Hi there.,

Brand new to the forum. Excited to join you guys, and gals!

I have four Sig magazines for my XL. Two 12s, and two 15s. Each of them is equally difficult to insert into the gun when fully loaded. But… if I take out one round, they are all easier to insert, and if I take out two rounds, they are almost “normal”.

I’m a relative newbie to sorting out mechanical issues, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

it's normal.

Let them sit loaded for a while. Shoot them, cycle them

The P320 and P365 take positive seating to ensure the magazine is secured, with a full magazine and the slide forward.

^^^^^ Yep. There are a number of mags out there that require the same thing. Especially those that stuff a lot of rounds in a very small place.

Don't own a P365, but my Glock 15 and 17 round mags required the fill and rest for a couple of weeks routine. Also a Mec-Gar P229 .40 14 round mag. Works every time.

Welcome to the forum.

quote:

Originally posted by Olyrider:
Hi there.,

Brand new to the forum. Excited to join you guys, and gals!

I have four Sig magazines for my XL. Two 12s, and two 15s. Each of them is equally difficult to insert into the gun when fully loaded. But… if I take out one round, they are all easier to insert, and if I take out two rounds, they are almost “normal”.

I’m a relative newbie to sorting out mechanical issues, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Do you really mean insert into the gun? Or do you mean to seat and lock in place?

I meant completely seat the mags.

Words are hard!

I was going to write “load” the magazines but I was pretty sure that was even more confusing. They “insert” just fine, but don’t seat without a really firm push. Really firm. Which is why I tried with fewer rounds in the magazines, which helped a lot.

Thanks for pointing out the possible confusion in the way I described my issue. Really, thanks.

Inserting the mags on an open or closed slide?

It is my understanding the preferred method is to insert the loaded mag with the slide open and then close the slide by "sling shoting" the slide.

Be aware that there are combinations of magazines and baseplates that extend below the grip module. If you are using a magazine with a baseplate that butts up against the base of the magazine well and doesn't allow the magazine to be overinserted, then there is no problem ramming the magazine into place with the slide locked back.

In the case of the P320 and P365, it's possible to overinsert a magazine, when the magazine is longer than the mag well (17 round magazine in a compact 15 round grip module, for example, or a 21 round magazine with a thin baseplate). Because the fire control unit chassis is integral with the ejector, it can be bent, and the entire FCU must e replaced. The ejector isn't a separate piece.

I have never had that issue in either the P320 or P365, but it is possible, and some shooters have reported it.

I have seen a number of shooters drop the magazine from the weapon after drawing the pistol, or perform a reload only to have a feed malfunction and then drop the mag. In both cases, because the mag wasn't fully inserted and locked into place. At a steel shoot, that's just extra time, but on the street, it could be your life, as that extra time may be the difference in survival of the gunfight.

Make sure the magazine is seated. That's where practice and dry fire counts, which should always include magazine changes.

quote:

Originally posted by Olyrider:
They “insert” just fine, but don’t seat without a really firm push. Really firm. Which is why I tried with fewer rounds in the magazines, which helped a lot.

This is normal when you have the slide forward, and especially when you have the slide closed w/ a round in the chamber, i.e., your +1.

This especially common among the current crop of micro 9s using 1.5 stack or double stack mags, such as the P365 family. They all take a good amount of force to get the full mag seated w/ +1 in the chamber.

Now SigLaw posted, if you're having trouble getting the mag seated on an open slide, then you probably have a mechanical problem.

THANK YOU!!!

Told you I was a newbie…

With the slide open, all of my magazines were easy to “seat” in the 365XL. Very easy.

With the slide closed, they were equally difficult to seat.

So…that answers my question and solves my problem.

And, bonus, I learned some valuable information.

A fully loaded magazine will be difficult to insert in most firearms with the bolt or slide closed.

Hence the usual instruction in the manual is to load them with the bolt/slide retracted. Another aid to doing this is the "hold back" activated by the slide follower which raises a catch to keep the action open after the last round. It's both a signal you are out of ammo, and it makes it easier to reload.

Combat arms generally do this as a requirement to speed reloading in the field while under fire. It also prevents the magazine catch from holding the mag in just long enough to chamber the first round, then it falls out. Not a good thing when under fire to discover your loaded magazine fell into the scrub when you need to be triggering rounds.

It also looks kinda wrong watching magazines bounce off a concrete floor at a range etc.

The loading "mantra" is to load open slide only. There is an advanced technique to load one, then top off the mag, with the larger capacity magazines - say, ten or more compared to six, it's incrementally less helpful and only introduces that clunk sound more often.

The top three causes of a firearm to malfunction are ammo, magazines, and the user, who is responsible for choosing to use good ammo and not allowing his magazines to be dented or bend the feed lips. Dropping mags, which some do in competition with specially prepared ones, doesn't work for most of us. We don't keep a hundred for practice, we have the few we can afford. Denting a mag when you absolutely need it, only to find it's now jamming, is not a good thing.

These things tend to affect others and it's not always a clear cut black and white, but for the most part, open action resolves a lot of complicated interactions which increase problems.

Thanks for a great explanation regarding the “whys” and “hows”. I’ve read it three times now to turn it into common sense.

I have watched hundreds of hours of Youtube videos about handguns and shooting, but I don’t recall this topic being discussed. Hickok45, Humble Marksman, Honest Outlaw, Warrior Poet, and others. My guess is that they assume everyone just “knows this” because it is so engrained in them after years and years of competitive shooting. They probably forget that they actually had to learn this fact long ago.

I focus so much on Safety all the time that the rudimentary pieces of understanding the internals of a semi-automatic must have eluded me. I was a revolver guy for 40 years before buying a Glock 22 after 9/11. It is much easier to manipulate a magazine on the Glock than the Sig, so the issue had not come up before.

The 1st gen Shield was the worst I ever had in that respect. When loading to a +1 the mag would seat, or at least seem like it seated. I'd get one round and nothing more until dropping the mag and running the slide, I almost sent the gun back to S&W it was so bad. Keeping the mags loaded for a few weeks helped loosen things up a lot but if I carry that gun I still slam the mag home forcefully on a loaded chamber just to be sure.

My fully loaded 365 magazines are also hard to seat, but I don't want to slam them in so I just take my forefinger over the slide and my thumb on the bottom of the magazine and press it in.

Works fine.

Edited to add: Since I shot it again today, I tried to put the magazine in with just my thumb. Worked fine so the magazine spring is loosening up gradually.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Flash-LB,

quote:

Originally posted by mark60:
The 1st gen Shield was the worst I ever had in that respect. When loading to a +1 the mag would seat, or at least seem like it seated. I'd get one round and nothing more until dropping the mag and running the slide, I almost sent the gun back to S&W it was so bad. Keeping the mags loaded for a few weeks helped loosen things up a lot but if I carry that gun I still slam the mag home forcefully on a loaded chamber just to be sure.

I have a S&W EZ that is supposedly 8+1 rounds. If I put 8 in the magazine I cannot get it to seat. It is now a 7+1. I only have about 150 rounds through it and I haven't had any issues. I can live with losing a round, but I can't live with a gun that isn't reliable.

Goes to: most factories and the US Army adopted the policy of open slide/bolt reloading. They even specifically require the firearm to hold open on the last round.

That is how you work with making it reliable. Engineers fixed the problem over 50 years ago, all we have to do is work with it, not against it.

There were a lot of new AR15 owners ten years ago who were battling the issue, and for some it seemed as if the gun was the problem. Considering most self loading firearms are set up to do that it's easier to cooperate with the solution.

Polymer frames sometimes use a polymer mag catch, and it's not recommended in most cased to strike the mag with excessive force to seat it as it might damage the magazine lock hole or the catch. Its hard to say what is excessive but with an open slide/bolt its far less necessary and minimizes it.