Walther CCP Slide Seized

[Snowdog]

I took my wife to the range a couple days ago and her Walther CCP experienced a malfunction.

It's an odd one, the slide seized about a third of the way back. There is a live round in the chamber that slides out of the chamber easily, but there's not enough clearance to allow the round to be removed.

So what would cause the slide to seize like this upon returning to battery? I'm thinking either the gas system (such as the gas piston seized in the cylinder), the slide jumped the frame's slide rails or a sliver of a brass from a shell casing has wedged itself in the rails between the slide and frame (or somewhere of close tolerances).

The round count is approximately 250 rounds with most being reloads (hot powdercoat lyman #2 alloy hardcast 120gr Lee TC over 4.2gr HP38, once fired mixed non-nickel brass, CCI primers). I've never had any malfunctions using this load with any of my other 9mms.

I will say, one round stove-piped. Upon inspecting the brass, some shaving was seen on the case mouth, a bit of brass was still attached to the case like a hangnail. All the other cases inspected looked fine.

This may have to go to a gunsmith, but if anyone has any ideas, I'm open to them.

My planned course of action before a gunsmith is in safe location/direction, soak the whole think in a penetrating oil, then attempt to force the slide forward. Due to the takedown mechanism, I would then be able to lift the slide off of the frame and clear the weapon. I would of course take precautions due to the remaining live round.

Any thoughts?


Also, any experience with Cerakote and long exposure to CLP or other penetrating oils? The frame has been Cerakoted in robin egg blue a couple months ago.

 

[Blue68f100]

Try putting the slide on the edge of a hard surface (table), grip the receiver, then see if you can apply enough down force to move the slide.

Oil will not kill the round, so be careful. Sounds like a ammo/reload problem to me.

 

[Snowdog]

Blue68f100, I cleared the jam before I read your post. However, that's precisely what I did. It allowed the cartridge to be removed but the slide bound up again when I released the slide. I had to force it closed (now empty, thank goodness) and takedown was difficult. The firing pin stop was in the full rear position which should have allowed the slide to be lifted directly off with ease, but it took work to do so.

Once apart, for the life of me, I couldn't tell what caused the issue. I forgot this pistol doesn't have rails, so it must have been either a sliver of brass from a cartridge or shaved off coating from one of the poly coated bullets (Eastwood, semi-gloss black) wedged in a location where tolerances are tight.

After cleaning, it hand cycles smoothly. I'll post if any similar issues come up. I won't be using any non-jacketed handloads for this pistol and may stay with just factory ammunition. It has a ways to go for me to trust it as my wife's future CCW pistol, though the malfunction was likely user-induced (via handloads it doesn't like).

Thanks for the post. The advice was spot-on.