Failure to Eject in SR9

Too my SR9 to the range today and hit a few snags. First of all, one particular round would not feed into the chamber. Slide would be about 1/8 back. Same round every time no matter where is was in the mag. After about 5 tries, it finally went in. Any other round was no problem.

But I had 3 failures to eject where the fired case was still in the chamber and the next round got jammed because there was nowhere to go. Ammo was Winchester White Box. 150 rounds of that fired, plus a full mag of my carry ammo (Federal Hydrashok). No issues with that.

The gun is new and only has about 300 rounds through it. It's my home defense gun so I think a time a trip back to Ruger is in order. If nothing else than just for a look over.

What do you think?

Before sending it off to Ruger I would make sure that you are holding the pistol firmly during recoil and not breaking your wrist. Some call it limp wristing which most take offense to because it sounds a little feminine. I can induce the same type of failure in an SR9 probably 5 out of 17 times. I have also had it happen unintentionally while trying to shoot tight groups.

I would not recommend trying to chamber a "problem" round multiple times. Bullets can set back into the case which increases operating pressures. I dont want you to have to lengthen your name to Kaboom6893 :lol: Just like leftover food in the fridge, when in doubt...throw it out.

If you DO decide to send it back, call Ruger and they will send you a call tag so it wont cost you a Penny over your wasted time. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

I don't like the term limp wristing as my friend Al also pointed out. A firm high grip normally fixes that but there are other things that you can do that will cause the same thing. Breaking your elbows is one, anticipating recoil and not letting the gun do the work is another. The gun could have been under lubed or over lubed. WWB is a known issue with its quality being all over the place at times. You saying that your Federals shot fine tells me there is nothing wrong with that gun. Shoot it some more with maybe a different batch of range ammo and my guess all will be fine.

I've been shooting for over 25 years. It's not limp wristing. And I thought the same thing about the federals working fine too, but I only shot 17 federals. And 3 out of 150 winchester rounds failed to eject so 147 worked fine, so unless I'm willing to shoot a lot more expensive primo carry ammo (and I'm not) to rule it out, I can't blame the winchester.

What I'm afraid is going to happen if I do send it back is they'll fire 10 rounds and call it good. I must have went through 75 rounds of that Winchester before I had a problem.

Sounds to me that the round was the issue. I had a 22 round that would not extract because the case was split and stuck in chamber.

You said the gun was fine but with a bad round. WWB is just bulk range ammo.

kbm6893 said:

I've been shooting for over 25 years. It's not limp wristing. And I thought the same thing about the federals working fine too, but I only shot 17 federals. And 3 out of 150 winchester rounds failed to eject so 147 worked fine, so unless I'm willing to shoot a lot more expensive primo carry ammo (and I'm not) to rule it out, I can't blame the winchester.

What I'm afraid is going to happen if I do send it back is they'll fire 10 rounds and call it good. I must have went through 75 rounds of that Winchester before I had a problem.

Click to expand...

So....its not your 25 years of shooting technique, you cant blame the Winchester ammo, and you are not confident Ruger will make it right if you send it back. I guess I don't know what to tell you :lol:

Razzing aside, you stated yourself that one particular round would not chamber [5 times] and actually left the gun out of battery by 1/8". And you cant blame the WWB? As cheese said WWB has a spotty QC record over the last 10-15 years. It is cheap, bulk packed ammo made for target practice. That being said there are many guns that will have the occasional malfunction while using it. Try another cheap practice load to see if it runs better, or for that matter a different lot of WWB. If it continues you're down to it being you or the gun....again. Good luck.

Al James said:

kbm6893 said:

I've been shooting for over 25 years. It's not limp wristing. And I thought the same thing about the federals working fine too, but I only shot 17 federals. And 3 out of 150 winchester rounds failed to eject so 147 worked fine, so unless I'm willing to shoot a lot more expensive primo carry ammo (and I'm not) to rule it out, I can't blame the winchester.

What I'm afraid is going to happen if I do send it back is they'll fire 10 rounds and call it good. I must have went through 75 rounds of that Winchester before I had a problem.

Click to expand...

So....its not your 25 years of shooting technique, you cant blame the Winchester ammo, and you are not confident Ruger will make it right if you send it back. I guess I don't know what to tell you :lol:

Razzing aside, you stated yourself that one particular round would not chamber [5 times] and actually left the gun out of battery by 1/8". And you cant blame the WWB? As cheese said WWB has a spotty QC record over the last 10-15 years. It is cheap, bulk packed ammo made for target practice. That being said there are many guns that will have the occasional malfunction while using it. Try another cheap practice load to see if it runs better, or for that matter a different lot of WWB. If it continues you're down to it being you or the gun....again. Good luck.

Click to expand...

Guess I typed that wrong! The Winchester ammo is probably the culprit, but since this is my home defense gun, I gotta have total confidence in it. And those 3 fails to eject from this one gun are more than any other semi auto I have fired combined! And since I can't afford to buy 500 rounds of primo carry ammo to send down range, the only thing I can do to make me feel a bit better is to have Ruger take a look and pronounce it healthy.

As for the round that wouldnt chamber, that was weird. Cartridge looked fine. Not deformities. And holding it next to the others it looked to be exactly the same size. I was gonna bring it home to measure it with calipers, but I was showing another guy there how it wouldn't chamber and it did, so I just shot it. Should have brought it home to measure.

I'm was bugging me so I went back to the range and fired 150 rounds of federal target ammo. No malfunctions. Guess it was winchester at fault.

I started reloading about 4 months ago. Have loaded about 1000 rounds of 38 with no problem. I have powder and primers for 9MM and 500 of the Hornady XTP bullets. Gonna get dies for Christmas and start with the 9MM then. Hope I do a better job than winchester white box. I know the overall length is the most important part. I have calipers.

Sorry to pile on WWB but recently I had a malfunction with it I've never seen in a Glock 26. The entire case along with the bullet bent about 15-20 degrees to the side while trying to slide into the chamber while firing. I don't even know what you'd call that kind of malfunction it was very difficult to clear but eventually ejected after racking with all the strength I had. Case failure? I dunno. went through about 120 rounds problem free after that. It looked like a macaroni noodle when it came out.

I hate it when people blame ammo for all malfunctions, it can seem dismissive but sometimes that's really what it is.

I shoot a lot of WWB and do find a deformity from time to time. Usually a crinkled case or small roll at the mouth. I pull the round and discard, not real crazy about forcing a round in anything.

OK, I can't hold my tongue anymore. Please clarify if it is extraction issue or ejection. From your first post I think extraction. You said yourself the round would not feed so it is probably simply the round was fat in diameter and hanging in the barrel. The extractor couldn't pull it out properly.

I'm sure the gun is fine based on all the posts here.

Roylt, I can describe what was happening. The slide was short cycling due to several possible reasons. The most likely was a light powder load in the rounds that failed, this is proven out when he changed over to another target type ammo and all worked fine.
When a gun short cycles the slide goes back in recoil but not far enough for the casing to hit the ejector so the slide just returns to battery and re-chambers the spent casing that should have been ejected or in many cases a stovepipe occurs instead, just depends.

Other things can cause this, limp wristing will cause the recoil impulse to be absorbed by the shooter and the gun loses it's momentum ending up short cycling in the same fashion. Too much lube can cause this, especially a heavier grease based lube. Over-strength recoil springs are another one, it goes on and on.

roylt said:

OK, I can't hold my tongue anymore. Please clarify if it is extraction issue or ejection. From your first post I think extraction. You said yourself the round would not feed so it is probably simply the round was fat in diameter and hanging in the barrel. The extractor couldn't pull it out properly.

I'm sure the gun is fine based on all the posts here.

Click to expand...

Failure to extract. Case was stuck in the chamber and next round couldn't feed in. Had to drop the mag and yank back on the slide to get it out. Now that I think of it I should have tossed those pieces of brass. I just started reloading and they're in the bucket with the others now.

You'll find them when sizing, and that will fix them if they are not deformed someway.

welder said:

I shoot a lot of WWB and do find a deformity from time to time. Usually a crinkled case or small roll at the mouth. I pull the round and discard, not real crazy about forcing a round in anything.

Click to expand...

I might ought to pay more attention to my range ammo. I inspect carry ammo very closely but to be honest when I'm in my lane on the range- if it goes into the magazine without feeling obviously odd... I really pay no attention at all to it. I was at gander mnt today and passed on a huge display of 9mm 115gr ball wwb mainly because of this thread. I grabbed the Blazer paid a bit more but hey, in the ammo game it's all a loss really at the end of the day money wise.

Rei40c said:

welder said:

I shoot a lot of WWB and do find a deformity from time to time. Usually a crinkled case or small roll at the mouth. I pull the round and discard, not real crazy about forcing a round in anything.

Click to expand...

I might ought to pay more attention to my range ammo. I inspect carry ammo very closely but to be honest when I'm in my lane on the range- if it goes into the magazine without feeling obviously odd... I really pay no attention at all to it. I was at gander mnt today and passed on a huge display of 9mm 115gr ball wwb mainly because of this thread. I grabbed the Blazer paid a bit more but hey, in the ammo game it's all a loss really at the end of the day money wise.

Click to expand...

I've found Tula to be the most likely to have cosmetic quality issues of the range fodder out there, WWB is the second most likely to have issues that just stick out with the simple cursoray inspection. Federal has/had some issues with varying powder (low) weights and inconsistent operation due to this. I reload all my 9mm and 45 ACP range ammo but do get the chance to test out some factory stuff on occasion. I'm just flabbergasted at the condition and quality of some of this stuff, truly a sad thing for sure.

I had some WWB that was so bad I sent it back to the factory. They gave me 20 bucks for my trouble which really wasn't much but it was better than nothing I guess.

I do still shoot it as it is cheapest around in bulk 100 packs. Have never really had an issue other than that one time.

roylt said:

I had some WWB that was so bad I sent it back to the factory. They gave me 20 bucks for my trouble which really wasn't much but it was better than nothing I guess.

I do still shoot it as it is cheapest around in bulk 100 packs. Have never really had an issue other than that one time.

Click to expand...

Around here the .45 WWB 100 count is the same price as the Remington 100 have had much better luck with the Remington and did not realize till after I bought them that the Remington are hollow points

I buy the bulk stuff and use it only at the range. A cheap way to break in a new gun if I'm short on my own reloads. I then have a good supply of brass to reload where I can pay close attention to detail. I tumble and look closest when priming. I also try to run each round through a gauge. The bulk stuff from Winchester and Federal all reloads fine for me. I suppose I have found a handful of flawed cases and thge occasional bullet in several hundred rounds of late.

If I'm having a gun problem I break out the good stuff in as many brands as I happen to have on hand. Almost always it's mag or ammo related for me. The bulk stuff is good for it's intended purpose and a good way to get brass but as just about all have said, you'll find an odd ball now and then.