[Guest]

Ok, went to the range a second time today to put 150 rounds through it. Gun was squeeky clean and lubed properly. Used a combo of Winchester white box from Walmart, Corbon 165gr FMJ and PMC Bronze series.

All ammo types had FTF's, perhaps 10 in all. A spent shell was ejected, and a new one only got pushed half way into the chamber, and could not be seated by bumping the slide, as the extractor would not engage the rim, so it would not go all the way forward.

I made sure that I was not limp-wristing it, and it did it especially during double-taps.

I have had a ton of handguns over the past 5 years from Glock, Sig, Taurus, Kel-Tec, CZ, Beretta, Ruger, Kimber, S&W, Springfield, Kahr, etc...

Gun only has about 250 rounds through it now, and I am hoping that it is just normal during the breaking in process. My Kahr was that way, but Glocks and other types of combat guns were 100% out of the box.

Anything to check? I know that some Euro guns can be picky about lighter load american rounds like Winchester white-box, but I had it happen with some hot Corbon rounds as well, and that concerns me.

This is a defense gun, I need 100% confidence in it's ability to fire each and every time. It's a PITA at the range, it can mean life or death should I ever need to call on it.

I am hoping that it resolves itself soon, or it is gonna get traded in on a G22 or XD45 or something.

Any idears? I hate sending things back to the factory to be "fixed"...

 

[Guest]

Well, just cleaned it and put another 200 rounds through it, this time SPeer Gold Dot 165gr and some various retail 180gr ball ammo like S&B and a local reloader that the range sells that I have found to be very good.

More FTE's and stovepipes, and they do it when firing slow, controlled, with a very stiff wrist. I tried limp-wristing it and it didn't have a problem.

At this point, I cannot trust the pistol to use it as a defensive weapon, and so I am returning it. Yes, I know that I can ship it off to have them fix my new gun that should work properly out of the box, but that was the same line that I used to hear from Kel-Tec, and I don't like it because I have no guarantee that it will be 100% when I get it back.

I see too many people having the same issue here and on other forums, and so I must conclude that there is a design or manufacturing flaw somewhere.

And so back to the store it goes, to be exchanged for a Glock 23 or S&W MP40.

It's a shame, because the gun is ridiculously accurate and fits my hand perfect, but I have no confidence in it. :-(

Not bashing, just relaying my personal experience.

 

[Syntax360]

Sorry it didn't work out for you - sounds like you got a lemon . My M9A1 had all kinds of failures when I first got it - the problem was in the magazines. Various FTF/FTE with all kinds of ammo. Got new mags and all was well. I haven't had a single problem since I've switched. Can't speak for the M40A1, though.

Too bad...

I don't suppose there is anything I can say to keep you from getting another block? The S&W would be a better choice, IMHO, and is a lot more Steyrish as far as ergonomics go. Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Well, it happens. You always take a chance on a newer pistol, especially when it is a less common brand like the Steyr. Sometimes it is the best thing ever, and sometimes you get burned.

I lost $100 on the deal, so it is not the end of the world. I picked up a S&W MP40. I have an M&P15 from them and love it. And I figured that Smith went all out on this pistol, because they really want to take back some of the LEO market. They worked on this pistol for a long time, and I am pretty confident that they worked out the bugs.

What sucks is that getting a new gun that is a lemon seems pretty common these days. I expected it when Kel-Tec first came on the scene, but not from the big brands.

I have a new Sigarms GSR Revolution. Amazing looking gun, top quality parts, all that you would expect from Sig.

Except that it too had some FTE's at the range the other day. Now, that gun is REALLY tight, so I expect it to have to break in, similar to a Kahr. But I am reading some disturbing things about the GSR, that while it is top shelf parts, it has reliability issues to the extent that several law enforcement agencies will not add it to their approved list.

THat concerns me, an $900 gun from one of the most respected arms makers in the world, has from what I can see a 50/50 track record with their new gun, that is a century old design and you should be able to just make them properly. It is not like it is a new design that has not been amply tested.

I will give it to 500 rounds. If it still gives me trouble, I will trade it in for an XD45 Tactical model and call it a day.

Damn this hobby can be expensive! Good luck guys. I will continue to lurk here and read up on stuff, and who knows, next year they may have an "A2" model that addresses the current issues.

Take care!

 

[MrApathy]

M&P is not without problems either
http://mp-pistol.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=354
http://mp-pistol.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=14

trouble with winchester factory ammo FTF,FTE

but S&W has warranty service cheapass sloths can enjoy. send out a prepaid shipping label then just need someone not so lazy they cant send the gun in.

maybe we should all go back to the bow and arrow or sword
its easy to do that just as its easy to jump to conclusions and dump modern weaponry when issues arise. issues will arise regardless of the platform due to wear.

I have 2 S&W's and they have been trouble. breaking strikers and locking block pin.

 

[Guest]

Well, I can only go by what you see. One of those 2 links pretty much showed that it was related to mostly reloads with hard primers, and one person had the same issue with his Glock and those primers.

Here is the problem with taking info from fan sites. You only have two types of people posting at fan sites:

1) Fans that think that their team can do no wrong.
2) People with problems complaining about it.

Neither person is unbiased or objective. I am not gonna knock the pistol or brand. But I am also not willing to have to worry about my primary defense gun going BANG when I want it to. A target pistol or hunting weapon, I am willing to ship it off and let them attempt to make good on their product.

People have issues with every brand of weapon, but when you see a fairly new model, that has not sold all that many guns, and you search multiple forums and see a fairly common thread, you have to assume that where there is smoke there is fire.

I am hearing some bad things about the Sigarms 1911's, of which I just purchased. If it turns out to be true, I will get rid of that one as well.

DIfferent strokes for different folks I guess.

I have had issues with Keltecs, and in that case, a simple upgraded spring fixed it, and I did not have to send my gun off anywhere.

Guns that I have never had an issue with:

Beretta
Sig(fingers crossed on the 1911)
Ruger
Browning
CZ
Glock
Springfield
Kimber
Kahr
Taurus
S&W

I have had issues with Kel-Tec, and now Steyr. Just bad luck I guess.

Another thing is that the Stery chews up my hand, where the top and back of the grip presses against the top of your hand between the thumb and fore finger, in that meaty part of the hand. All read and skin coming off. So it is not that comfortable to shoot after awhile.

It's an amazing gun, but I think they have a few wrinkles to iron out, and when they do, I can very easily see one making it's way back into my collection.

 

[Wulf]

Hiya Squire*

...and thanx for sharing. You are in touch with some good pieces. What's your favorite carry firearm based on reliability and calibre? Just curious. Again, thanx for posts, sharing your personal experiences with some fine modern SD firearms.

Wulf

 

[Guest]

My carry gun is a Taurus 85 Ultra Lite with a shrouded hammer and loaded up with .38 Special +P Corbon 110gr.

For a carry gun, I have to know that apart from some sort of rare catastrophic failure, that it will go bang when I need it. The small revolver carries a potent enough bullet(but I ackowledge it is on the lower end), and I do not have to worry about james, FTE's, a hard primer, etc.

It has ample power, and if I do my job and put it where it needs to go, the bullet will do it's job.

My other guns are:

Sigarms GSR Revolution(2nd Gen) .45ACP
Taurus M44 8'5" Ported barrel in .44 Mag
Sigarms Mosquito in .22LR
Taurus 85 Ultra Light .38+P
S&W MP40
S&W M&P15
Ruger M77 MarkII stainless in .308
Maverick 88 6 shot 12ga pump
Marlin 336C in 30/30

I tend to buy guns, keep them for awhile and then sell them for something new that catches my eye. The Steyr was not the pistol I went in to buy originally for my nightstand gun. I went in looking for either a Browning/FN FNP40/Pro40, an XD40, or a Glock 23. They dealer suggested looking at the Steyr, and I had seen a gazillion ads on it in magazines, and I fell in love with how it felt and handled.

But to average a malfunction of some kind in 1/20 rounds is unacceptable in a gun that I intend to have for home defense and occasional carry.

That said, if they turn around in a year or two and get things right, I would buy another one.

 

[Wulf]

Thanx again, *Squire

BTW, what serial # range was your Steyr? I'm starting a database of problem production windows.

Wulf

 

[Guest]

Rats... I don't know. I only had it for a week and tore up the receipt after the dealer bought it back... Hang on a sec, might bo on the new one when I traded it in towards the S&W...

#046602

 

[Thunderbear]

Rats... I don't know. I only had it for a week and tore up the receipt after the dealer bought it back... Hang on a sec, might bo on the new one when I traded it in towards the S&W...

#046602

[email protected], that one could be my MA1's brother 8-O

467XX here.

I had the same problems you did, the first 200 some odd rounds, then a thorough cleaning, detail strip, and nightsights later, I'm having no problems.

 

[Guest]

Well, I sincerely wish that it had been that way for me. But I put 150 or so rounds through it the other day, then another 150 this morning, cleaned it again and they put another 100+ through it this afternoon.

Stove-pipes and FTF's regardless of which mag I used, 6 types of ammo, slow fire or double-tap, etc...

The groups I had today were amazing, but if I don't trust it, then I don't want it. I am sure I could do as others have done and sent it back to Sig(maybe more than once) and tried to get it straightened out, but in my mind, I am wasting a month and I have no guarantee that it will actually be resolved.

 

[Syntax360]

What sucks is that getting a new gun that is a lemon seems pretty common these days. I expected it when Kel-Tec first came on the scene, but not from the big brands.

I have a new Sigarms GSR Revolution. Amazing looking gun, top quality parts, all that you would expect from Sig.

Funny - I also have that gun and no complaints (AND it was only $759 OTD). Perhaps you just have terrible luck? Ya - that's it. You should send all future purchases directly to me and forget about them to avoid the unbearable trauma of another lemon

 

[Guest]

Well, if I was the only person complaining about feeding issues with the M series, I would concede your point, but...

 

[West01]

Bummer. You are right SquireSCA, 10 over 150 FTF is unacceptable (in my humble opinion). And point well taken about your comments on fan sites. Firearms enthusiast can be very polarized about their favorite products.

One can say that everyone has different threshold about firearms reliability. My standard in the case of a semi-auto is; if 10 failures on 200 round.... Call the manufacturer about the problem and have a pleasant conversation. Send them a letter to document the problem, get an RMA and ship it for a tune-up. This always worked for me.

My M9-A1 has 600 rounds with 1 FTE. This is darn good in my book.

If you don't mind I'll share some of my experience with handguns (and I'm no expert).

I bought my first handgun, a Colt Python, in 1976 (old fart...).
I was trained in the Canadian military with a Browning HP. In the training we learned to be always ready to expect jams or misfire and how to deal with it in any situation. I saw guys that could re-rack a pistol from a failure before you could say Gemini Cricket.

After the service I owned many pistols (and revolvers): S&W (various), Ruger (various), Browning HP & BDA, SIG (various), H&K P9 & P7, SA-XD, SA 1911, CZ-75B, Tokarev, Beretta (various), Glock (various) and Steyr...

I sold most of them to friends (so my wife could be happy ) but I did learned something from these semi-automatic pistols: THEY ALL JAMED AT ON TIME....

The best of them all was a Ruger P95. It jammed twice in two-thousand rounds but since I couldn't hit the side of barn door with it, it was sold.

The worst (at one time) of my collection was a Springfield 1911. It was not unreliable...it was haunted! I had to send it to SA on warranty for a tune-up and it came back a gem. I had to sell it to a good friend so he could stop nagging me about it. He won some local competition with it (go figure).

I think I can safely said that there is no such thing as 100% reliability but some gun come very close.
In my case, if I had to defend my household, my old S&W Mod 67 revolver with approx. 7000 rounds with no failure would be a good bet. Nothing beats a revolver for reliability.

Good luck.

West01 :wink: :wink:

 

[Wulf]

Hey West

Great post! ... hehehehehe

...Springfield 1911. It was not unreliable...it was haunted!....

I had to clean the coffee off my keyboard on that one. :lol: I've had those ghosts, as well...especially with an old '94 AutoOrd ZG-51 Pit Bull. I picked it up for $280 and soon found out why. I'm not sure there was an original part left on it. It seems like half the FTE's was magazine spring related. I never reloaded so much ball ammo before or after! After messin' with it for a year, it went stone cold reliable for me, but I always heard footsteps. On my Dad's 70th BD I gave it to him. Its never jammed on him. <shrug> Anyway, thanx for that post...it brought back some good memories. Hava great week.

Wulf

 

[Guest]

Well, I see that some other people took their new M40-A1 to the range recently and have great results.

I will consider one in the future. I will give it a year or so. I know that jumping onto the bandwagon of a new product can be hit or miss at first. Same goes for cars, computer parts, etc... If the gun is reliable, I think that it is almost impossible to beat.

I might have to modify the grip, as I have scabs from shooting yesterday where the gun rubs your hand raw.

On a positive note, my Sig 1911 broke in nicely and shoots amazingly well.

 

[bigtaco]

just to bring to your attention squire...

there are few mechanical differences between the a1 series and the previous m series which was released in '99. 7 years of release is far from new. maybe 50,000 units is "new".

just not sure if you were aware of the age of the basic design.

but in any event, it stinks you had a bad experience. the one question i always ask with feeding questions is "do you tap your mags"

probably a silly question to ask someone who's been around auto-loaders before. but i have seen that littlest of details cause great malfunctions.

 

[Guest]

Ah, I did not realize that it has been out that long. This was an impulse buy for me, I really did not know much about Steyr. I was a bit cheezed that the gun kept jamming, and the dealer looked at it after I had about 450 rounds through it and could not find anything wrong with it.

The gun was buttery smooth, seemed fine, except for the 1:15 failure ratio. If it had just been my gun I might have handled it differently, but when I saw several other people with the same gun having the same problem, I had visions of my old Kel-Tec P11 and having to send it back to the factory once or twice to get it to work the way it was supposed to work out of the box, and I decided to bail.

Not sure what you mean about tapping the mags. I would load them, insert them and start shooting, that's it.

 

[bigtaco]

a ha!!!!!!

tapping the mags. after you load the mag, slap the mag against your leg to seat all the rounds to the rear of the mag.

i can get mine to fte on purpose simply by NOT tapping the mags.

what happens is this. the neck of the round in the mag hits the rim of the spent casing as it extracts. this usually results in a failure to extract/double feed/pita.

if you've got a good stiff extractor spring (which a new gun most definitely has), the casing will extract by forcing the round in the mag down. now the slide comes to battery, but the round it's trying to grab is not in any position to slide nicely up the feed ramp. jam.

by seating the rounds to the rear of the mag, you keep the neck of the next round clear of the spent casing.