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P30L failure at a match

8K views 34 replies 18 participants last post by  AustinWolv 
#1 · (Edited)
Wondering if any of you know what might be wrong or how to get the gun apart.

This particular gun has over 10,000 rounds through it.
I was shooting a 3gun match today, and went to slide lock. Loaded a new mag and tried to send the slide home, but it stopped and wouldn't ride forward. Tap, tried to rack the slide, and it was stuck. No movement. Trying to remember, but the mag was kind of stuck also, but I ended up ripping it out. Noticed empty case still in the gun, held in place by the extractor. Cleaned that out. Now, memory is fuzzy here, but I don't think the slide returned home. Mind you, I'm on the clock so I'm trying to get the gun running and finish the stage, not exactly fixing the gun.....

Upon trying to load a new mag, I can recall having to rip the slide forward, as it wouldn't return itself. Slide came forward, click, gun didn't fire. Tap, rack, click. Dropped the mag again, rack, rack, rack. It is clear, but it doesn't feel right. Stopped the stage at this point.

Went back to safe table to take apart the gun and couldn't do so........because the slide would not pull back far enough to align the takedown groove on the slide with the slide release to push it out. See the picture, as that is as far back as the slide will go. Beating on it won't help, as it really seems like a hard stop.

I shoot with one of the HK team guys, so he looked at it real quick also, and we figured it is a firing pin or maybe the recoil spring busted. We tried to really run the slide, and it wasn't giving at all. Thankfully, he's running a P30L also, so I just borrowed his for the rest of the day.

So I cannot take the gun apart at the moment. Curious if any of you have ideas, as I'm resigned to calling HK CS on Monday. :)
Shot a pretty good match, other than that........

Update: Note that the failure, IMO, was not due to HK defect or design. It was due to using non-standard extended magazines. You can see details later in the thread.

Gun Trigger Revolver Tool Gun accessory
 
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#12 · (Edited)
Can you tell if the barrel is bulged at all?
How To Break A Sig (Part 2) - YouTube
Can't tell. However, the barrel has gap around it to the hole in the slide and can be wiggled, so it isn't locked up like the SIG in the video.
The slide freely moves....hammer resets and falls.....just not back far enough to reach the takedown notch to take it apart.
 
#13 ·
Just leave it be until you talk to HKCS. They have the tools or the ability to replace your gun, if need be/deemed necessary.

If I had no other choice but to do it myself, I'd carefully take a Dremel with cutting wheel to the slide catch/release until I could remove it without moving the slide. Trying to be as careful as possible to avoid damaging the slide/frame.

Worst case is a slightly damaged frame, new slide release maybe replacement recoil assembly versus a useless pistol.

But, again, leave it be and ship it off to HKCS!!!


Sent from my iPhone 4S using Tapatalk
 
#14 · (Edited)
Thanks, I'm not messing with trying to get the gun apart as I mentioned in my first post.

However, I got a chance to look closer today. The metal piece on the left side of the frame that serves as the ejector is broken off. That is why the empty brass case was sitting on the face in the extractor. Because that metal piece wasn't there to push the case off.

Thus, I'm wondering if the broken piece is either in the frame somewhere jamming things up such that the slide can't move farther back or what is left of that metal ejector got bent up or something so it is catching the slide cutout on the inside.

Regardless, calling HK CS in the morning as they were closed today.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Called HK CS yesterday, shipped it off yesterday, should be there today.

I have to take some time to sit down with my other P30L and the mags I was using to see if I can figure out what happened. I have video of that stage at the match, but it is from behind me, so I can't see details obviously and will have to try to recreate from memory of what I saw and did.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Ok, HK CS called me today. Talk about response time! :3000000:
Also kudos to the Repair guy for taking some time to talk on the phone and let me blab on with questions.

Let me start off this post by saying that *I* don't believe this problem was a HK P30L function or design problem after sitting down and looking over the parts in use. Non-standard magazines are the culprit. We'll get to that later.

Findings by HK Repair:
The ejector was not broken off. However, it had been bent upwards and then folded back on itself more or less. That is what was catching the cutout inside the slide, preventing slide travel far enough rearward. They were able to get the gun apart.
The frame did not get replaced, as Repair was able to reform the ejector and position it per spec. We'll see how it holds up over time. I'm a little nervous about it, but he seemed confident it would be ok.

The reason for the problem:
HK Repair doesn't know this theory because I didn't get a chance to sit down and look at my backup P30L and magazines until after work today.

I've been using 20rd extended magazines for over a year now for competition. They were created by welding together two donor mags. The problem is that there is no stop feature to prevent you from over-inserting the mags, which I didn't realize. When you insert the regular 15rd factory magazine, the baseplate stops the insertion on the bottom of the grip before the metal edge of the mag hits the ejector. It comes up just short. However, with the 20rd extended magazines, there is nothing to stop the mag being rammed right into the ejector. Thus, after a year plus of match use and dry-fire mag changes in the garage, I believe when I crammed a reload home last weekend, it finally bent the ejector up enough that the slide wouldn't return forward. Tap, rack, bang didn't go well, so I pulled out the mag, tried a different one and probably bent the ejector some more, followed by racking the slide and then forcing it home as I thought it was the tight rounds in the mag holding up the mag, I bet. That proceeded to just downward spiral everything in racking the slide again trying to clear things out and ultimately the ejector ending up like it did.

You can see the 20rd extended mags I'm referring to here:
http://www.hkpro.com/forum/hk-handgun-talk/186334-p30ls-rocky-mountain-3gun.html
http://www.hkpro.com/forum/hk-handgun-talk/118931-p30-mag-extension-3.html#post1258246

Lesson learned. Check mag fits. Stop using the 20rd extended mags. I've got the TF +5 extensions inbound that I had ordered prior to learning this, so I'm going to be carefully checking how deep they insert to avoid this problem again obviously.

I don't see how else the ejector would have gotten damaged like that, so the point is that non-standard magazine use over time and abuse caused the issue, NOT an HK problem.

Other things I learned:
HK has a medium-strength factory TRS. The Repair fellow and I got to talking to how I have my trigger set up and that I was using a GGI TRS that was between the light and heavy factory TRS in order to get a more positive, smooth reset compared to the light TRS in light LEM configs. That's when he told me they have a medium TRS that is square wire but different geometry than the heavy TRS, allowing for much lower strength. He was going to check out how it felt compared to what I had in there and get back to me, but at the least he was going to include the P/N on the invoice.
 
#21 ·
If I remember correct my V4.1 uses TRS 234773. What I see from parts matrix for V4.1 only V4 uses this spring as standard part, so you may be right about that.

BTW I was thinking that some outside factor could be reason of this malfunction, but I did not have slightest idea what it could be. Magazine over insertion looks like solid explanation.
 
#25 ·
Maybe I don't know enough about guns...but I'm not really cool with a non-replaceable ejector. I've swapped them on a 1911 before (longer one on a Commander) so I assumed all ejectors should be a replaceable part.
On the other hand there is that post about the USP 45 with the ridiculously high round count.
 
#31 · (Edited)
Does the mag release not stop it from going to deep in the frame? Now if the P30 mags are a different height from the mag release detent to the top of the magazine I could see an issue. Am I on track here?

Added on Edit; I just took the slide off my P2000SK and the x-grip off my USPC\P2000 12 round magazine. The rear left corner hits the bottom of the extractor stopping upward travel. Same thing with the stock 9 round magazine. I just checked with the slide on and it does the same thing. I'm not worried, it's an H&K and I'll shoot the piss out of it!
 
#32 · (Edited)
As a follow-up on this:
I've got the TF +5 extensions inbound that I had ordered prior to learning this, so I'm going to be carefully checking how deep they insert to avoid this problem again obviously.
Got two of the TF extensions in and assembled up. Test-fit shows that the metal edge of the mag can, what appears, just barely kiss the ejector, as the mag extensions are a bit short of the same dimension on the mag tube than the factory baseplates. You can feel the difference in insertion distance when comparing factory baseplate versus the extension, but I didn't bother to measure as it is small. The top of the mag extension does indeed make solid contact with the bottom of the pistol grip, so the amount of over-insertion is minimal and thus ejector damage is not a real worry.
To be extra cautious, I ground down that edge of the mag to ensure no contact could ever occur. I also ordered two more TF extensions in order to have (4) 20rd competition mags. :)

Per earlier in the thread, the trouble comes from ramming home non-standard factory mags on empty slide-lock, as when the slide is forward, the ejector is supported from too much deflection by the groove in the slide in which is resides.

In regards to HK CS, thanks! They reshaped the ejector, polished it up, made sure things work, cleaned up the gun, spent more time on the phone talking about this and other friendly conversation than I would have been expecting them to do, and got it back to me pretty quickly.
 
#34 ·
In regards to HK CS, thanks! They reshaped the ejector, polished it up, made sure things work, cleaned up the gun, spent more time on the phone talking about this and other friendly conversation than I would have been expecting them to do, and got it back to me pretty quickly.
Maybe they tough that is wise to be polite to guy, who managed to bend P30 ejector. One to not want to play with superpowers of superheroes ;)
 
#33 ·
Interesting thread. Glad HK was able to fix it and get it back to you quickly, and that you seem to have figured out what caused it.

I'd also be interested in your thoughts on the medium strength TRS. Did they end up swapping that in for you? If so, how do you like it?
 
#35 ·
Interesting thread. Glad HK was able to fix it and get it back to you quickly, and that you seem to have figured out what caused it.
I'd also be interested in your thoughts on the medium strength TRS. Did they end up swapping that in for you? If so, how do you like it?
Nope, the Gray Guns medium TRS is still in there. I've emailed them to ask for the factory medium strength TRS part number to confirm. According to the phone conversation, the medium is square wire like the heavy but has a more spread-out geometry that makes it weaker than the heavy TRS.
That's all the info I got so far. FWIW, I like the GGI medium as it gives positive, smoother, more tactile reset than the light TRS, which would sometimes not return to reset after being pinned back. I mostly saw that on longer accuracy shots during matches, not during close, fast stuff.

******

Montrala, LOL.
 
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