P30L dropping mag after recoil

[curby]

Howdy folks, just took my 9mm P30L to the range today to try it out. We were using 124gr NATO loads as recommended for break-in. The gun did fine and shot like a dream, but I think I must be doing something wrong. Several times, the magazine was ejected immediately after the slide cycled and a new round was loaded into the chamber.

My thumbs shouldn't be interfering with the mag release. I grip with a "thumbs forward" style. My weak thumb goes on the accessory rail, and my strong thumb rides on the second knuckle of my weak thumb so both thumbs are well above the mag release.

At home, I noticed that if I squeeze the trigger hard, it does hit the mag release at the rear of its travel and begins to activate it, but I'd have to really pull very hard to get that to actually drop the mag.

I'm guessing the most likely culprit is my trigger finger interfering with the mag release. I'm just a new shooter so I'm betting that I'm doing something wrong (versus some problem with the gun), but I don't really know what to look out for or what to try. Any ideas? Thanks!

[HKfaninMD]

If you're not used to the HK mag release, you're probably right in thinking that you are inadvertantly hitting it with your trigger finger. Try holding your trigger finger a bit higher on the trigger and see if the problem persists. And the idea of using a THUMB to hit the mag release??? Who does that? Certainly not an HK shooter! I use my middle or trigger finger to hit the mag release -- whether I'm shooting righty or lefty!

[curby]

Yeah, I definitely don't ever intend to hit the mag release with my thumb. I just mentioned my grip because hopefully that rules out the possibility of thumb interference.

I'm a lefty, and I've grown used to hitting mag releases with my index finger in general. That's something that I'm continuing to do on the P30, though I've used my middle finger once or twice. I'm still getting used to the gun, and trying out different things to see what works best.

I'll keep an eye on the placement of my trigger finger, and see if that reduces the accidental mag drops.

Overall, very happy, though somewhat disturbed by the dropping mags. Looking forward to a lot more practice with this gun. =)

[C350]

Just another thought is you might not be locking the mag in place.. I know a lot of folks as the price of things increase they tend to be more gentle. Give it a nice hard slam in, and your slide should drop also.

[curby]

Towards the end, I was pushing harder and harder and got the slide to drop a couple times. I've read this is neither unexpected nor undesirable and wouldn't mind learning to do both actions with a single shove, ending up with a gun that's ready to go.

I'm trying not to baby this gun too much, but it's my first so it's special!

[DaZe831]

Just another thought is you might not be locking the mag in place.. I know a lot of folks as the price of things increase they tend to be more gentle. Give it a nice hard slam in, and your slide should drop also.

Agreed. Had a buddy that would just put the magazine in, gently lol. Mag would fall right out and he wondered why. I told him, usually full mags give them a good slam in. It won't break. Resolved the problem.

[Hokadet]

I dont know what size your hands are but people with smaller sized ones seem to have the same problem when firing my HK45 - especially when using +P rounds. Just the other day I was at the range with the girlfriend. I had it loaded with 200g +P and the recoil was great enough that her trigger finger actuated the mag release on every shot. The problem was that her fingers are too short and in order to comfortably pull the trigger, the base of her trigger finger was resting right on the paddle release.

It only seems to be an issue with the full-sized 45. She's shot the P2000 with the smaller mag release and had no issues whatsoever.

[curby]

Thanks again for the help, folks. My fingers are actually quite long, but they might still be slipping down. I'm using NATO (~ +P) stuff so it's pretty stiff, and I've considered the possibility of the recoil slamming the trigger guard/mag release upward into my trigger finger and activating the release. I'll do some more dry fire/grip practice this week, and see if I can get some range time this weekend.

[curby]

Necroing because of relevance: we took the P30L and our HK45 to the range a few weeks ago and I was dropping mags accidentally on both. My wife didn't have a problem with either one. Last year when we had more range time I stopped having the problem on the P30, but we haven't been in a long time recently so my fundamentals such as proper grip might have been off. I'll try again this weekend.

I'm definitely shoving the mag home and engaging the locking tab though, so that shouldn't be it. At the same time, I really doubt it's the gun so I'll have to see what I can do differently.

[texasgun]

I had the exact same issue with my HK45 ... that was before I dremeled the left side mag release down... problem fixed.

the oversized HK45 and P30 paddle mag releases are kinda unusual... probably great if you are special forces and shoot with gloves... not so great for long fingers or a weaker grip....