Round not consistently extracting

[DonVoigt]

I don't see anything obvious in the extractor pictures, but you will just have to look at the chamber.
No way a photo will show what one needs to know. Shine a bright light in the chamber and look at it from a side angle and rotate to see as much as possible.

Save your brass next time you go shooting and let us see some photos of the brass.

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

I don't see anything obvious in the extractor pictures, but you will just have to look at the chamber.
No way a photo will show what one needs to know. Shine a bright light in the chamber and look at it from a side angle and rotate to see as much as possible.

Save your brass next time you go shooting and let us see some photos of the brass.

Here are a few pictures of one of the brass from this past week, nothing jumped out at me but maybe you'll see something differently.

The chamber looks good to me, shiny, no pitting. If I put an unfired round in the chamber it goes in easily and if I tilt the barrel up vertically the round falls right out. If I do the same thing with a fired shell I have to push the round in the last 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch and if I tilt the barrel vertically it does not fall out on it's own.

[DonVoigt]

any markings on the sides of the brass?

Have you checked or had checked the headspace?

I'm running out of things to check, so next time try three different brands of ammo- in addition to your WWB!

There must be a reason!

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

any markings on the sides of the brass?

Have you checked or had checked the headspace?

I'm running out of things to check, so next time try three different brands of ammo- in addition to your WWB!

There must be a reason!

Progress! First let me say thank you for your continued help. I was looking through my range bag and found 2 more 9mm Shells, the Luger is my only 9mm gun. I can't tell how old they are but they have to be from within the last month, and the only changes I've made in that time are replacing the main, striker and extractor springs plus the ejector.

Looking at the shells you can see some obvious marks on the side. Looking at the top view picture you can see there is an indent on one of the sides. Could this be a head space issue? How do I check head space?

[mestguy182]

I sprayed the crap out of the chamber with Remoil and took a brass brush and rotated it several times in the chamber and then ran the brush through the barrel. When I insert a spent shell now it is easier to pull it out with my fingers than it was before, I also took a pick and scraped the ejector and the recess in the barrel that the ejector sits in and got some crud out of there.

No one has commented yet on the brass pictures I posted, they along with how much an unfired round wiggles in the chamber have me concerned about headspace but I'm not sure how to go about checking that.

[DonVoigt]

The "wiggling" is not "headspace; but may be related to an oversize chamber- which may or may not
be contributing to the extraction problem.

The brass pictures are too shiny for me to see the markings, but any significant scraping is not good.

Your cleaning may help.

Sometimes excessive headspace will show as a slightly raised primer- I don't see that in your earlier picture. Too little would "jam" the case mouth into the edge of the cut and would likely be visible, and I don't see that either.

The only reliable way to check it is to use gages.

If you give up after the next outing, and want to send the complete upper to me- I'll try it out by firing on one of my lowers and check the headspace. You can send the complete upper person to person as it is not a "firearm". No charge except return priority mail cost, which is like $7.

You have not put your city and state in your profile, you may be close enough for someone here to help in person.

[4 Scale]

Luger brass often has an oval shape, the case can slam into the side of the receiver on its way out. All my shooters do this to the cases. Your brass shape looks normal to me. I compared your spent brass to one of mine and it looks about the same as yours, including the dark rings nearer the mouth of the case.

[rhuff]

When you have your extractor installed in the breechblock, does it move up and down freely when you apply pressure to the claw? It should be under stiff spring pressure, but it still should move smoothly and freely. I am wondering if there is extractor binding and the claw is not fully engaging the extractor groove of the casehead. I have to ask if you cleaned out the extractor bed before installing the new extractor. That area can surely accumulate a lot of crud and lead to malfunction!! I am just thinking out loud.

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by DonVoigt

The "wiggling" is not "headspace; but may be related to an oversize chamber- which may or may not
be contributing to the extraction problem.

The brass pictures are too shiny for me to see the markings, but any significant scraping is not good.

Your cleaning may help.

Sometimes excessive headspace will show as a slightly raised primer- I don't see that in your earlier picture. Too little would "jam" the case mouth into the edge of the cut and would likely be visible, and I don't see that either.

The only reliable way to check it is to use gages.

If you give up after the next outing, and want to send the complete upper to me- I'll try it out by firing on one of my lowers and check the headspace. You can send the complete upper person to person as it is not a "firearm". No charge except return priority mail cost, which is like $7.

You have not put your city and state in your profile, you may be close enough for someone here to help in person.

Don, that is very kind of you to offer to take a look for me. I updated my profile to include my location which is Indialantic, FL; near Kennedy Space Center.

There aren't really scratches per se on the casing, just the darkened area with the line in it that you can see pretty well in the last 2 photos I posted, and the triangular shape in the one on the left towards the top. Hopefully the cleaning did some good! Thanks again for all of your help.

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by 4 Scale

Luger brass often has an oval shape, the case can slam into the side of the receiver on its way out. All my shooters do this to the cases. Your brass shape looks normal to me. I compared your spent brass to one of mine and it looks about the same as yours, including the dark rings nearer the mouth of the case.

That's very reassuring to know, gives me hope that it's not the head space. Thank you!

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by rhuff

When you have your extractor installed in the breechblock, does it move up and down freely when you apply pressure to the claw? It should be under stiff spring pressure, but it still should move smoothly and freely. I am wondering if there is extractor binding and the claw is not fully engaging the extractor groove of the casehead. I have to ask if you cleaned out the extractor bed before installing the new extractor. That area can surely accumulate a lot of crud and lead to malfunction!! I am just thinking out loud.

Thanks for the input. The extractor does move freely and smoothly, I'm actually wondering if it moves a little too freely, but I tested with the extractor spring that came with the gun and the Wolff one and they feel about the same to me, I even tried stretching the spring out but that didn't make much difference.

I did indeed clean out the channel for the extractor, it did have some gunk it that I had to spray down and get out with a pick tool.

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by 4 Scale

I was once warned that placing a stock on a 4" barrel military Luger was illegal as they were not issued in that configuration. I don't know if that is true or not but suggest check the law first.

So I've researched this a little after your post and it appears that you're correct, which is really a bummer. In order to be legal it has to be a Luger that would have come with a stock (artillery, navy) and even then, the stock has to be an original or reproduction identical to the original.

I was going to post the files to 3D print one on Thingyverse and make a post here, but I guess I won't anymore!

[mrerick]

The brass is "springy" and slightly malleable because it's job is to be pressed against the chamber wall and seal during firing the round.

The darkened area on one side of the brass is blow-by (blow-back) that is occurring because the brass is not sealing against the chamber wall evenly.

The Luger chamber (except for the very end of Mauser production in late 1941 and 1942) was made with an offset obturation ring - stepped chamber. The circular mark around the brass you see is from that step in the chamber.

Here's the drawing associated with 9mm cartridges and Luger's patent on this:

Headspace is associated with the mouth to base cartridge measurement. The mouth rests on the right most step just prior to the leade into the barrel rifling. The breech face must be very close (thousandths of an inch) to the case base when the pistol is in battery.

You'll also notice that the entire chamber is very slightly tapered, including the area between the obturation ring and the right end of the chamber.

You may be dealing with damage or wear or dirt clogging an area around or in front of or just behind the oblation ring.

I've attached a copy of Luger's German patent number DE237192A from 1910.

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by mrerick

The brass is "springy" and slightly malleable because it's job is to be pressed against the chamber wall and seal during firing the round.

The darkened area on one side of the brass is blow-by (blow-back) that is occurring because the brass is not sealing against the chamber wall evenly.

The Luger chamber (except for the very end of production in 1942) was made with an oblation ring - stepped chamber. The circular mark around the brass you see is from that step in the chamber.

Here's the drawing associated with Luger's patent on this:



Headspace is associated with the mouth to base cartridge measurement. The mouth rests on the right most step just prior to the leade into the barrel rifling. The breech face must be very close (thousandths of an inch) to the case base when the pistol is in battery.

You'll also notice that the entire chamber is very slightly tapered, including the area between the oblation ring and the right end of the chamber.

You may be dealing with damage or wear or dirt clogging an area around or in front of or just behind the oblation ring.

This is awesome, thank you for the detail. I'm an engineer and love this stuff. I gave the chamber it's first real good cleaning with a brass brush in years so I'm hoping that may help the situation.

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by mestguy182

Progress! First let me say thank you for your continued help. I was looking through my range bag and found 2 more 9mm Shells, the Luger is my only 9mm gun. I can't tell how old they are but they have to be from within the last month, and the only changes I've made in that time are replacing the main, striker and extractor springs plus the ejector.

Looking at the shells you can see some obvious marks on the side. Looking at the top view picture you can see there is an indent on one of the sides. Could this be a head space issue? How do I check head space?

That indent has nothing to do with headspace, it's common in about 5 percent of the brass fired from a Luger. And I'm talking a Luger with no malfuntions.

You seem to have changed too many things at the same time. When the ejector is about to break you start having extracting an ejecting problems. Now that you have replaced the ejector that has in fact broken. I would try putting back the original springs and see what happens.

By the way, all Lugers I know have no problem using WWB, unless they changed their receipe for worse again. What I meann is 10 years ago I bought some WWB (a large amount of them) that last me until some 3 years ago that had outstanding accuracy. I bought some more of a newer batch, and even if they still worked flawlessly, accuracy wasn't there anymore.

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by kurusu

That indent has nothing to do with headspace, it's common in about 5 percent of the brass fired from a Luger. And I'm talking a Luger with no malfuntions.

You seem to have changed too many things at the same time. When the ejector is about to break you start having extracting an ejecting problems. Now that you have replaced the ejector that has in fact broken. I would try putting back the original springs and see what happens.

By the way, all Lugers I know have no problem using WWB, unless they changed their receipe for worse again. What I meann is 10 years ago I bought some WWB (a large amount of them) that last me until some 3 years ago that had outstanding accuracy. I bought some more of a newer batch, and even if they still worked flawlessly, accuracy wasn't there anymore.

Thank you for the advice. The original extractor spring is what's in the gun now. The accuracy has actually been fantastic with the WWB. My only problem now is the failure to extract.

[mestguy182]

Went to the range today to see if any improvements had been made. I still had some failures to extract using WWB ammo. I also did the "tape test" and posted that picture below, does that indicate that the spring is too powerful? If so, would I remove some coils? There are currently 21.

Anyway, something kind of crazy happened, the new ejector I just put in broke at some point, sheared in half. I switched to some Sig 124 GR ammo after the ejector broke, and I must say, it seemed to have less failures to extract, could the ejector have had something to do with the FTE's? When I did have an FTE I had to use a screw driver to get out the shell, it was too difficult with my fingers, not sure if that's the norm. Can anyone recommend where to buy an original ejector from?

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by mestguy182

Thank you for the advice. The original extractor spring is what's in the gun now. The accuracy has actually been fantastic with the WWB. My only problem now is the failure to extract.

And I think you should also put the original main spring back.

After you get another ejector of course. You know, filing a spring is always problematic. And the ejector is basically a spring.

PS. I think forum member Lugerdoc may have an original ejector for you

[mestguy182]

Originally Posted by kurusu

And I think you should also put the original main spring back.

After you get another ejector of course. You know, filing a spring is always problematic. And the ejector is basically a spring.

PS. I think forum member Lugerdoc may have an original ejector for you

Thanks. Do you mind if I ask why you think I should put the main spring back? The gun wouldn't go in to battery with the original one, the toggle stopped short. Also, thanks for the recommendation for the ejector.

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by mestguy182

Thanks. Do you mind if I ask why you think I should put the main spring back? The gun wouldn't go in to battery with the original one, the toggle stopped short. Also, thanks for the recommendation for the ejector.

Reason 1. Original Luger springs are like the "springs made in hell". They are very and I mean very durable. It seems to be some kind of lost art, newly made springs never seem to be up to standard.

Reason 2. Your problems of not going on battery seem to have been "ejector giving up the ghost" related.

Reason 3. When faced with a "mechanical" problem in a Luger (or most things for that matter), change one thing at the time to find out where the problem is.

You don't change the engine of a car because at some moment it starts choking past some revs.*

Edit. * Perhaps at this day and age that's what they do. But I'm from an older breed.