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New Prodigy - Failure To Battery

S

Slimm

Alpha
New Prodigy owner here. 5" Comp. First time out, experiencing failure to battery after a discharge cycle; ie, the slide does not go into battery by about 1/4 inch. Happens 2 out 3 times. Do not think it is hanging on the disconnector. The stall occurs well past the disconnetor point; again about 1/4 from battery.

Upon delivery did an inspection strip and lightly relubed. Things looked fine... except, yeah, cerakote was every inside the slide and stuff. Otherwise inspection operation was normal. Now before initial use I did replace the guide rod/spring with an EGW one piece upgrade kit. So the focus of attention may be there.

60 rounds were used. The range staff/armorer suggested two general problems for battery failure.
  • The recoil spring is not operating correctly.
- The EGW guide rod kit may be defective.
- The EGW guide rod kit may need to be broken-in more.
- My install is defective.
  • The ammo may not have enough recoil energy to cycle effectively.
Replacing the guide rod was pretty straighforward. I think there was no problem with that.
Ammo is Aguila 124g FMJ. I would think that ammo is not problematic.
Subsequent strip showed no abnormalities.

Obvously the first course of action will be to replace the EGW spring kit with the stock kit. If still failure to battery, then back to Springfield.
In the mean time, any suggestions?
 
Welcome from Connecticut. Don't have a Prodigy however do have an Emissary black. Upper end of pistols are the same although different exterior slide cuts. Cerakote was an issue on mine. Sloppy / too much. Had to bump it in to battery first few hundred rounds. Been cleaning after each range session. Can see the Cerakote wearing off the rails to bare metal. Also suggest you manually rack the slide as many times as you can to wear it i and clear the Cerakote. Shooting Republic range ammo 124g.
 
Welcome from the Florida Panhandle. Here are some things to consider.

I Would put the original parts back in it for a base line. It is how the engineers designed it.

My first suspect is ammo. I have run into out of spec factory ammo from several imported ammo brands recently. I just ran into this problem with some MagTec where the bullets were seated too deeply. That caused the exact problem you describe. Under powered ammo is another suspect. I would try some different ammo before blaming the gun. Try running some carry ammo through it and see if it clears up.

My second suspect is shooter error. After firing your slide needs to recoil with enough velocity to fully compress the recoil spring. The compressed recoil spring needs to store enough energy to drive the slide forward into battery while overcoming the resistance of the magazine spring. It needs to push against your shooting hand to compress fully. This usually manifests itself as a double feed but could also cause a failure to go into battery. I see it especially with shooters who have been shooting a full weight all metal gun beginning to shoot a light weight pistol. If you go from a 40 oz gun to a 24 oz gun your grip needs to make up the difference in mass. Try firming up your grip, or have another experienced shooter run it some.

You said you field stripped and I presume scrubbed the packing preservative off the gun. That stuff is like glue. Then you re-lubed, I urge a good quality gun grease on the rails. Something is retarding the slide velocity as it moves forward into battery. That slide should move like it's on ball bearings. A good scrubbing and grease on the rails and break-in may be all it needs.

That's all I got, beyond that call SA customer service.
 
Hi @Slimm,

You've got a good plan. Clean well. Go back to stock. Try different ammo. Break in, 200-500 rounds. Once it's stable and reliable, then modify. The mother ship is always waiting, just in case.

Welcome to the forum. The Prodigy is a nice pistol. Please be sure to show us how well you punch holes with it. ;)


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
Slimm said:
New Prodigy owner here. 5" Comp. First time out, experiencing failure to battery after a discharge cycle; ie, the slide does not go into battery by about 1/4 inch. Happens 2 out 3 times. Do not think it is hanging on the disconnector. The stall occurs well past the disconnetor point; again about 1/4 from battery.

Upon delivery did an inspection strip and lightly relubed. Things looked fine... except, yeah, cerakote was every inside the slide and stuff. Otherwise inspection operation was normal. Now before initial use I did replace the guide rod/spring with an EGW one piece upgrade kit. So the focus of attention may be there.

60 rounds were used. The range staff/armorer suggested two general problems for battery failure.
  • The recoil spring is not operating correctly.
- The EGW guide rod kit may be defective.
- The EGW guide rod kit may need to be broken-in more.
- My install is defective.
  • The ammo may not have enough recoil energy to cycle effectively.
Replacing the guide rod was pretty straighforward. I think there was no problem with that.
Ammo is Aguila 124g FMJ. I would think that ammo is not problematic.
Subsequent strip showed no abnormalities.

Obvously the first course of action will be to replace the EGW spring kit with the stock kit. If still failure to battery, then back to Springfield.
In the mean time, any suggestions?
Click to expand...
This is almost certainly hanging up on the disconnector. Can you feel the disconnector hitch when you cycle by hand? Can you manipulate the slide to hang up on the disconnector? The cerakote used to be put on pretty heavy on the Prodigy and by hand cycling the slide about 1000 times it wears the cerakote down and polishes the disconnector. Just do it while watching tv. I did this with my 5 in and it is slick as heck. The other thing you can do is get a set of polishing stones and put a slight radius on the edge of the stripper rail. You don’t have to go crazy, just take of the sharp 90° forward edge and put a smooth radius for the disconnector to ride over. This makes a lot of difference.
 
Thanks guys so far for the comments. Yes I can feel the disconnector hitch, and I can manually make it hang up. I have seen about that process of repeatedly racking the slide, so I see myself doing that. Also seen about smoothing the stripper. I see that as a last resort maybe. I do not feel that confident doing that. I will let Springfield work it first.

BassCliff - Ya I will do that. BTW, the very first shot was DEADON. It was grouping quite well, Then I got distracted because I had to constantly bump the slide into battery. (Even the range officer interacted with me because he thought I was acting strange...)

HayesG. - Interesting comments about ammo and limp wristing. I will experiment with different ammo. I have some PMC Bronze 147g available.
I will check on the limp wrist. This is my first 1911 gun. My other handgun experience is with Walther PPQ 22 hammer, S&W M&P 40 striker, Taurus 608 357 revolver.

NMEDGE - I know, I know... Just being excited to get it running. I do not have the opportunity to get out and operate that much, so since I had the gun and parts... Plus I had not seen problems with the EGW guide. and I do not like having to work that stock two piece guide; wanted to replace it asap.
 
Slimm said:
Thanks guys so far for the comments. Yes I can feel the disconnector hitch, and I can manually make it hang up. I have seen about that process of repeatedly racking the slide, so I see myself doing that. Also seen about smoothing the stripper. I see that as a last resort maybe. I do not feel that confident doing that. I will let Springfield work it first.

BassCliff - Ya I will do that. BTW, the very first shot was DEADON. It was grouping quite well, Then I got distracted because I had to constantly bump the slide into battery. (Even the range officer interacted with me because he thought I was acting strange...)

HayesG. - Interesting comments about ammo and limp wristing. I will experiment with different ammo. I have some PMC Bronze 147g available.
I will check on the limp wrist. This is my first 1911 gun. My other handgun experience is with Walther PPQ 22 hammer, S&W M&P 40 striker, Taurus 608 357 revolver.

NMEDGE - I know, I know... Just being excited to get it running. I do not have the opportunity to get out and operate that much, so since I had the gun and parts... Plus I had not seen problems with the EGW guide. and I do not like having to work that stock two piece guide; wanted to replace it asap.
Click to expand...
My 9mm RO Operator did the same thing with the disconnector, also Springfield used a 9lb recoil spring, I changed it out to a 12lb like my Kimber 9mm 1911 had, my issue went away,
 
Approaching 9k flawless rounds through my Prodigy 5" Comp pistol in a little over a year, It was sent to me as a replacement for the original early model dumpster fire 5" non comp I purchased for $1100.00. It turned into my learning the ds 1911 project gun. Mods so far consist of Dawson tool less guiderod, Dawson Practical advantage magwell, EGW two tone ignition kit with "shortened " sear. Dawson optics plate w/rear sight delete (moves SRO back to avoid clouding from LCI slot on top of barrel). Red Dirt #3 Flat trigger, Atlas shielded DLC shielded safety. Talon "sand paper" grip wrap.
THIS THING SHOOTS LIKE A DREAM. trigger is adjusted to 2.25lbs . Short take-up to the wall and even less reset.
Lessons learned are,
1) Could have achieved same results with factory internals.
2) When fitting thumb safeties less is more. Swiss Pillar file #6 cost $50.00. But now I have one lol.
3) You can get $2000.00 to shoot ALMOST as good as $4300.00 (own XL and Xc).
4) I love guns and am a sucker for TNBT the next best thing.

Thanks for reading friends
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