I have a P229 in .40S&W DAK that has had no problems shooting .40S&W ammo.

I bought an EFK Firedragon conversion barrel and had light strikes, maybe 2 per magazine. All rounds would fire on a repull of the trigger.

The first thing I'll try the next time out will be a 9mm magazine, but has anyone else had this trouble? As far as I could tell, I was fully in battery.

I've had other guns with EFK and other brands of conversion barrels, but have never had this happen before.

tia

My immediate thought is that the barrel has excessive headspace, i.e., that the cartridge goes too far forward into the chamber and the firing pin doesn’t impact it hard/deep enough.

If you drop a cartridge into the chamber, it should look about like this. If it goes in much farther, the headspace is excessive and the barrel is defective.





Another possibility that occurs to me is that the firing pin strike is off center. Have you checked the fired cases to see if the imprint is centered on the primer?

But if you got only two misfires, defective ammunition or primers that are too hard for the hammer force is not impossible. What brand?

A DAK P229 should have a mainspring marked with red paint. When they were first released they used the regular DA/SA mainspring and that was too light for reliable primer ignition. The DAK mechanism does not compress the mainspring as much as the DA/SA mechanism and requires a more powerful mainspring.

Round in the barrel:


Primer strikes a little off center:


I've got E2 grips on this one, so I can't get to the spring easily.

My next time out I'll shoot some .40 as well and compare primer strikes. Ammo shouldn't be the problem. I was shooting a native 9mm and had no problems with it.

Well, you answered two of my three questions.

Some of the primer strikes are a little off center but there seems to be some inconsistency. If the chamber is a little oversized and the cartridges are held in different positions by the extractor when chambered, perhaps some are off center enough to not be ignited properly.

You might try wiggling a cartridge around in the chamber to see if it seems to have more free movement than cartridges in other barrels. But that's just speculation, and I don't know that firing pin impacts as far off center as I'm seeing would cause misfires.

Did you check the mainspring? Is factory red?

I had to find my E2 tool; the spring is red inside.

(Now I just need to remember how to reinstall it.)

Hopefully others will offer opinions. At this time all I can think of are the somewhat off-center firing pin strikes. But as I say, I don’t have any actual knowledge about how off center it would need to be to matter. And that might vary based on the specific ammunition used.

Two things changed.

The replacement barrel is one issue.

9 mm versus 40 is the other.

Possibly, the 9 mm ammunition has harder primers. Is the firing pin channel free of debris? How long since you replaced the firing pin spring?

Just another thing to troubleshoot.

Good luck.

My brand new Colt Gold Cup Trophy had primer strikes much further off center than the 9mm conversion barrel pictured above.
It did not experience any misfires.
And that Colt Gold Cup Trophy? It's sold/gone now after a trip back to Colt where they replaced the slide. They should have replaced the pistol and didn't.
My Dan Wesson 1911 has perfectly centered firing pin strikes. Perhaps now that CZ who owns both Colt and Dan Wesson, maybe they can train the butchers who work at Colt.

Gold Cup by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

I sent the barrel back to EFK and they said it measures within 9mm specs.

Another trip to the range and with a 9mm magazine this time and the same Norma ammo, I had light strikes.

I switched to Federal AE, and had no problems with either 9mm or .40 magazines.

I guess I'd have to admit its the ammo, but I never had any problems with the Norma in other pistols.

As an aside, I was going to try the EFK barrel in another P229. This other pistol has always been a little tighter when reinstalling the assembled slide on the frame. There is a little more rub where the bottom lug of the barrel starts to slide over the locking block. Once installed, it has no problems and functions correctly.

When I tried installing the EFK into this one, I could not get the slide on to the frame. I didn't want to force it so didn't try very hard. Once I got home, I tried again and did various combinations of slides and barrels. The other frame is always tighter, but I was able to install the barrel on it and the slide moves normally. My original intent was to get a conversion barrel for this other P229 and not switch the one I have between the two pistols. I was considering a BarSto for the next one.

You clearly stated the pistol is type DAK. With that system making every shot a DA trigger pull, is it possible that the trigger bar might be slightly out of spec or worn to the point that causes the hammer to drop just slightly premature?

He had no problem with the .40 S&W.

The conversion barrel is fine, per EFK.

Only problem is with the Norma 9 mm ammo. Federal AE 9 mmm is no problem.

So, I agree with him that ammo (Norma) is the culprit.

I would have to agree that the Norma 9 mm ammo might be the culprit, but I am not 100% convinced based on what the OP has stated.

OP Post #1
I bought an EFK Firedragon conversion barrel and had light strikes, maybe 2 per magazine. All rounds would fire on a repull of the trigger.
(OP mentions "light strikes")
(All rounds go BANG on a repull)

OP Post #3
My next time out I'll shoot some .40 as well and compare primer strikes. Ammo shouldn't be the problem. I was shooting a native 9mm and had no problems with it.
(Shooting another 9mm pistol and had no problems with it)

OP Post #9
I guess I'd have to admit its the ammo, but I never had any problems with the Norma in other pistols.
(never had any problems with the Norma in other pistols)

I am not suggesting that the OP should fix something that isn’t broke, but I do think the OP has stated some pretty significant points about what is going on. At this point I am more curious about the root cause of the problem. If the root cause of the problem is really "light strikes", then you do have to fix that.

quote:

Originally posted by anothercuervo:
I switched to Federal AE, and had no problems with either 9mm or .40 magazines.

Federal has softer primers than my CCI or Remington primers. My progressive press has enough slop in the priming mechanism that I can't use Federal primers with it. They will catch and deform. CCI and Remington work fine.

So while switching to Federal ammo may eliminate the misfires, it does not mean the previously used ammo was bad, IMO.