Kadet misfires, extractor related?

[sleepyhead]

I've been shooting a lot more with my original kadet lately with the ammo situation, and I've consistently had two problems that have left me scratching my head.

1. a misfire that is remedied with a second strike
2. FTE where the spent casing is actually wedged against the top of the port with a fresh round being forced under it.

#2 appears to be related to one of my magazines, but rarely will manifest itself with other mags.

#1 has me chasing my tail it seems.

At first I just assumed that it was due to a tired hammer or light hammer spring. So I replaced it with a stock sp01 hammer spring, and perhaps the misfires improved slightly. I then polished the firing pin to try to reduce friction as much as I could here. I also replaced the pin that retains the barrel to the kadet as I noticed that it was slightly oval. Then I assumed it might be the firing pin spring so I've been slowly reducing the firing pin spring one coil at a time when the misfires occur.  Then I assumed that perhaps I had an odd kadet and I needed even more strength in a hammer spring, so I picked up a 22, 24, and 26 lb hammer spring. At this point I noticed that I didn't need to press on the firing pin too hard to get the retaining plate off to clean the firing pin channel, so I've stopped trimming the firing pin spring as I do not want to lose the retaining plate while cycling.

The other day I was running a 22 lb spring and still had some misfires. They seemed to always go off on the second strike. I figured I'd take advantage of this and run tap rack bang drills. As I picked up the "dud" .22's I noticed that the ones that misfire had NO firing pin strike. This was quite odd as I was running a 22 lb hammer spring and a pretty weak firing pin spring at this point.

So I began running drills out of the holster with one shot, and then a subsequent shot. Before the second shot I began looking at the position of the kadet "slide," and I noticed that when I was getting a misfire the kadet wasn't completely in battery, it was oh so slightly out of battery. This makes a lot of sense as if not completely in battery, the hammer would strike and force the kadet slide forward, but wouldn't impart much if any force to the cartridge. Being at the range without any tools I lubricated the slide and the portion of the slide that recocks the hammer to try to keep the velocity of the slide as high as possible to get the slide back into battery consistently. This seemed to reduce the chance of misfires.

Back home, I noticed that when the slide returns to battery that there is a slight amount of resistance at the last moment of the slide closing. I can see the extractor move slightly at this stage. The extractor moves freely without binding normally.

This seems to leave me two options.
1. lighten/shorten the extractor spring
2. reshape the extractor slightly so that it's not imparting the spring force on the barrel when the slide closes.

Before I do either of these can anyone check on their kadet if the extractor moves at all when the slide closes?

[sleepyhead]

Found this while searching

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/gear-review-cz-75-kadet-adapter/

I did a bit of experimenting (putting the KA on my fullsize and racking the slide without a mag or rounds a few times). What seems to be happening is, at the very end of the slide going forward, the extractor is being pushed out a bit in the last <1mm of travel. Except sometimes it doesn't budge, so the last little bit of travel isn't happening.

My question for you: Does the extractor get pushed out on yours when the slide travels forward? In other words should my extractor be budged at all as the slide closes? If yours doesn't, I've identified something abnormal about my KA. If yours does, then it should be happening, and the problem then appears to be that for some reason my extractor is "stickier" than yours.



Mine does that as well. But we’re talking barely moves outwards and also, like you said, at the extreme end of the slide travel that might be a millimeter or less. Also worth noting that, when a round is actually stripped out of the magazine and slides up under the extractor, that moves the extractor outwards a bit. The behavior of it being pushed out by the side of the barrel no longer happens, since it’s already held out a bit by the rim of the round. That said, if the extractor is really sticky it would hinder the round’s ability to slide up underneath it and that could absolutely cause chambering problems. I’d look under the edge of the extractor to make sure it’s clean of debris… I suppose whether it’s gunked up or not I’d probably remove it from the slide and give it a good cleaning and very lightly lube it before reinstalling and seeing if it fixed the problem. It’s also possible that it isn’t cut quite right and there isn’t enough space between it and the breech face. “Tuning” extractors is a common thing, particularly on 1911s, as too snug can cause feeding & extraction problems and too lose can cause extraction and ejection problems. If there isn’t enough space under it to provide room for the rim of the cartridge, you can make more space by filing the edge of the extractor that’s closest to and parallel with the breech face. Obviously taking too much off would cause other issues, though.


I'll have to grab a spent casing and see if it does not move when the case is under the extractor.

[Fuzzy Sights]

Recommend you read all the "Sticky Notes" in the Kadet section.  Will probably cover your current issue and a lot more.  Would like to give a plus 1 on cleaning out the extractor.  Amazing how dirty that gets.

JW

[burley]

I'd make sure the round seats fully.  For some reason, the shell is being seated by the first strike and fired by the second.

[painter]

I attribute it to the ammo. My Kadet has lightened springs, and a re-profiled firing pin, and used to be 100% reliable with CCI SV. The new lots will produce a FTF now.

Be careful in lightening the firing pin spring. The firing pin retainer, along with the firing pin and spring, can fall out if the pin returns too slowly. DAMHIK.

[sleepyhead]

I attribute it to the ammo. My Kadet has lightened springs, and a re-profiled firing pin, and used to be 100% reliable with CCI SV. The new lots will produce a FTF now.

Be careful in lightening the firing pin spring. The firing pin retainer, along with the firing pin and spring, can fall out if the pin returns too slowly. DAMHIK.

after realizing that my ftf are not because of the firing pin spring, I'm considering putting a new stock one back in. Haven't had a chance to get back to the range.

[sleepyhead]

Going back to update this.

After going to the range a few times I was able to isolate the failure to return to battery to the extractor. Fire one shot, look at slide position. Fire another shot and look at slide position. When the slide did not return to battery, if I gently pressed the extractor the slide would snap to battery each and every time.

So began the task removing the extractor spring and cutting on coil at a time until I did not have any issues with the slide returning to battery.

That completed I was able to run 50 rounds without any FTF.

So with that accomplished I took out the cut firing pin spring and put in a full length firing pin spring. With that full length firing pin spring I was consistently getting 8ish out of 50 FTF. The good news is all of them had firing pin marks, so the extractor fix appears to have solved the failure to return to battery issue.

Slowly cutting one coil at a time I was able to arrive at 1 FTF out of 50 rounds before running out of 22 for the day.