Posted on 03/05/2014 4:18:58 AM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
A Star Super S .380 (the one with the quick release lever) is jamming on first round. The gun is in mint condition and appears to have hardly ever been fired. The extractor is in excellent condition and the spring has good load behind it. The extractor end looks to be fine. However, when the gun is loaded and the slide pulled back, every round cycles out of the gun flawlessly. It only jams when fired.
My guess is the recoil spring is too strong. Any suggestions on solutions? Numrich doesn't have one in stock to use to modify nor does Wolff Springs. Need to find one to cut down to reduce the load to see if it will cycle properly. I'd rather not fire hot rounds through the pistol to see if it will cycle, but will try that for a temporary result.
Anyone able to help?
When you say mint, do you mean you bought it new and not many rounds have been fired or do you mean you bought it used and it looks new?
If you bought it used you may have just relieved somebody else of their problem.
If you bought it new, it may just need some breaking in.
I just did a quick search. It looks like you may need to take some special care with this gun, most of this don’t have a firing pin lock which means it can fire if you drop it.
Good luck.
1/8th inch is still a big difference and out of standard spec for 9mm if memory serves.
That's from a class in 2005. I was a 1911 guy for 20 years, now I'm a Glock guy.
My one armed encounter actually involved a J-Frame. Typical 'brought a knife to a gunfight' thing. Guy's in prison for 67 years.
We can disagree on this and still be friends. I enjoy your posts.
1) Download the magazine by one or two rounds and try again. If it no longer jams you are probably using low powered range ammo (Winchester White Box or similar full metal jacket stuff.) Load the magazines and let them set loaded between range sessions and the magazine springs will loosen up a bit. (The next round in the magazine is pushing up against the inside of the slide, causing friction.)
2) Your recoil spring is a bit too tight. Lock the slide back and leave it that way between range sessions.
3) Fully load a magazine, but make the first round a full powered defensive hollow point load. (You know, the buck-a-round Hornady Critical Defense type stuff.) If your problem goes away and you can shoot a full mag, then see 1 or 2 above.
Chances are there's nothing wrong with your Star that a few hundred rounds won't cure.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to field strip the gun, clean it thoroughly, and lube it at the appropriate points, including the rails. The Star is a 1911 style, and 1911s like to run very wet.
Here's a good site for information: http://www.star-firearms.com/firearms/guns/s/
And from that same site, here's a PDF of the manual: http://www.star-firearms.com/firearms/manuals/downloads/a,b,m,p,s_manual.pdf
Was given a Walther PPK/S and it did the same thing.
Factory fixed it, but I never trusted it. A jammed gun is worse than no gun. Once fixed, sold it and got the Sig P232 I always wanted......great pistol, incredibly accurate, Tritium sights, Hogue grips - a dream pistol....
Of course, I prefer my 9mm or .45......
of course....not so big a difference that we can’t be friends...
so the bad guy had the j frame or you??
I like J frames but especially K frames(a club members sister just passed away and I may buy her 5 shot .38 J frame once the probate is finished).
my K frame, a Model 19 .357 will outpower any 9mm. just have to know you only have ‘6’(or five with some j frames)....no spray and pray.....Dad was NYPD from ‘46-’68, he had a Military and Police(later called model 10) 4” barrel .38 special. He hated it as it was not very accurate past a few yards. I was a kid, but remember seeing stuff smeared in the rifling...they only used pure lead bullets back in the day and unless you scrubbed the bore with a wire brush and/or a lead removing tool, the accuracy eroded quickly. dad got his S&W with a wood rod with a slot and would pass it through the bore with a patch a few times soaked in Hoppes. not enough to clean it really, only the unburnt powder.
when I shoot the .357 with lead bullets, I finish with some jacketed rounds to push out some of the fouling. Very accurate with jacketed rounds....I recently gave it to my oldest son.
Peace(through superior firepower),
Vaquero
I get free hugs from the then 18 year old girl I saved.
I don’t blame you.
I would do what I had to do, but don’t really ever want to point a weapon at another human being.
Take it to a real, experienced gunsmith. Do not file or stone anything. It will only make the repair more expensive or impossible. It ALWAYS costs more to repair after the customer has “fixed” it.
8~)
Lewis Lead Remover.
I would think that the chamber is nice and smooth inside but I might even wax or grease the cartridge cases at first until everything is worn in at about 100 rounds or so.
Another possibility is the magazine - the magazine lips might be bearing against the slide and impeding things.
Don’t know what the guts look like, but if there is a spring on the slide lock it might be bent.
I’ve got a CZ83 does the same thing when the spring gets bent.
Yeah, yeah - but all you get is six shots and the dang thing is too big to carry in a pocket unless you're size of an elephant. A well-made automatic pistol fed good-quality ammo always works. Colt 1911s and Walther PPKs always work - just gotta know what you're doing with 'em...
” You sure you don’t mean 1/32nd or 1/16th inch?”
Not diameter, height. Different manufacturers have different lengths of bullet. My Rugers fire them all. But the Kahrr only fires the shorter ones.
“Wouldn’t something smaller like the S&W Bodyguard be a better choice?”
My daily carry is the S&W Bodyguard. It’s a fine gun, but the laser is useless; too dim for daylight and points both ways in the dark. I’d go for a Ruger or cheaper gun without the laser.
Yup lewis. I have also used generic rippiffs of Lewis. Hoppes makes a close copy. I use them for my .45 Colts and Rugers and my Ruger .44 redhawk and various .357/.38. But only when they get really buggered up. If there is just a little leading it usually pops out with a bronze brush.
“Revolvers eat anything you feed them, and also go BANG every time.”
I used to shoot a S&w 625, it would lock up every couple hundred rounds unless I tightened all the screws while I was shooting it at the range. One time I got lazy and ended up having to get a gunsmith to get it unstuck.
I eventually fixed the problem by using loctite on all the screws but I was never really confident in that weapon after that.
I have also had some ammo that had a slight bulge where the bullet was seated. The ammo went into the chambers and I could close the cylinder but they didn’t fully seat and when you tried to pull the trigger, there was too much resistance for the cylinder to turn and it wouldn’t fire. The same ammo fired fine from the automatic we tried.
A revolver has fewer points of failure than an automatic but it does not have zero points of failure.
The first time I used one was on an old .45 that had been eating reloads for years.
You would not believe what came out of that “clean” barrel.
yup....my .44 magnum redhawk generated long shards of lead from my supposed hard cast lead bullet reloads. if I load lead magnum loads again they will have copper gas checks...
all my lead loads now are subsonic....
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