xesse malfunction

My optic Xesse developed an intermittent problem recently.

Chambers a round and hammer clicks with a slight mark on the rim from the firing pin. This round is unable to be extracted and requires it to be pried out of the chamber. Once extracted the nose is heavily damaged. (I run a brush though the chamber periodically)

I am able to reload the same mag, chamber a round and extract the round without issues. I also use the same mags in another Xesse without any issues.

Ideas? Assume the damage is from the feed ramp but not sure why it's intermittent, or why I have zero issues with all the mags in a different Xesse.

If the chamber is clean , I would think about cleaning the mag. If mag is clean I would think about recoil and Hammer spring change.

I had similar issue years ago. The mag lips were wearing unevenly. One side looked much thinner than the other. Walther was aware of the issue and replaced the affected mags.

I had an issue with feeding and it was ammo related. At first it only affected one of the X-Esse. Two other 22 Target guns were fine. But after running eight boxes through several guns they all had issues.
One would fire and not eject. Couple times the extractor did not slip off and slide was stuck in battery. Another I would have to close the breech manually, one the slide was crimping the bullets with bullet nose wedged into top of the chamber.
Sometimes issues did not go away right after switching ammo. But a good cleaning, chamber brushing, and not using this garbage fixed all the guns.

Check with redfeather outfitters to see if they have any of larry's mag springs in stock.. get them for all your mags. If they no longer have them get a 208/215 mag spring for it. These springs are stronger than stock. I have them in all my trailside mags. Next will be the recoil & mainspring..
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My guess is you have a dirty chamber.  Use a 25 cal brush bent at a 90 degree angle and really work it several times in the chamber ALL the way to the rifling.  MY experience comes from owning 4 of the Xesse pistols.

jglenn21 wrote:Check with redfeather outfitters to see if they have any of larry's mag springs in stock.. get them for all your mags. If they no longer have them get a 208/215 mag spring for it. These springs are stronger than stock. I have them in all my trailside mags.  Next will be the recoil & mainspring..
.

I ordered a 5 pack, I think they are the LGI. They are described as: 

Trailside Magazine Spring, 5 pack LGIXEMS

I have a Larry's Special that was running fantastic up until about a week ago. The Slide Hold Open stopped working and maybe I a having FTF / FTE and light hits. 

I replaced the hammer spring and the recoil spring, It was working better. No more light hits.  Occasionally a round would still fail to go into battery. Adding a 6th round, I use a snap cap, fixed that problem. 

I ordered an extractor and slide hold open , instead of changing them out myself I sent the whole shobang to Walther and told them to install them and inspect the ejector. As compared to my new SF with the removable ejector the cast ejector in the Larry;'s special does not look as wide. I cannot tell if it is to Spec so I am having them look at it and hopefully they can repair.

Not to give anyone the impression these guns are unreliable, I have at least 15K through the gun and I bought it from a master and he shot it for a season or two. I will say this as compared to SF, they really improved the pistol in a number of ways.

I recently tightened the reset and over travel on my Xesse and thought nothing of it as I was shooting CMP Eley and it ran fine maybe one alibi per 500 rounds. 

Switched over to Aguilla and noticed light hits after about 100 rounds after cleaning. Got fewer light hits with other ammo CCI, SK and RWS but still either light hits or FTF. 

Today I tried a different mag and test all my mags with Aguilla still the same even after a very good cleaning. 

I backed off the over travel just to see if that would feel better in rapid fire as I was dumping mags to test and I noticed fewer light hits. 

Backed it off some more and fewer still. Backed it off maybe a total of 1/2 turn altogether and dam RWS was Flawless and so was Agulla. 

And I was also hamming the x ring in Rapid fire. I do not know enough about the trigger design to know why it helped but it totally did. 

Maybe this will help.

sear dragging on the hammer.. sear need enough overtravel to clear the hammer.. pull you slide and take a look at the middle of the hammer just after the hooks. probably see where it was dragging. i like about .010 clearance on the trigger bar to sear arm for pre travel

Both my X-Esse ran flawless. Then I listened to the internet chatter on how great TAC-2/ ammo was.
One X-Esse still ran fine other the other mostly three point jammed with nose wedged into barrel at top. But rounds also were not going all way into the chamber.
A Belgium Challenger and a High Standard ran fine. At first.
Replaced the recoil spring on the X-Esse. Cleaned chamber every trip. But all the guns became screwed.
The HS would stick before round was fully seated. Sometimes it pulled off rim after firing, other times the extractor held and gun did not cycle after firing. Slide stuck.
Think only run one box through the Challenger and it would not run with CCI SV after.
Tried in a Hammerli rifle and finally lever action and it gummed up rifles.
Finally finished a brick. Still had three left.
Decided to take to gun show. Priced cheap, sold cheaper. Guy was a jerk, wish him well with that crap.
I have some Norma Swedish Mauser ammo. Top notch. But old.
Never will buy another round from them or RWS.
My guns still misdeed after multiple cleanings and so much chamber brushing I think 32’s will now fit. Cleaned black gummy gunk from all magazines.
One brick screwed up four pistol and two rifles. Sticking to CCI SV.

jglenn21 wrote:sear dragging on the hammer.. sear need enough overtravel to clear the hammer.. pull you slide and take a look at the middle of the hammer just after the hooks. probably see where it was dragging. i like about .010 clearance on the trigger bar to sear arm for pre travel

Thanks for the tip.

My over-travel is good. Trigger bar clearance is good along with a little extra room for pre-travel take-up. Took more than a few alibis at a recent match and dove in it again.

I did pull the firing pin and noticed a pretty good sized burr developing around the firing pin stop. My MG2 has a similar design and also found a burr on it. Some of the Malfunctions was a light firing pin hit, so just maybe. My other malfunction was failure to extract, had a good bit of residue built up around the extractor so hoping a cleaning fixes it.

It should , I recently had an issue with Aguilla which tends to be a little soft. I sprayed some break cleaner down the firing pin hole and flushed it out then sprayed some air. While I will take out the firing pin and examine , definitely the light hits were the result of trigger adjustment and a dirty hole, which is always cause for anxiety.

Just to provide an update, while cleaning the firing pin channel with break free and air helped a lot and got the gun to nearly 100%. Just to be sure removed and I took a look at the firing pin. That was an easy job much easier than expected. 

The firing pin was not broke but mushroomed a little at the tip. After at least 15K rounds I would expect to loose a firing pin on a 22lr. I replaced the pin with a new one and a new spring. Tested the pin on a spent case and it left a indent that was 100% more pronounced than the old pin. Gun ran 100% so all is good and thanks Mr. Glenn for the advice. 

One note if you plan to replace the firing pin I used a punch, an armorers block I made and removed it from left to right and it went easy. Installing the new pin was a little more difficult (not very). 

The slot that captures the pin needs to be aligned to the top of the slide. I started the pin in the slot on the left side and then captured the pin with the punch. of taps with a hammer sent the retaining pin home and the job was finished in about 10 minutes if not less. I would suggest using tape to protect the slide from an errant strike leaving an idiot mark.

Interesting, thanks for the followup. Did you happen to measure the firing pin length? Especially if dryfiring a lot, .22 FP's can "stretch" over time. This causes light strikes almost as readily as broken or worn pins.

-TT- wrote:Interesting, thanks for the followup. Did you happen to measure the firing pin length? Especially if dryfiring a lot, .22 FP's can "stretch" over time. This causes light strikes almost as readily as broken or worn pins.

No but I can I still have a spare un used.

rich.tullo wrote:

-TT- wrote:Interesting, thanks for the followup. Did you happen to measure the firing pin length? Especially if dryfiring a lot, .22 FP's can "stretch" over time. This causes light strikes almost as readily as broken or worn pins.

No but I can I still have a spare un used.

The pin was actually about 4 1000th shorter, not a lot but enough for sure

Definitely enough especially considering the mushrooming at the tip. Surprising though, the X-Esse FP is pretty beefy and only ever strikes brass.

-TT- wrote:Definitely enough especially considering the mushrooming at the tip. Surprising though, the X-Esse FP is pretty beefy and only ever strikes brass.

Between me and prior owner, that gun might have been dry fired 10,000 times or more. It was running 100% , until about 2 months ago and I think it just needed a tune up across the board. I replaced the hammer spring, firing pin, recoil spring,  trigger bar spring, and guide rod. 

I changed ammo, from Eley CMP to Aquilla so the problem might have been their a while owing to the difference in primers, CCI and SK were fine where as Aguilla and RWS seemed to be a little finicky.  Aguilla is 100% Now, I did not test RWS. 

It might be my imagination, but I think its grouping a little better too, may owing to better lock time.

rich.tullo wrote:It might be my imagination, but I think its grouping a little better too, may owing to better lock time.

Certainly possible. I've found that the bolt and breech faces pick up tiny shards of lead that peel off when chambering, which in turn leads to the bolt being held off the breech face ever so slightly. I have taken to keeping a plastic scraper in my box, which I use to skim off the surfaces, especially the pocket where the cartridge rim seats. I can tell the pistol needs it when the bolt cycle starts to feel a little "soft".