Pardini HP 32ACP FTF problems

I cleaned the gun scrupulously after practise and sighting in on Saturday (OK - I did not clean the magazines, but they did not look dirty and the gun has only fired less than 1,000 rounds total from new). I was having no problems all week and had shot a Personal Best in practise with it on Thursday.

In matches I typically use Fiocchi factory 60JHP (bumped to recommended 0.940") for the long line and my best reloads (James Hensler recipe, Starline, 1.8 N310, Hornady 60JHP, 0.895") for short line.

During slow fire match today I had two FTF with the Fiocchi ammo - I marked the offending magazine and it was the culprit both times - the second round failed to feed both times - the shell tipped up too much and the nose jammed into the top of the barrel as the slide slid forward. I mentioned my problem to the Match Director and elected to use just one "good" magazine for the sustained fire rounds.

Same problem occurred twice with the "good" magazine, this time with my reloads, once on the second round, then on the fourth round. Destroyed my CF score and my Aggregate - I had just done a PB 875 with the 22 - ANGRY does not come close!!!

I will call Pardini tomorrow first thing and order two new magazines and two more 22 springs (as recommended by others and already fitted to my current magazines). I will, of course, now clean the gun and the magazines again carefully, but I doubt that cleanliness is the problem.

Any advice or suggestions?

Hmmm sorry you are having an issue. Thank god I haven’t had any problems. I have not changed the springs with my mags BTW

Not been able to get any response from Pardini, but Champions Choice had them in stock and 2 are on the way. I will try them with the standard springs first. Fingers crossed.

See this thread from TargetTalk - specifically the post from trooperjake -  about adjusting the lips to 9/32".  My feeding problems went away after the adjustment. http://www.targettalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=47934

The interim conclusion and moral to this thread is "don't always believe everything you read on the Internet". Prior to buying the Pardini's a couple of months ago I read all of the threads I could and took on board the need to swap out magazine springs. Ordered springs at same time as the gun.

I eventually got through to Pardini and Alex Chichkov called me back shortly thereafter. It seems that most of the Forum chat here and, more extensively, on TargetTalk regarding the need to swap out the 32ACP magazine springs to 22 springs largely applies to the magazines which were supplied a few years ago when 32ACP conversion kits first became available from Pardini. 

Alex believes that current production 32ACP magazines are just fine with the springs as supplied. Changing them can lead to problems. He advised me to test fire my gun with magazines with the OEM springs and chronograph the process so that he can further evaluate my ammo.

I did that this afternoon. During disassembly of the magazines I cleaned them scrupulously (although, to be honest, they were not very dirty, just a light greasy film of soot). Then ran a bore snake through the gun. During velocity testing I did not experience any malfunctions. Both magazines now fine, brass being ejected normally straight into the catcher. Shots from Magazine 1 appear to produce very slightly lower velocity than Magazine 2 - but a very small sample and so I'm sure not statistically significant. The bumped Fiocchi factory ammo averaged 1,093fps (using my Caldwell chrono at about 10 feet). My reloads using the James Hensler recipe averaged 1,085fps. Although I must say that the reloads do "feel" slightly softer than the Fiocchi.

I then shot a practise 900 (using 50ft targets). First target of SF using the Fiocchi, all the rest using the reloads. I was not at my sharpest, but got a reasonable result (863). I did have one "failure to eject" from Magazine 1 during the first string of RF (hence the total score is invalid cause I didn't shoot an Alibi string - never mind - just practise). But all of the flyers were down to me - I cannot truthfully say that I called every shot, but I didn't see any glaring misses either.

So, problems not totally eradicated, but a heck of an improvement over yesterday! I will do further testing as this week progresses.

I rushed to order two new magazines first thing this morning from Champions Choice (generally very fast to ship if things are in stock) and also ordered some PMC 60gr from a bulk ammo supplier, just in case. I have another 2700 match on Labor Day and don't want to face more problems.