Got a m-18 took it out Christmas day.lubed it Loaded a mag with Winchester white box ammo. first round failure to extract took all the strength I had to pull back slide and eject case. second round fired and ejected but failed to strip another round from mag. third round failed to eject stovepipe case left. Quit firing declared pistol unsafe. Called Sig mostly to get it on the record they offered to send me a label but did not seem to interested. I guess they have more problems then one of their new models being a complete failure.

Did you try a different type of ammo? If they sent you a label to send it back they will get it checked out and fixed.

quote:

Originally posted by DBCDave:
Got a m-18 took it out Christmas day.lubed it Loaded a mag with Winchester white box ammo. first round failure to extract took all the strength I had to pull back slide and eject case. second round fired and ejected but failed to strip another round from mag. third round failed to eject stovepipe case left. Quit firing declared pistol unsafe. Called Sig mostly to get it on the record they offered to send me a label but did not seem to interested. I guess they have more problems then one of their new models being a complete failure.

First off, welcome to the forum. It's a pretty damn cool place.

Secondly, I know every firearm should run just about every type of ammo on the market, but anytime I hear someone having issues with WWB, I have to wonder if its the ammo. I have put thousands of rounds of that stuff through all of my Sigs over the years without a single issue. I ran a mag through my Glock 19 Gen 5 and it was hell after the first 20 rounds. Bad lot of ammo? Tighter tolerances on the Glock? Burr somewhere that wasn't machined off? who knows. Since then, that 19 Gen 5 has seen 3500 plus rounds of everything without a hitch.

What you're experiencing is nothing that I would declare the weapon unsafe. Defective maybe, but not unsafe. Go to an Academy or local shop and buy a couple boxes of quality ammo. Clean your mags, clean the weapon again and run it. If you have the same issues, send it back. If not, here is a cold one!

One of my first issues I had with a Sig, I posted here about it. Said the same thing about the customer service guy I spoke too. That said, he did get me a prepaid label to get it fixed at no charge to me. I was told to keep in mind that some of these CS people are underpaid folks who answer a phone and nothing more. That's no excuse, but something to think about.

Good luck.

Quit firing after first 3 rounds with 3 different malfunctions was not interested in finding out what the 4th might be. It was like it was a trick gun like one of those exploding golf balls. Keep waiting for Sig reps to come out of woods laughing and give me my real pistol. Lots of experience never seen anything like it. Wonder if there are lemon laws for firearms

You certainly could have a problem pistol but before giving up I always suggest the following just because it is easy and does seem to have helped a lot of folks with issues over the years especially with guns more specifically designed for military use in mind.

First - clean and lube really well, which it seems like you have done.

Second - Lock the slide back and leave that way for a day or two.

Third - Run a box or three of hotter or heavier rounds before trying to run 115 grain plinking grade stuff. Think 124 grain NATO, 147 grain stuff, maybe some defensive and or +P ammo.

I have seen the above cure a great many issues over several brands fairly quickly.

All that being said I wouldn't be shy about calling customer service either.

Take care, shoot safe,
Chris

P320 compacts and carry have had issues with failure to extract. I sent my carry in on Sig's dime and they replaced the extractor and spring.

quote:

Originally posted by DBCDave:
Got a m-18 took it out Christmas day.lubed it Loaded a mag with Winchester white box ammo.

Did you clean it before you lubed it, or simply throw some lube on it?

Firearms, SIG and otherwise, often have lots of "sticky" lube/preservative all over the place. I always do a thorough field strip, clean thoroughly with Hoppe's, dry thoroughly, then lube thoroughly. (Oil [Wilson Combat] on things that pivot. Grease [Slide Glide] on things that slide.)

In fact I probably over-lube a little bit the first couple times.

I've never had a single problem with WWB.

Ammo was from same box used on other pistols before and after incident with no problem. Mag was factory issue. I tend to think rushed to market with another recall eventually Putting it behind me so I do not get to worked up my life span is getting short (old) Hell bought it for a safe queen for its USMC connection anyway. Almost was not going to even shoot it. Maybe that is what Sig was banking on

Dave, I can understand you're being upset, but I think you may be getting more worked up about this than it deserves.

First of all: You can be pretty confident that, if the pistol is truly defective, SIG will make it right.

Secondly: Did you clean it before lubing it, as I asked? If not: That could well be your problem. Every SIG I've ever purchased had really sticky grease on it everywhere. Lube alone would not have corrected that.

Sounds like the recoil spring is the military version for use with +P and +P+, which is what the new 9mm is. The surplus M17s they are selling at Sig come with a second recoil spring assy for use with weak promo ammo. As said above, better, stronger ammo will most likely run perfectly.

The failure to extract the first round fired and the difficult in cycling the slide manually points mostly to bad ammunition.

And once we have established that the ammunition was bad in one way, it’s perfectly possible that the two following problems were also due to bad ammunition, but specifically underpowered loads. Failures to eject (the “stovepipe”) are usually due to low slide velocity, and when a case is ejected but a new round isn’t picked up from the magazine and chambered, that’s due to insufficient slide movement—also usually due to a low powered load.

Low slide velocity and insufficient slide movement to the rear can be caused by a strong recoil spring or even dirt or insufficient lubricant, but if the gun was cleaned and lubed before use, then the latter two are very unlikely. It’s possible that a new stiff recoil spring could have contributed to the problem, but probably not by itself, and of course, it would have had nothing to do with the difficult extraction of the first shot.

Another unlikely possibility is that there’s a problem with the chamber of the barrel. I would inspect it to see if there is any obvious issue there. We would expect, however, something of that sort to cause chambering or return to battery problems as well.

The fact that the same ammunition was used without problem in other guns doesn’t demonstrate that 1., the first malfunction wasn’t caused by a single bad round, or 2., that the other rounds weren’t loaded to wimpy levels (as is often true of Winchester training ammo). A friend has a P226 that simply does not function reliably with that stuff despite being scrupulously clean and lubricated, and despite the fact that all of my guns have no problem with it.

Hotter ammunition and a certain amount of break-in (which is sometimes necessary) will probably cure the problem. But if we’d rather go to the effort and trouble of sending it back to the factory, that might result in a cure as well.

I too think it is ammo related. I break in all my 9mm pistols with 124 gr. ammo. I use Fiocchi.

My 320 and my M17 didn't like WWB when new. They also both had a tendency to not go back into battery when cycled slowly by hand. Both issues went away after a couple boxes of NATO spec 9mm.

Could be ammo related. Could be a break in issue. Could be that sticky preservative grease SIG uses on new guns for shipping. Could be a combination of many things.

If it was me, I'd run a box or two of 124gr NATO or some +p through there and see where it's at. If it was still having issues I'd send it back to SIG. The few times I've dealt with their customer service people they were great to work with.

If I got a nickle for every post I've seen about WWB and new guns not getting along my ammo budget would be much much bigger. As has been said shoot some stiffer quality stuff and then reassess.

Shoot some real ammo thru it while it is breaking in, not that cheap crap.

Bob

Detail strip and Clean it with no residue electronic contact cleaner. The packing preservative is probably the same stuff IWI uses. It looks like an oil/lubricant and feels somewhat slick but it’s not a lubricant, it’s a preservative. Take it apart and flush it and use wet soaked patches and qtips to scrub the preservative off. In particular, the extractor and firing pin/striker. And take apart and clean the magazines too. Also depending on what you lubed the gun with, it could have made it worse. I used fireclean when I first got it, once on my steyr m9a1 and my glocks. I wasn’t thinking and didn’t realize it was a vegetable base not petroleum based. Later I was in a hurry and just sprayed with rem-oil. It completely gummed up my striker and extractor. And was enough to retard the slide movement, along with the recoil spring/guide rod. Would do a thorough detailed cleaning then use rem-oil which is very light and will get everywhere. Soak it on the rails and other areas. Then work the slide back and forth a few dozen times while watching tv. Then run it wet. Think that will solve your problem.

Good advice here on cleaning and lubing and ammo. I am so disappointed in Winchester for that crap WWB ammo, many of us have had problems with it in defensive handguns. Follow the recommendations here and if that does not clear up the problem SIG will make it right, their customer service is excellent.

Try 124 NATO. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was designed to shoot...being military and all.

I’m not sure of the difference in civilian M18 and Military issue. That said, probably nothing. I was just issued my M18 in the Army. I own several Sig P320s and I’m familiar with the platform. I ran it out of the box, straight from ANAD, about 400 rounds with doing my normal cleaning regiment. Wow, flawless, amazing trigger, in fact best I’d fired in the P320 line.

quote:

Originally posted by Bob RI:
Try 124 NATO. I’m pretty sure that’s what it was designed to shoot...being military and all.

This.
Run some Winchester 124gr NATO ammo through it.

I have a new P320 Full Size that was not ejecting Federal 115gr Red Box very well when it was new.
Ran some NATO 124gr through it and that straightened it out.

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