Null

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dwd1985,

2 failures out of 331 rounds, one of which is Blazer aluminum junk, and the other, I have no idea what it is. What's the concern? Shoot more of the other ammo. And, if they do the same failure, then I'd be concerned.

Agree with 12131,

Blazer aluminum is junk, same with Herters.

Break it in with some good quality FMJ, then narrow down your carry ammo. I ran about 10 types and weights of carry ammo and finally settled on Hornady 115gr XTP's. I have 400 rounds of it through my P365 with zero issues (gun has 1200+ trouble free rounds thru it).

So with the ammo you've had a 0.1% failure rate. With the gun, you've had a 0.6% failure rate. I wouldn't say with any certainty it's one or the other just based on that.

What I would do is look at the cases from the failures. Was the case rim marked up from the extractor? We're they bulged? Coated in carbon?

I switched over to federal aluminum ammo for range use and have never had an issue over thousands rounds.

I haven't tried blazer, but I'd give it a shot.

Herter and Blazer are produced by CCI.

As a reloader I really prefer Remington UMC. Because I clean with Stainless Steel pins and Remington is the only brand I've found that has the flash holes consistently sized to 0.082 inch. SAves me a LOT of very tedious work reaming the flash holes on a fresh batch of once fired cases.

I've also been a bit spoiled by the superb trigger in the Ruger LC9s, of which I have two. Very smooth and clean break the tests at 4.5 lbs. with both of mine using a Lyman Digital trigger gage. I also have not had one single failure of any description with either of my LC9s pistols. What I am not a huge fan of is the 7 round magazines or the cost for these magazines.

So, my question is what is the trigger like on the P365. ie. how much takeup, how clean is the break, and what weight.

BTW, I also have two of the non SRT P239's and one P229 Elite Stainless. Love the triggers in the P239, in single action it is quite close to the single action trigger in an S&W revolver and in double action they are smooth and shootable if a touch heavy. As for the P229, the SRT trigger in single action on that has 0.070 inch of sear creep so it's about as bad as the trigger on my Springfield XDM.

I’ve never had any issues with blazer aluminum. The Herters Select from Cabelas though has given me so many problems through a few of my handguns. I bought a couple hundred rounds of it years ago and it was painful to get through. Never again.

I’d chalk up those two FTE to be ammo related. The lowest quality ammo out of the group gave you problems, not surprising. I would still put a couple hundred more rounds through the gun though just to make sure it’s reliable, which I’m sure you will.

I buy Blazer aluminum in multicase lots whenever I can find it for myself and my agency. Other than not being the hottest stuff around in 9mm and having had four or five dud rounds out of the many thousands I’ve fired and seen fired, it’s just as good as any other cheap practice stuff. I can’t imagine how being “junk” causes failures to extract if the round goes bang unless the case gets stuck in the chamber and requires punching out with a cleaning rod or something similar. Is that what happened with the two extraction failures?

Low-powered ammunition can result in failures to eject or slide lock failures if the pistol’s recoil spring is stout enough, but that’s obviously not going on if there is an extraction failure coupled with enough slide movement to pick up another round for chambering or if the slide locks back on an empty magazine. If the extraction problems continue, then I’d be concerned.

I am curious, though, about the firing pin impressions on the primers in your photos. It almost looks like there were two imprints: one in the center, and one above. We had one poster here complain about swipe marks on primers fired in a P365, so I’m wondering if that’s what he was referring to. Can you describe them, or post a closeup photo?

Thanks. From your descriptions it doesn’t seem as though the cases were unusually difficult to remove.

I will, however, modify my original statement about the possibility of the ammunition being at least partially (and indirectly) to blame for the extraction problems. I suppose that if there was a timing issue in the unlocking and extraction stages of the autoloading cycle, the slide might have been moving to the rear before the chamber pressure dropped enough to allow extraction. The other report about an extended “swipe” mark on the primers from the firing pin/striker might be a further indication of the phenomenon.

Assuming that that’s occurring, I would be inclined to blame it on a quirk of the operation of the P365 when a particular cartridge’s pressure curve was just right (or wrong). I don’t know how stiff the pistol’s recoil spring is or how much the slide weighs, but if the spring is weak and it’s a lightweight slide, that could contribute to faster-than-normal cycling.

I will be interested in your follow-up report(s).

I said Blazer aluminum is junk because I've shot it many years ago, when money was tight, and it was junk. I personally would never be concerned, even if my gun chokes on this ammo but eats everything else. Ymmv.

I recall having some bulged cases using the aluminum Blazer with my first Gen2 G19. Stopped the gun a couple of times over maybe two boxes (100 rounds). Also had an extraction problem with some 40S&W Blazer aluminum in my P229 years later. Not sure if it was really the ammo with the second incident but it's so far the only type of factory bred 40S&W to cause issues with that SIG. That particular Blazer product is now something that I'd buy as a last resort and besides, for whatever reason locally I can regularly pick up brass-cased ammo (115gr and 124gr S&B and Magtech) for noticeably less money than the alloy CCI/Blazer stuff.

Sometimes a particular gun doesn't function well with some brand of ammunition... Look at the GIGN with their MR73, Christian Prouteau has selected a particular brand of .357 mag ammuniton because with ohter, the primers were too hard and the revolvers had ignitions problems! The GIGN always use the MR 73. they don't loose confidence because of ammunition problems, they have simply choose the ammunition that works best in their guns.

David - With primer strikes coming up in this thread (not trying to Hi-Jack your thread) discussion earlier I thought I would share spent brass from my and my wife's P365's. The brass on the left is from mine and the brass on the right is from my wife's pistol.

Both pistols have a March birth date. Not sure if this is something I should be concerned about now or if I should just monitor. My pistol has 300+ rounds thru it - my wife's has 120 rounds thru it....

So far NO - FTF or FTE issues with either pistol - The ammo we have shot is WWB, HST 124 and 147, and Barnes XPD (our carry round in both pistols) and this type of primer strike is the same on all brands of brass.....Mark

Thanks for those photos, sigarmsp226. The firing pin drag marks on the primers are definitely more pronounced than I’ve seen with any other pistols.

Now my question for P365 owners is how the ejection patterns with that gun compare to other 9mm SIGs’. Do the cases end up farther away, closer, or about the same as with other SIG pistols?

I've got over 100 rounds of Federal aluminum through my P-365, without any issues.

Running crappy ammo through a quality gun is like putting Chinese tires on a Ferrari and expecting the handling to stay the same.

Maybe measure the OD of the various brands of fired casings and compare. That's most likely the difference.

Years ago I had trouble with blazer alum. rounds in my S&W 659. and that thing ate everything (but that of course...) Never used it again.

quote:

Originally posted by dwd1985:
But until I sort out the FTE issue, it cannot be trusted.

Personally, I agree. Part of the reason to go to the practice range with a new carry pistol is to find potential issues.

I can't speak to Herters, never having shot any, but having shot a lot of Blazer aluminum 9mm in several of my SIGs in the last decade with zero issues, I'd want to run this to ground, too, before deciding it was just an anomaly.

Yes, it's not what you'd load up with for real, but if you don't know why this is failing when it shouldn't, you could be ignoring something important.

Anyway, my recommendation would be to shoot a bunch more and see if the failures recur. 1 out of 50 (2 out of 100 including Herters) could be just random. Or not. As most Ph.D. theses will conclude - "further research is indicated."

Blazer Aluminum was so-so for me in auto pistols. So now I only use it in revolvers and then only when it is really cheap.
I would agree with the others who said to use only high grade ammo.

quote:

Originally posted by dwd1985:
The P365, on the other hand, is a new weapon to market with known issues.

If I were heading to a fight and offered a P365 with the highest quality ammo, or my P226 Navy with CCI Blazer, I would bet my life on the P226 functioning more reliably every day of the week.

I have a P365 en route, so I am interested in user reviews, but this post tells me there’s nothing to see here. The first statement above says you had a bias and agenda when you started the thread (“known issues”?) and the second says you have a penchant for hyperbole. I’ll shoot my own P365 and figure out for myself what it feeds.

I don’t have anything against cheap range ammo, but if my pistol feeds Speer Gold Dots reliably then I really won’t give a rat’s ass if it chokes on CCI Blazer. Just like I won’t put off-brand discount gasoline in my car and then mother**** its reliability if it knocks or sputters on that tank after running fine on everything else.