Springfield XDs, firing pin hitting off center?

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The 9mm xDMs (at least) have a bit less leade than some other service autos. Don't know if that's an issue at all with the .45s, though.

I've never had a round that wouldn't chamber and fire, but I did have a few that were pretty firmly lodged into the rifling when extracting, with some fat-profiled bullets. The "plunk" test is definitely your friend.
 
918v,

These bullets I was using are .451. However they are plated. I know plated is supposed to be .452. As for the plunk test, I remember them plunking in with no issue but did not fall out from gravity alone. Odd thing is, They are flush with the barrel. OAL was 1.190.
Longer OAL would jam into the lands. Also the profile of the bullet is a Flat Point.

I had the same bullets that are Hollow Point plated and they do not have the OAL issue as much as the FP obviously due to OGive/Profile of the bullet.

As for the primers being high, I use a hand priming unit and always make sure to bottom out on the primers to make sure they are fully seated. Then again, There is always a chance I missed one or two.

I think I need to make another batch, make sure the primers are seated fully and the OAL set to make sure it plunks in and out with gravity alone and report back with that.
 
It is hard for me to tell from the pictures if the firing pin hits are truly off center. Two of them look off center.

CCI states in this article: Mysteries And Misconceptions Of The All-Important Primer

http://www.shootingtimes.com/2011/01/04/ammunition_st_mamotaip_200909/

that high primers are the most frequent cause of misfires. The primer anvil has to be set on something hard and the primer cake pushed into the anvil. If the anvil is dangling in the air the primer is going to misfire.

Another thing, primers have to be hit in the middle for the most reliable ignition. Off center firing pin hits will result in misfires, the more off center, the more misfires that will happen.
 
These bullets I was using are .451. However they are plated. I know plated is supposed to be .452. As for the plunk test, I remember them plunking in with no issue but did not fall out from gravity alone. Odd thing is, They are flush with the barrel. OAL was 1.190.
Longer OAL would jam into the lands. Also the profile of the bullet is a Flat Point.
Click to expand...

If some of your reloads were sticking, then maybe the suspect ones were too long to allow the slide to go fully into battery, thereby causing the off center FP strike. Some plated bullets are garbage. I have a box of extremes where the bullet diameter is all over the place. If your OAL is right at the lands, then the slightest increase in bullet diameter will induce an out of battery situation.
 
Hmm...Ill remake a few test loads and see how it works out. I will try a shorter OAL and the plunk test. We will see then if that is the issue behind this.
 
I have never had an auto that hit center on the primer. I've also seen some slight firing pin wipe on warm loads in .40, but never in .45. I'd be more apt to believe the few that didn't light were because the primer wasn't fully seated. That is a condition I check for while boxing my rounds. If that isn't the case, what primers are you using? It's possible you got a few duds. I would start by looking for any inconsistencies that are present with the duds over fired cases. As a long shot, make sure your seating depth isn't allowing any rounds through that are over SAAMI spec. The perplexing issue is that it only happens with your reloads, so SA isn't going to be much help and I wouldn't reveal that to them because they'll pin it on you and not the gun.
 
He already said he's using a hand-priming tool and seating the primers all the way to the bottom of the primer pocket. There is no way not to seat them all the way in unless you're drunk or high.

You can make a dummy round with a live primer or maybe with just a fired primer cup with the indent hammered out, and chamber it. Then pull the slide back 1/20th of an inch and pull the trigger. See where the striker hits.
 
He already said he's using a hand-priming tool and seating the primers all the way to the bottom of the primer pocket. There is no way not to seat them all the way in unless you're drunk or high.
Click to expand...
But somehow people manage to do it.
 
I hope everyone will forgive me for referring you to another forum, but there's a lot of information about the XD-S out of battery primer strikes and limp wrist malfunctions on the XD Talk forum in the XD-S Discussion Room:

http://www.xdtalk.com/forums/xd-s-discussion-room/

A quick search will turn up some information.

My XD-S was doing the same thing as yours and even got worse than yours, out of battery primer strikes soon changed into hard jams. Two trips back to Springfield weren't of any help at all.

I know this sounds impossible but I tracked the problem down to weak or improperly heat treated magazine springs. The mag springs weren't strong enough to control the ammo in the mag and the top cartridge in the mag wes interfering with the slide returning forward back into battery and this caused the out of battery primer strikes.

Two new magazines fixed my XD-S, try different mags and stiffer wrists and see if either solution helps with your XD-S.
 
If this is what's being discussed, it's a non problem. Some of these are slightly deformed because I just punched them out. The gun was a Smith 1006. By my count I've got 17,343 once-fired empty cases; that's + or - 200-300. I just opened several of the boxes and looked at several handfuls of 9mm, 10mm, 40 and 45. These few are representative of what I already knew was the case.

The interesting thing is, those that were dead center, or nearly so, were almost all Glock-fired.
 
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I think the OP is concerned because only the suspect rounds had way off center FP hits. His good rounds, the ones that fired the first time, had well centered FP hits.
 
918v said:
I think the OP is concerned because only the suspect rounds had way off center FP hits. His good rounds, the ones that fired the first time, had well centered FP hits.
Click to expand...
For reliability reasons (and to lower costs), the firing pin, or striker, is not tight in the channel and hole it protrudes through. The design tolerances are quite "generous" in many case. This generosity, sometimes called "play", will sometimes lead to an off center hit. When tolerance stacking occurs, that "slack placement" off center hit can be pronounced.

Quality primers are designed with this in mind, and a good hit anywhere on the cup itself will cause ignition. If the tolerances are so sloppy as to allow a hit on the cup's edge, ignition may not always occur. But even then, the likelihood of a misfire, barring a defective primer, is very low.
 
Hmmm...you're saying the firing pin hole in the breechface is so large as to allow the pin to float across the primer and hit it in random locations?

I've never seen anything like that at all.

I'll agree the case head may be held at different elevations up and down the breechface based on how far up into engagement with the slide the barrel is able to go (due to a long cartridge or whatever) but not that the firing pin is able to move in the breechface. You'd get way too much primer cup "flow" that way.
 
I have a new XDs with a few hundred rounds through it and have had the same occurrence. It is a technical out of battery condition. The flat firing pin is horizontal in the XDs, not vertical like the Glocks, and this can lead to some confusion. If you examine the far off center strikes carefully, you will see they occur at the top of the primer, which can only mean the barrel is not fully locked. It is locked enough to be in battery and if the gun fires no harm will be done, and you will not be aware of it. If you get a FTF and clear it you will see the off center light strike.
You can demonstrate this to your own satisfaction with a safely cleared and handled gun by manipulating the slide and trigger.
It is clearly a timing issue, but as yet I haven't figured out the solution.
It happens to me usually on first rounds loaded by sling shotting, where I may be inadvertantly retarding the slide, so in normal cycling it may be ammunition related. These little guns are heavily sprung for obvious reasons, and may be ammo sensitive like the Glocks. I'm going to experiment with full power loads and different bullet weights to see what gives.
The XDs is an absolutely outstanding package, and this is just a glitch.
 
Be sure and let us all know what you find. This is a perplexing problem. In decades of loading, I have yet to find bad primers out of the box. They just are not common. It's something else, as I think you already know. I've had numerous off-center strikes over the years though; some guns more than others. That second picture has a really deep primer strike, too.

I would consider sending the gun back to Springfield and having them evaluate it.
 
Everyone who comes looking for help with reloads that did not fire thinks they seated the primers OK, no matter the method.


Totally unrelated to anything mechanical that may be going on. That part is interesting.
 
What's unlikely is the off center hit while in battery.
Click to expand...

Actually not all that uncommon on 1911 actions that have been fitted.

One of the things that moves the FP off center is cutting the barrel feet to match the frame and slide stop pin correctly.

As long as the hits are not far enough off center to cause misfires there is nothing much to worry about.
If it really bothers you the breech case can be bushed and a new centered firing pin hole cut.

It used to be very common when tightening up slides with peening down and then having to re-cut barrel feet.
 
None of the AL's I've ever fired strike dead center on the FP, and I've never had a mis-fire. It seems to be the nature of the beast. I would lean toward improperly seated primers, considering it fires them on the second attempt, and because you indicate it is only doing this with your reloads.

However, if it will help you sleep better, I would send it into SA for an inspection, just to be sure all is within spec.

GS
 
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