P226 Light Striking on DA.....

[JLM]

Went to range today. Was shooting 3x5 card drills. 6 shots: DA/SA/DA/SA/DA/SA.

On a lot of the DA shot the gun would fail to fire, and when I examined the primers they were barely indented at all.

I'd go to make a DA shot, click, pull the trigger again (again still in DA), pull again and then BANG, SA BANG.

Any idea what would cause this? Weak mainspring maybe?

I've noticed here in the recent past that when dry firing the gun in DA mode only it doesn't make the same sound consistently from pull to pull. Hard to describe what I mean exactly but.

Thoughts anyone?

ETA: Known good ammo that's allways worked before. WWB 115gr FMJ

[Wayne Dobbs]

Two quick spots to check:

Firing pin retainng pin
Firing pin safety

[ToddG]

Having narrowed it down to consistent failures only in DA, it's probably not the mainspring. Is your safety lever (the little thing sticking up from the frame, slightly on the right side behind the mag well ... it's the part that cams the firing pin block out of position) chipped or broken? This was a common problem with older guns which had a square cut lever, but somewhere in the past 5-10 years SIG started using a radius cut on the part to minimize the chance of breakage.

The other possibilities that come immediately to mind are issues with the sear or hammer notch somehow allowing the hammer to drop too early.

Another possibility, silly as it may sound, is that something is hampering the hammer during the DA cocking stroke. Did the trigger pull feel different?

[JLM]

Todd, I THINK it might indeed be safety lever. I'll try to get a pic of it shortly. Its shiny on the end so may have some missing material

[JLM]

Black junk is just some smegma...

ETA: found a pic of a factory lever on Top Gun Supply, doesn't look that much different to ME.

[lindertw]

complete shot in the dark here... any chance you recently changed grips?

back in the day I experimented with aftermarket grips on my P225 (Nill and Pachmayr), and I had issues with the hammer spring rubbing the inside of the grips that was more noticeable in DA than SA...

[JLM]

No, in fact they are the original West German grips.

Thanks thou!

[JLM]

Having narrowed it down to consistent failures only in DA, it's probably not the mainspring. Is your safety lever (the little thing sticking up from the frame, slightly on the right side behind the mag well ... it's the part that cams the firing pin block out of position) chipped or broken? This was a common problem with older guns which had a square cut lever, but somewhere in the past 5-10 years SIG started using a radius cut on the part to minimize the chance of breakage.

The other possibilities that come immediately to mind are issues with the sear or hammer notch somehow allowing the hammer to drop too early.

Another possibility, silly as it may sound, is that something is hampering the hammer during the DA cocking stroke. Did the trigger pull feel different?

Todd are you saying that on SA, the firing pin safety system is bypassed? It looks to me like the lever rises if you dropthe hammer from a cocked position.

RE: Pull. It does feel the same it just doesn't sound the same. instead of a sharp CLICK sound it sounds more like a less resounding CLUNK.

Weird.

Someone should send me Orndorff's DVD

[ToddG]

That looks to be a picture of your slide. The safety lever is in the frame. It looks like a little bent piece of metal. It's easy to find it, just visualize where the firing pin block is located when the gun's assembled.

lindertw's idea was a good one, too, I hadn't thought of that. If your grips are original German, any chance you changed the trigger return spring? It's important that old-style grips are used only with the old-style (curved, not looped) trigger return spring.

[JLM]

Dig it, I think I figured it out.

Took the right grip panel off so I could see what was going on when I pulled the trigger in relation to activation of the safety lever.

Sometimes on a DA pull the part of the trigger bar that engages the the FP safety lever SKIPS off the bottom edge of the lever causing it to NOT rise and release the FP lock. Sometimes it does.

In SA it releases the lever all the time.

Soooooo, what's causing this?

Safety lever NOT engaged by DA pull:



Safety lever engaged by DA pull:



Now it seems like if I 'cheat' the trigger bar spring by applying a little upward pressure to it with my thumbnail it more consistently (I don't want to say TOTALLY because I've haven't dicked with it enough) engages the safety lever with the DA pull.

In the instances where the the lever is NOT getting engaged its almost like the whole trigger bar assembly is lower in the frame than where it should be, hence the 'nub' on the trigger bar that is supposed to push the safety lever UP actually winds up underneath the lever engagement point.

TODD WHERE ARE YA MAN? ETA: I just now saw your post we must have been typing at the same time. No that's the frame and that's the lever in the UP position, you can see the ejector behind it. Old grips and original style spring without the loop in it.