Hammerli 208s issue

Need some advice from the 208S guru's, mine is a great shooter, fairly low round count, about once or twice a match it will as the slide goes back in recoil and comes forward it will dent the 22 case in a long dent running up the round and of course not chamber it. gun is clean and well oiled also mags have been cleaned and oiled as well, has done this with several different brands of ammo too. any thoughts?

Replace the recoil spring.

Gus

well it has a new one in it from larrys that only has several hundred rounds on it, ive wondered if a lighter one would cure this but not sure you can buy lighter ones, don't think ive seen any on larrys site.

A couple quick things to check:

Check the magazine(s) for chatter wear - a sawtooth pattern in the follower crosspin slots.

With your hand in place, make sure the slide isn't dragging anywhere around the sight bridge.

You may also find something of use at this site:

Hammerli 208

I would shy away from a lighter recoil spring.  If the slide cycles too hard for an extended period, there's a chance it could break on the left side near the catch notch or at the front crosspiece.  Actually, while thinking of it, you might check for those cracks.  Although very rare, they would also give those symptoms.

I had a similar problem with a Benelli MP90.  The problem turned out to be weak magazine springs. Take the springs out and stretch them 3/4 of an inch or so and see if the problem goes away.

I may have found the problem, the mags I got with the gun appear to be older than the gun and had peening where the rear of the 22 rim came up in the back, after some reshaping and smoothing the lips up so the shell doesn't get caught on that rough edge I shot our 22 league, 70 shots without a hiccup so crossing my fingers, thanks to Ed Halls post with the link that helped and to the rest too!

DavidR wrote:I may have found the problem, the mags I got with the gun appear to be older than the gun and had peening where the rear of the 22 rim came up in the back, after some reshaping and smoothing the lips up so the shell doesn't get caught on that rough edge I shot our 22 league, 70 shots without a hiccup so crossing my fingers, thanks to Ed Halls post with the link that helped and to the rest too!

Ah, yes, the older 208/215 magazines were made from very soft steel?  I had experienced all three problem areas in all my original and replacement tubes:  the indentation of the case base on the inside rear of the lips, the chatter marks in the follower slots and the magazines sitting in the gun too high, which caused the spent case to eject off the left rear lip instead of the ejector.  The third item was readily corrected by working on the catch tab.  The other items were wear issues that annoyed me because I considered those magazines as inferior quality and Hammerli didn't care that they wore out fast.  Subsequently I modified three S&W 41 magazines that are still in use with no signs of wear since at least as far back as 2004.  The modification procedure is somewhere on this forum, if interested.

Now, I must point out that Larry Carter was actively involved in making replacement magazines (as well as other parts) in the US, of good quality material.  He had some issues with one of the manufacturers.  If those issues have been settled, he may very well have some good quality magazines available now.  The tubes were sold separately, for easy replacement and I never had any issues with anything but the tubes.  Also, as far as I know, magazines made prior to around 1995 seem to have been of a higher quality, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

larry does build a modified magazine, on request, he will build them and test them in his gun before shipping. Shooting a match this weekend will see how they do