I fired my new FNP 45 Tactical at our local indoor range for the first time on Sunday and had issues I'd thought I'd share with the membership here.

First off the range has only steel targets, and frangible ammo is the only ammo allowed. I buy the ammo from them. I forget the marking on the box, but the case is marked KFA. This was new ammo, and not reloads. 155gr truncated nose frangible 45acp.

I experienced jam after jam, with the issue being failure to feed. The rear of the case kept getting hung up on a thing that looks like a backwards ?
It made clearing drills impossible as the tap, rack, didn't work. Removing the mag required the manually locking the slide back in the open position, and pull the mag out. Mag removal was then very hard to remove. I finally figured out that all I needed to do was move the round backwards back into the mag, and the tap, rack drill worked.

The next issue was noticed when we pick up the brass. All the brass from my gun had a bad case bulge in it.

Anybody having issues like this?  
I need to fire the gun with my 230gr ball ammo and see is I am still getting the case bulge.
I think the FTF issue was caused by the frangible bullets nose not being round. I need to try some hollow points to make sure.

I own a FNP tactical and it is one of my favorite handguns.  With that said, it will only RELIABLY fire 230 gr FMJ, LRN, or HPs.  I have tried all other flavors (185 & 200 gr HP, LRN, LFP, jacketed wad cutters) and cannot get them to function.  My guess is that feed ramp/chamber geometry is set for the 230 grainers.  If you can find some frangible 230 gr ammo or somewhere else to shoot where they are not so rigid in ammo choice, you will find your feeding problems eliminated.  

I can't answer the case bulge other than it looks like the round isn't supported when it detonates.  It looks almost like it wasn't fully in the chamber when it was fired.  Just curious but did you have any problems with stove piping or other FTE issues?  Oh, yeah, I've never heard of that brand that you are shooting.

don't give up on the FNP Tactical - it is a great handgun.

I researched the ammo today, and it's frangible ammo made for the law enforcement market only. So I called the range to find out what's up.

The ammo was bought on the open market from a LE contract over run. The supplier bought the total extra ammo that was available, over 1 million rounds,
and sold it off to ranges that use frangible ammo. Comes in 50 round boxes. All frangible ammo bullets are less than 180gr's. in 45acp The stuff can be hard to find.
He sell reloads from a commercial reloader who loads frangible bullet ammo for his range. Precision Cartridge Inc.

Link

The funny thing about the FTF I was getting was this stuff will cycle 100% without any problems in my Sig P220,  or in the P250 .45acp my buddy was shooting in the next lane. But the FNP bulked on it. I never had any stove pipes or any other feeding, extraction problems. The first mag I fired only went 3 rounds before it jammed. It jammed on all 3 mags that came with the gun. I shot all I had that day, and the range is currently out of it.

As for the case bulge. It was coming form the FNP, the Sig's empty's were normal. The gun was always in full battery when I was shooting it.
Maybe tomorrow I can shoot some the other 230gr FMJ ammo I have on hand. WWB, Federal, and Magtec. we'll see what happens.

I'm not giving up on the FNP yet. I waited all summer after handling one to pull the trigger and buy one. I like the 15 round capacity over the Sig's 8.

I'm guessing a light bullet with new stiff springs is your issue.

Even the new springs with full power 230gr have some issues. When mine was new I oiled the slide and racked it till I had blisters. Left all mags loaded and left the slide locked back when stored. I don't know when the last time I had any issues was. Also, mine shoots the wwb ammo!

I just bought an FNP .45 standard that I haven't fired yet, but I had seen a thread somewhere about the casings not being fully supported in the chamber. Most of the replies said that it was nothing to worry about and that it was common among .45s as this was the norm at the feed ramp. I took that at face value as my experience with .45s is next to none.

Could this possibly be part of the reason for your casings being bulged?  If this has been discussed before, please forgive me.  Here's a pic of my chamber with a round in it and you can see the sector at the feed ramp where the round is not fully supported.

http://offroadupgrades.com/includes/Chris

From my experience, my Sig P220s will cycle anything.  I am not sure why but the FN only seems to like the 230gr FMJ, RN lead, or JHP.  As I wrote before, I experimented with a bunch of different loads including adjusting the cartridge OAL with no luck.  It's all good though because the big FN handles the 230 gr loads very well.  
I asked about FTE because that could either be a problem with a light load or recoil spring issue.  The photos sent by another poster shows the cartridge in the chamber and as you can see the round is not supported very well.  IMHO the loads are very high pressure and are bulging the case out where it's not supported.  I don't think you will have any problem shooting anything out of the FN that has the profile of the 230 gr FMJ...keep us posted!

I've shot all kinds of ammo through my USG and my tactical and never had any problems, let alone something like this!

The only exception was a couple round of WWB that jammed in the magazine. But they were well over spec in length, and they only jammed in the magazine, once I got them to feed, they fired fine.

I'm thinking it was the ammo, I would try a few rounds of decent stuff and see if the cases are still bulging.

Az

bulging like that may lead to a KB. I would recommend sending it to FNH if that issue occurs with all ammo.

I didn't know the FNP 45's chamber was a unsupported design until we found all the bulged cases when we picked up our brass.
I didn't have my P220 with me, but we had his P250 in .45acp. that we fired along with the FNP.
We checked the chambers at the range, and found the FNP is like your picture, and the Sig's is fully supported like my P220.
I slid a fired bulged case into the FNP's chamber, and it didn't even come close to going into the Sig. So we knew the FNP was the culprit.
He found 90 cases of the 150 we fired, with the bulge when he got home.

What is why I started this thread.
To see if this was a new issue, or one that has been discussed in the past, and the search function didn't find it.

The bulge is severe enough that a case rupture could of lead to a KB. The sad part we didn't find it until we were finished shooting.

My FNP45T just exploded a few days ago from the exact bulging.

I What was the outcome?  Are you OK?  The damage to the gun?

I'm getting ready to post my test results of yesterday's firing of the 3 brand of 45acp I have on hand.

OK, I had time yesterday to do some more research on this case bulging issue. As mentioned in the first post I was going to fire some different .45acp ammo. I have on hand Magtech, WWB, and Federal, all 230gr FMJ. I fired 5 rounds of each.
The wifey was home and policed the brass as I was shooting it to keep the cases from disappearing in the snow. So she get's credit for her part, and all cases were recovered.

None of the cases experienced the bulging is in my first post, but the results were quit interesting.

There is a difference in case hardness with the 3 brands I was using, and the cases all exhibited a different pattern on the fired cases.

The Magtech cases are what I would conciser the reloader's dream. The cases  expand into the chamber, with no blowby or discoloration from firing.
There was just the slightest witness marks of the chamber.

The WWB cases are the hardest of the 3, with discoloration on all 5 cases where the rounds don't fully expand into the chamber. Thus allowing a bit of gas to escape and leave a carbon film on the entire case that will wipe off with your hand. The cases had  witness marks of the chamber from the carbon, with heaviest discoloration in the unsupported area of the chamber.

The Federal cases are the softest of the 3. The cases expand into the chamber, with no blow by or discoloration from firing.
There was the slightest of a bulge in the chambers witness marks. You could see it but it was hard to feel it with your fingers. A resizing die will correct it.

On edit: There were no feeding or extraction issues with any of the ammo I tested.

Factory Speer ammo, blew the take down lever in half, half the safety gone. The barrel appears to be ok as well as the slide.

I had not heard about the unsupported chamber when I got this pistol. Then I started noticing threads popping up here and there about it.
It makes me concerned about using any kind of +P ammo. Any experiences with PMC ammo?

Who do you go after on this? Speer, FNP, or both.

I'm going to inform the manufacture of the ammo I was using about my problem.
This can be dangerous, as you have just proven, the hard way.

I'd guess FNH. The bulging is due an unsupported chamber

And either weak brass or pressure over 23,000 PSI.  Frangible ammo nearly always has a lighter bullet since space is at a premium.  But if the bullet is 230 grains, it is very long, meaning less case  volume.  This increases the pressure.  Pressure can also be increased with non-standard chambers or barrels.



 

Pictures?



What kind of factory speer ammo? I've had two of 50 185gr's that had severe setback (from being dropped), that I didn't notice until checked them before loading..





I've fired very hot 230+P loads from my FNP-45 T and no issues.

He had the pictures up in this thread. He took them down pending his reply from FNH

The ammo was older Speer Lawman JHP i believe. The FNP was sent to FNH, they sent a prepaid label.

Mine functions with all kinds of ammo.  I save the brass and have not seen any issues, even with corbon 165 grain hollow point +P, which feel pretty vicious.

I been in email contact with Kilgore Flares, the manufacture of KFA ammo.

So far all I've got from them is that Kilgore no longer is making small arms ammunition. The exited that market several years ago.
Yes, they did make frangible ammo for the Military and LE market, and it was not (knowingly) released to the civilian market.

They keep asking for the name of the range where I bought and fired the ammo. They want to contact the owner to find out his source.
I explained that the range was sold out of the ammo, and did tell them what state the owner got from. Nothing more.
I also sent them pictures of the end flap of the box, and the bulged case I have in the first post.. They requested that to trace the lot info.

I asked if their ammo was ever produced to different then SAAMI spec's for a particular customer.
The reply was that all the ammunition they produced was to exact SAAMI spec's for all calibers they manufactured.

So far that is all I have. I am still in email contact with them, but with me not divulging any info on the range, I don't think any thing else will come about. If I get any more out of them I will post it in this thread.

I compared this picture to my HK USP 45 and the HKs's chamber looks the same. There might be a tiny bit more material supporting the case on my HK barrel but to me it looks practically the same.

I don't own an FN45 but I'm interested in getting one so I'm watching this thread closely.

For the record, I shot 150 rounds of PMC 230 gr FMJ with no bulging to the casings, not even a hint.

+1 on this, havent had any issues with my fnp minus the wwb mag issue. wiping the inside of the mags with clp solved that issue