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baby eagle question, pls advise

waldee
Hello,

Been lurking for a couple of months, finally decided to ask for some guidance.

I have a MR baby eagle 9mm that loves to jam. Heres a summary:
I load the clip with hornsaby critical defense rounds.
I have the slide locked back.
I load the clip, send the slide forward. The round chambers just fine. I can operate the slide and the weapon will dump the entire clips worth of rounds. Notice that I never squeezed the trigger.

I can do the same thing with ANY cheap (what I call plinking rounds)target round and the weapon will jam when I send the slide forward.

When I take the weapon apart, I can see that the rounds dont seat in the chamber the same. The rounds that dont jam the pistol are further down in the chamber than the rounds that jam. The lip of the chamber and the leading edge of the groove on the back of the shell are flush on the rounds that dont jam.

This tells me that the bullets arent set down far enough into the shell and leave the round longer than the chamber. This causes the bullet shoulder to hit the rifled part of the barrel and causing the round to jam before the slide comes all the way forward.

My question is one of "fix", I see two options:

1. take the weapon to a gunsmith and bore the chamber longer by about 3/32 or so.

2. without reloading my own target rounds to allow the bullet to be pressed further down into the shell...........??????

Sorry for the length, just dont know how to better explain this problem.

Well see what MR says, but I bought the pistol used, and I dont have much faith in them since they quit importing IWI products.


Any thoughts or advice is great, and thank you in advance.
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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • beantownshootah
    Before anything else, consider the following:

    a. Break gun totally apart, clean gun thoroughly including brushing out chamber with wire brush, and apply sparse lube to rails.

    b. When loading gun, do NOT drop retracted slide held by lock onto loaded magazine. In some cases this does not generate enough forward energy to fully charge the gun, potentially leading to a misfire.

    Instead, insert magazine into gun (with slide in battery), retract slide briskly all the way back, then allow your grip to "break" off the back with slide snapping forward to strip and load a round.

    This is SOP for loading all semi-auto guns, taught at most of the "tactical" programs (Gunsite, etc).

    c. Try ball ammo.

    d. Try new/different magazine. A slight difference in the feed angle of the mag lips can potentially make a big difference in reliability.

    e. Failing *ALL* of the above, you can try gently polishing the feed ramp of your gun to improve loading reliability. You basically just want to make the ramp smooth and remove any machining marks left from manufacture. There are different ways to do this, but basically you want to use a good (not too abrasive) metal polish, and buff up the ramp.
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  • rufe-snow
    One question, have you fired the pistol with live ammo? Or have you just been manually feeding the ammo through the mag. If it's the latter I would suggest doing some live firing with various type of ammo, to see if the problem persists. Make sure the pistol is clean and well lubed prior to test firing.
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  • waldee
    I guess I should have stated all info instead of just the problem.

    I have around 300 rounds through the weapon. I have been Navy for 18 years and am well versed in how to clean and maintain a weapon.

    If I use any round that doesnt "protrude" from the lip of the chamber, it fires and feeds well. I have NEVER jammed one of those type rounds.

    Its the rounds where the shoulder of the bullet (the flat part, before the bullet actually starts to curve to the nose)is visible outside the shell. That makes the round longer than a factory critical defense round for instance.

    Ball ammo is what those plinking rounds a person would buy to target shoot are. The weapon will jamm with anything. So its not just a specific type of bullet (HP, FMJ, JHP, whatever) its how the bullet seats in the shell casing.

    Like I said, the overall length of the round is longer than the chamber. If you set a "cheap" round next to a factory critical defense like round, the "cheap" round is taller by about 3/32 to 1/16th of an inch.

    I hope Im not confusing you all, if you were to see the pistol it would be immediately clear what the problem is.

    Again, with the barrel out of the pistol. It is clear that a round that would jam the weapon is protruding beyond the lip of the chamber. I wish I had a way to draw it...........maybe ill check out paint or something.
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  • waldee
    A round that wont jam:
    [img][/img]nonjamminground.th.jpg
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  • waldee
    That didnt work lol. Lets try this:

    Here is what the rounds that DONT jam look like with the barrel out of the gun:

    >rim of the bullet
    _)_________(_> "groove"

    Notice no shell wall between the groove and the chamber lip. I have identified the chamber lip with the underscore symbol.


    jamming round:
    >rim of the bullet
    ) ( > "groove"
    _l_________l_ > underscore is the lip of chamber, "l" is shell wall.


    Youll have to pretend alittle, but as you can see, the "groove" is seated differently on each. The "l" is the extra shell wall exposed.
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  • 1KYDSTR
    The critical defense (or any other HP performance type bullet) will be seated to a shorter overall length than an FMJ or other semipointed bullet; this is decieving. The ogee (where the curve of the nose of a projectile starts)will be roughly the same on both type of bullets. The "nose" of a FMJ is longer because there is no hollow cavity out there; i.e., the part where it starts to curve must be roughly the same regardless of bullet design or they just won't chamber.

    Having said that, there could be innumerable issues with your gun. Magazine, magazine spring/follower, recoil spring strength, feed ramp, chamber roughness, chamber depth, leade depth...the list likely goes on. As far as a WAG goes I believe you may be on the right track generally. The chamber sounds to be reamed out a little short. Since the 9mm and most auto rounds chamber on the case mouth, COL is critical for each type bullet. What might be happenning is some rounds are driven into the chamber with sufficient force to crimp part of the case mouth into the end of the chamber on top of the bullet which would normally cause excess pressures and "ringing" of the brass. By "ringing" I mean when the cartridge deflagrates and the front of the case is smashed into the little step where the chamber ends and the leade begins, the pressure and expansion of the brass will cause a tiny little "ring" of brass to be trimmed off each time which means it either gets stuck (and this effect will be progressive)behind that little step in the chamber, or wends it's way down the barrel; neither result is at all desireable. I discovered this after roll crimping a few hundred 45 ACP's too aggresively. Worked great for the first 50 rounds, but soon I started getting failure to full battery. Cleaning the gun would fix it for about 1 or 2 mags, but then the same thing! About the 3rd time I cleaned it I did it outside on a picnic bench in daylight, and I saw those little rings on the brush when I pulled it back out of the chamber. Too much crimp!

    Anyway, I think you may be headed to a gunsmith to get it done right as it is a used gun...MR has NO obligation to service a used pistol; likely the guy who sold it was aware of this too and donated his problem child to you for a tidy sum! Good luck...let us know what you find out.

    EDIT 1: I may not be the sharpest tack in the box, so that one took me a while, but I'm pretty sure I got it! Whaty I mentioned in my above post is likely the culprit as you show a classic failure to full battery type jam. You show the case rim as being way short of battery on the bottom rendering. Only the extractor groove should be showing and no significant amount of case body/wall. Use a loupe or magnifier of some kind, and use a dental pick to get up in the front of the chamber. Taking care not to scratch the chamber wall or step, dig around up there a little and see what you might be abke to pull ouot of the area just rear of the chamber step...might be that "ringing" I was talking about in there. One thing to mention is that if the chamber IS short by a few hundredths, the rounds that are actually going off (and thus actually feeding into the chamber) are doing so with the tip of the case mouth firmly trapped between the bullet and the steel of the chamber. When the case expands upon firing the brass flows forward into that little pinch spot and befor the bullet can get past it, pressures increase and the little ring will likely appear.
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  • waldee
    I agree.

    There have been a number or jammed rounds that I have separated the bullet from the shell by trying to free the slide. It seems to me that the bullet is being jammed into the rifle because the chamber is too short by just a little.

    Still, I see two fixes:

    1. Load my own rounds (gonna test this in a day or two)
    2. Get a gunsmith to bore the chamber longer by a bit.

    Either way, the guy I bought the weapon from HAD to know this. As far a a huge sum, got it for round $300 with a holster and bout 300 rounds and two clips...........not bad for a 36310xxx serial number baby IMO.

    Thanks for the input, awaiting more advice.
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  • waldee
    I need me a "go no go" gauge.......MR is ready to repair under warranty if the weapon fails spacing test. I suspect that it will.......more to come
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  • 1KYDSTR
    Good to hear and good for Magnum Research! Brownells or Midway USA will have the Go-No_go guages you need...best of luck!
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