[dukemason]

Hello. First some background. I've got a 9mm P320c that I purchased late November 2016. After shooting around 100 rounds during a range visit, I took it to the local gun shop to have Trijicon HD sights installed. During the installation they scratched up the top of the slide. So they sent it to Sig to have the Nitron finish re-done. I got it back 7 weeks later. After getting it back, I was getting brass to the face when shooting Winchester NATO 124gr. When shooting 115gr white box, I didn't notice it. So I disassembled the slide and cleaned up the extractor assembly, thinking maybe it was gunked up or something. I took it out today and shot 50rds of Speer Gold Dot 124gr +p, and some Winchester NATO. I got brass to the face 6 or 7 times. I again shot some 115 grain Winchester without issue. Any ideas how to remedy this? I could part with Winchester NATO, but not being able to shoot Gold Dot +p isn't acceptable to me. I have an older P320c that doesn't have this problem. I haven't called Sig about it yet. Thanks

 

[GCBHM]

I would contact Sig, but it could be an issue with the extractor.

 

[ray1970]

Brass to the face is just the guns way of letting you know it has successfully extracted and ejected your spent round.

Trust me. I own several Glocks.

 

[7.62Kolectr]

I would contact Sig, but it could be an issue with the extractor.

Extractor pulls em out. It's the ejector that controls the pattern of brass coming out. Without an ejector the cases would simply go right back in or jam into next round being fed.

Op check your ejector to see if it's tip is broken. A shorter one will toss them in a different pattern than a longer one.

 

[jeff s]

Odds are your extractor is not maintaining tension on the empty case, thereby "losing" it and now allowing the ejector to kick the case out.

This is a very debated test, but you can try shooting some rounds without the magazine in the gun, and I'll bet your pistol fails the test by either dropping the empty cases down the magazine well, erratic ejection, and/or stovepipes.

The point is not about shooting the gun without a magazine. That's a one in a million situation for sure and is NOT the issue of the test or the deficiencies the test reveals. The test is simply a basic isolation diagnostic of the most critical component of the pistol's "system", the extractor. I make that claim because it's the only component on the gun with three tasks, all of which are critical to functional reliability. And the test shows that stock Glock extractors, for the most part, are NOT performing two of the three tasks an extractor has. Those tasks are:

1. Maintain control, under tension, of a round of ammunition during the feeding and chambering steps. The round being fed clears the feed lips of the magazine and slides upwards along the breech face underneath the extractor's hook. This is what makes Glock and all the other mainline brand service sized pistols "controlled feed" guns instead of push feed guns. The Glock system seems to work OK here, based on lots of observation.

2. Extract the fired case from the chamber. It generally does the initial part of this task OK, but here is where the train goes off the tracks. Due to the various jolts and forces of unlocking, extraction and recoil, the extractor on the typical Glock loses control and engagement of the fired case at this point.

3. The third job for the extractor is to hold the fired case UNDER TENSION AGAINST the breech face until the case head is impacted against the end of the ejector and pinioned out of the ejection port. This is where massive failure manifests on the system and it results in the fired case coming out of engagement with the extractor hook that was supposed to be holding it. This dominos into a case that is now literally floating in the space between the breech face and barrel hood. This case is sometimes impacted, marginally, by the ejector, but most of the time it's "ejected" by the top round in the magazine. This failure has also repeatedly caused what we call BTF malfunctions and I'm not talking about guns being fired without magazines. The round gets trapped between the barrel hood and breech face in various orientations, sometimes even flipped 180 degrees. The guns I've seen it on most commonly are hard use Gen 3 G-19s. I don't know why, it's just observation over years and many, many rounds fired.

The most common way shooters can tell things aren't right is they see erratic ejection patterns of fired cases going to all points of the compass and they usually don't notice or care until those fired cases are hitting them in the face. This is BAD on a service gun, because it has the potential of an eye strike by an ejected case in a fight and therefore takes our hero out of action, at least for a few moments. Most folks think they have an ejection problem, but they don't. Their extractor is shitting the sheets and the ejector doesn't get to get a good bite of and impact on the case. I've seen some high speed video of these extraction failings on guns with magazines on board and will try to locate it again. That old saying of a picture being worth a thousand words is true. When you see that case pop free during extraction, it gives you a sick feeling.

Jon, you can say that the test is invalid, but I'd say you're wrong. It's like saying I have a radiator hose on my car that has a split, but I wrapped the hell out of it with 100 MPH tape (duct tape) and it doesn't leak anymore, so I'm good to go. Or my wooden fence is falling down, but I propped it up with some 2 x 4's and nailed firring strips along the length and it's holding up. Both those situations are wrong and one has potential to leave you stranded (and the other makes you look low rent). Yes, we can depend on things we shouldn't for function of a machine or implement or structure, but that doesn't make them truly viable or dependable. It just means we are willing to take a risk, sometimes recklessly.

I've used the only fix for this that has worked most of the time: Apex extractor, their spring and a Gen 4 #30274 ejector. It GENERALLY works, but not always. When it works, it makes the gun operate like it should and my daily carry Gen 3 G-19 (what Darryl calls my "disposable gun") performs its extraction and ejection chores just like any of my HKs. We shouldn't have to do that to get the gun working right, but we do. I'm NOT a Glock hater, but I am brutally honest about its lack of "Perfection". BTW, if this fix "recipe" doesn't work, get rid of that gun.

Top rounds aren't ejectors, and we shouldn't expect them to be.

From this thread (it's a really long thread, but worth the read):

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?24029-Glock-Ejection-Without-Magazine

 

[ray1970]

I'm going to agree with Jeff. Poor extractor tension can do funky things to the ejection. My one Glock that had horrible "brass to face" syndrome and would stovepipe about twice every hundred rounds or so was cured when I installed an Apex extractor. Everything now ejects positively into a neat little pile at about the four o'clock position and hasn't put brass to my face or stove piped in about eight hundred rounds since the extractor installation.

 

[dukemason]

Thanks guys. I'll compare the ejector to my other P320. And then give Sig a call.

 

[dukemason]

I pulled the slide on both my P320's. The newer one's ejector is shaped slightly different. The end is more squared off, whereas the older one's tip is almost triangular. Of particular interest is the beveled portion on the inside of the slide directly below the ejection port. That area on the new P320 is getting pretty marked up from brass hitting it, but the old P320 doesn't have any brass marks on it. Even though I've fired 3 or 4 thousand more rounds through the older P320. So it looks like brass is hitting that area, and bouncing back into my face.

 

[7.62Kolectr]

Ejector problem/difference is your answer.
:thumbsu:


Pics will help others for possible future reference

 

[rsant]

Brass to the face is just the guns way of letting you know it has successfully extracted and ejected your spent round.

Trust me. I own several Glocks.

I appreciate this comment... Had to replace the ejector on my brand new G19 Gen 4 years ago due to it "letting me know" about the ejected casings.

 

[dukemason]

I called Sig support this morning. They want to take a look at it. I'll post when I get it back. Thanks for the comments.

 

[dukemason]

I got my P320 back from Sig after 1 week. The note said they replaced the extractor and extractor spring pin. They fired a box of 124gr Lawman without a problem, and that it meets factory specs. I had a feeling the extractor wasn't the issue. I took it out and shot about 30 rounds of Gold Dot +p and some Winchester 124gr NATO. The problem wasn't fixed. I was still getting hit between the eyes, or the brass was bouncing straight up off the ejection port opening. I frustrated and had enough so I traded it for a new P320c in 40 S&W. So far I'm pretty happy with my decision

 

[Jiveturkey]

I would say it's the ammo. Mine extracts great except for cheap 115 gr blazer ammo will sometimes extract to the face in mine. Everything else runs perfect.

 

[dukemason]

I would say it's the ammo. Mine extracts great except for cheap 115 gr blazer ammo will sometimes extract to the face in mine. Everything else runs perfect.

Yeah it could be the ammo, which was anything high pressure or +p. But I have a 9mm P320c in FDE and I don't have that problem with it. Either way if the gun can't shoot Gold Dot +p then I was done. I wasn't going to make excuses for it.