Need some ideas. I started getting the occasional light strike on my reloads using CCI primers. I have shot probably 15K of them through this pistol. I replaced the mainspring but I still had one today in a match. What else should I check? Pistol is relatively clean, breech block pins are fresh.

If the problem just started despite a new mainspring, my first question would be whether the firing pin is broken or, more likely depending on your cleaning methods, whether the firing pin channel is clogged with oil and/or solvent.

An easy first thing to try is to use some sort of aerosol “scrubber” product to flush out the channel. Put the nozzle straw against the firing pin hole in the breechface and spray the everlovin’ out of it, letting the solvent drain out the back. Solvent can also be sprayed through the opening into the slide by the extractor, but that’s not as direct as through the firing pin opening.

Recently experienced the same issue. After checking the firing pin and cleaning out the channel, the intermittent problem continued.

After closer inspection of my reloads, I discovered some had primers not seated as deep as the rest of the rounds. Not obviously high, but apparently enough to where the firing pin strike would seat the primer & then the second hit would set it off. Re-seated all that were not below flush & all good now. CCI primers as well.

Thanks. Primers are seated firmly. I'll try spraying out the firing pin channel.

With 15k rounds through the gun. I would pull the firing pin, clean the channel and replace the firing pin and spring.

Ok Thanks

What weight mainspring?

If you at using a factory mainspring, I'd pull the firing pin assembly out of the slide and give it a good cleaning and inspection. I'd also run some pipe cleaners trough and make sure that gunk hasn't accumulated and is causing drag.

I assume you checked your reloads in another pistol. While I don't believe your reloads are an issue, it wouldn't hurt to rule it out completely.

How did you diagnose the issue as "light primer strikes"?

Did you pull the trigger, click (no boom), then:

- Examine the round for an indent
OR
- Pull the trigger again and get a boom

The more detail, the easier it is to suggest a possible course of action. Without detail, it could be a lot of things:

- firing pin/channel gunked up
- weak mainspring
- hard primers
- improper primer seating
- broken/damaged firing pin

Does this gun have a short reset trigger installed? I had a SRT kit in a p229 that failed to depress the firing pin safety black all the way. It started out okay, but as it wore down, it failed to push the block up enough.

Removed the srt and the problem went away.

The first time I had light strikes on my W German 226 was due to the locking block being loose (broken pins). As you have already said the pins are new, that's not likely the problem.

The second time, I suspected the firing pin block was not moving completely out of the way, causing the FP to hit it on the way by. The gun had a GGI competition job on it, and Bruce inspected it and felt it was OK. I ended up putting in a factory weight mainspring and it's been fine since then.