bullet shape is going to hit the lands loaded that long  -- I see that all the time.  It isn't the OAL that matters as much as where the full diameter of the bullet contacts the rifling.  That bullet you're loading appears to be going to hit the rifling long before the other factory bullets you have.

Second, you are probably not achieving a full length resize on the case, which is why the case won't drop in.   If you're not using a Lee Factory Crimp die, you might look into it.  If you are using one already, check to see if you have it adjusted as close to the shellplate as possible.

I still think the chamber isn't too tight, because two good brands of factory ammo will drop in.  The fired steel case is neither here nor there; fired cases never snap back to sized diameter.

You could probably benefit from a finish reamer to cut the leade a little deeper, and it may open up the chamber a bit too; a tight chamber is a common thing to squeeze a little more accuracy out of a barrel.   If that still won't do it, you have a decision to make: either shorten your OAL, use a different bullet type, or get a throating reamer to open up the leade enough to accept the cartridge as it's currently loaded.    At any rate, the finish reamer is a good, safe choice.

Lee FCD and chamber check all your reloads.

9 mm and 40 s&w, to me appear more senestitive to reloads than 45 acp.
redding or dillion dies and lee FCD for all dillion 650.

Also, I no longer reload. Used my father's press to make these about 4 years ago, so reloading is no longer an issue. But I tjuought it was indicitive of a tight chamber which may have contributed to feeding issues when dirty. My only goal is reliabilty, not realy with reloads just in general. I'm going to have the barrel reamed a bit and see what happens. Not too worried about any loss of accuracy. It'll shoot better than me when I'm shooting realistically. I'm not much for slow fire during my drilling. Thanks for all the feedback everyone.

UPDATE:

I've installed a Dan Wesson magwell (I like). I also picked up some Wilson/Vickers duty mags and Wilson ETM mags.

I've installed a Wolff 19# mainspring, Wolff extra power firing pin spring, and Dawson Precision steel standard length firing pin.




I sent the barrel off to Patriot Defense in Texas to be reamed. Never heard of them before, but they offered the service through online checkout for a fair price. Quick turn around. I dropped the barrel in the mail 01/30 (Thursday), they received it 02/01 (Saturday). They did the service and shipped it back out to me on 02/04 (Tuesday). I got the barrel back today (Thursday). Ran some patches through it and some yellow cutting oil came out. I ran patches until they came out clean, which was just a few passes.

I tested the same reload that would not chamber before having the barrel reamed, and the same case from my reloads that I pulled the bullet from. Both dropped right in this time.

Before:


After:



I double checked again with Speer Gold Dot, which have always dropped in. They were still good to go.




I cycled the action by hand. My reloads, the Gold Dot, and some Browning FMJ ammo all fed and chambered fine. A second range report is to come, but I'm feeling better about it now that all my available test rounds drop in freely and hand cycle fine.

Sounds good.

they are spendy but the vickers wilson combat mag just feels good and has worked well so far (mine is 45acp)

UPDATE
500rds flawless rounds today, 18 degrees F. All through Vickers Duty mags and Wilson ETM mags. No failures of any kind, mags all locked back great even though they were icy, never seemed to struggle going into battery. I think I'm good to go.

Glad it worked out for you.

Glad to see this got resolved, and credit to you for running your gun and mags hard. These are tools meant to be used and ought to run reliably

Glad it worked out for you.

Hey glad to see it worked!
And good get on the Vickers mags

They're 100% right for a guy like you who likes to shoot a bunch, drop mags and does not want debris in them!

Very glad to see the pistol is running right

I think its the reload problem ???? I find 9 on the cheap side now a day I do not reload for mine .

Read the thread and you wont have to guess... lol