Weird Question Regarding Hellcat Pro 9mm

[Art3]

Only once the string starts. The OP's trouble (whether it was his pistol or the shop beater, doesn't matter) happened before that. All bets are off until the shooter has loaded and made ready. That shooter, with that gun, in those circumstances, was not ready (three times!).

Agreed, and I would expect a good trainer to be attentive to his students' status.

 

[Occam]

I don't have a hellcat to play with, but I just can't imagine how this would happen. I've certainly never heard of anything like that. If it was a problem with the feed lips on the magazine, I would think it would do it all the time, even when firing.

The missus has a (mostly as a safe queen now) a S&W EZ (in .380) that gave us all sorts of strange feed, stovepipe, and live-round-bouncing issues. It was entirely due to weak springs in the provided mags. S&W sent us half a dozen new ones with some tiny bit more oomph in the springs, and all that stopped.

But what was noticeable was that different things would happen on a manual pull-back of the slide vs it travelling back under fire. Likely the inertia of the round in the mag didn't have time to react to the slide's reward movement under the impulse of firing, but the slower action of manually racking the slide gave more time for the loosey-goosey top round in the wimpily-springed mag to interact with the slide, and: strange things happened.

Not trying to make a real diagnosis of the OP's issue, but if that rental gun's mag spring is played after all that use (I don't think little carry guns are really meant for all that, meeself) even a small margin of springiness change could introduce some wacky behavior. I was very surprised at how finnicky those S&W EZ mags were, and how everything went right to perfect across the board with a slight change in the spring. Of note: that weird behavior only kicked in as the mag became emptier and the spring got sloppier. Prolly going to sell that .380 anyway, as the missus is a 9mm girl now, and starting to lust after her own 1911 just on principle. And those NEVER do anything strange.

 

[Mark75H]

Prolly going to sell that .380 anyway, as the missus is a 9mm girl now, and starting to lust after her own 1911 just on principle. And those NEVER do anything strange.

Do I see a 9mm 1911 in your future? LOL

 

[Art3]

Did you shoot it at all other than the qualification? If so, did it behave then?

 

[Art3]

The missus has a (mostly as a safe queen now) a S&W EZ (in .380) that gave us all sorts of strange feed, stovepipe, and live-round-bouncing issues. It was entirely due to weak springs in the provided mags. S&W sent us half a dozen new ones with some tiny bit more oomph in the springs, and all that stopped.

But what was noticeable was that different things would happen on a manual pull-back of the slide vs it travelling back under fire. Likely the inertia of the round in the mag didn't have time to react to the slide's reward movement under the impulse of firing, but the slower action of manually racking the slide gave more time for the loosey-goosey top round in the wimpily-springed mag to interact with the slide, and: strange things happened.

Not trying to make a real diagnosis of the OP's issue, but if that rental gun's mag spring is played after all that use (I don't think little carry guns are really meant for all that, meeself) even a small margin of springiness change could introduce some wacky behavior. I was very surprised at how finnicky those S&W EZ mags were, and how everything went right to perfect across the board with a slight change in the spring. Of note: that weird behavior only kicked in as the mag became emptier and the spring got sloppier. Prolly going to sell that .380 anyway, as the missus is a 9mm girl now, and starting to lust after her own 1911 just on principle. And those NEVER do anything strange.

I agree about "wacky behavior," but his description of "ejecting" has me thinking something else.

 

[Crosseye Dominant]

Following the laws of parsimony (Occam's razor) the odd behavior of the gun are likely due to the odd sequence your are using when chambering the first round. When you loaded the gun like it was supposed to be loaded, it functioned like it was designed to function.

 

[BradMacc82]

Sounds like a perfect storm of possibly worn out range gun, exacerbated by technique?

We have Hellcats and Hellcat PRO's in the demo fleet - and while admittedly the round counts are less than a gun ranges rental units, we've observed no unusual behaviors from them so far.

I'd be interested in the upkeep of the gun, as most 9mm's start getting funky behaviors developing between 3-5K rounds due to various springs beginning to fatigue.

 

[hogarth]

Okay. I just used a Springfield Hellcat Pro 9mm recently for the 1st time. I was qualifying at a range on this 1st-time shooting & expected the gun to handle like every other semi-auto pistol I ever used. I had the slide locked backwards & released the slidelock. I then fed a magazine in, racked the slide, & the 1st round went flying out the ejector port. I expected it to be chambered but newp, it went airborne instead.

I've always handled my semi-autos like this so my 1st shot is single action. All my pistols are SA/DA except for revolvers. I honestly wasn't sure if the Hellcat Pro is SA/DA. Is this normal? It happened again the 2nd qualification round. Once more on the 3rd round was enough for me. The range officer counted all 3 ejected rounds as misses which had me flustered. After that, I waited to insert the mag 1st before releasing the slidelock. This time it chambered a round & the gun was instantly in battery, but then all my SA/DA pistols do the same ~ the only difference being my 1st shot will be DA on my regular guns vs SA.

Is this how a Hellcat Pro is supposed to function? I'm guessing this is normal & is probably a silly question to most gun veterans, but this was a shockingly unexpected thing to me. I'm assuming the pistol is SA-only & this being my 1st time ever shooting an SA semi-auto, this is how it's always been. Am I wrong?

This whole thread makes my head hurt.

First of all, it's DA/SA, not SA/DA. The DA shot comes first, so you list it first.

Second, the Hellcat series is striker-fired, like a Glock, so none of the DA/SA stuff applies.

Third, you describe yourself as getting flustered and missing with one round during the qual. That and your SA/DA terminology suggests to me that you're not overly experienced with shooting or gun handling.

Which leads me to:........user error. It seems reasonable to me that you mixed up the order of operations, inserting the magazine, releasing the slide, and then racking the slide. Reversing the order is very common on the unloading of semi-autos, which is how and why so many people shoot themselves or others with "unloaded guns".

I wasn't aware that there were any time limits on the W&C qual. Although by now it seems obvious that every instructor in MD has their own "take" on what the qual should be.

 

[Occam]

inserting the magazine, releasing the slide, and then racking the slide

This is a distinct possibility. The adrenaline fog of shooting (or preparing to) in a timed/observed setting can make even the most experienced of us screw up stuff that we've done thousands of times. I know I have. And I did it a lot more often early in the scheme of things with pistols. Not while at the range learning and enjoying, but when first being on the line under a timer ... it's like some moronic monkey took over my brain at first. So it's very easy to let something like mag/slide release/rack happen if you don't have thousands of reps in place for more reliable under-pressure muscle memory.

 

[outrider58]

Could the problem be with the mag? Out of spec feed lips maybe?

 

[BradMacc82]

Could the problem be with the mag? Out of spec feed lips maybe?

Entirely possible. Whole slew of potential factors that could come into play.

I'm half-tempted to grab a few hellcats out of the rack and some snap caps, try to recreate the issue as I understood it.

 

[hogarth]

I think people need to go back and read how he operates the guns he already owns. It's clear he has no real idea how they function, if not at least the correct terminology. But, he passed the qual so now he can carry among us, as is his right.

 

[budman93]

I think people need to go back and read how he operates the guns he already owns. It's clear he has no real idea how they function, if not at least the correct terminology. But, he passed the qual so now he can carry among us, as is his right.

Yeah definitely seems like user error to me. The difference between a hammer fired and striker fired gun is pretty basic and wondering if a striker gun was da/sa is a clear indicator of not understanding them.

 

[outrider58]

I think people need to go back and read how he operates the guns he already owns. It's clear he has no real idea how they function, if not at least the correct terminology. But, he passed the qual so now he can carry among us, as is his right.

No problem with my reading. OP was basically inserting a loaded magazine into an unloaded, slide closed pistol. He drew back the slide to load(make ready) the weapon. Either upon releasing the slide to insert the first round or, while pulling the slide rearward, the first round ejected through the ejection port instead of being picked up by the slide and moved to the chamber. That screams bad magazine to me. That is, as long as he had the magazine properly inserted. YMMV

 

[44 Bulldog]

Sounds like you may have a defective firearm, I'll take it off your hands for $200.00

 

[hogarth]

No problem with my reading. OP was basically inserting a loaded magazine into an unloaded, slide closed pistol. He drew back the slide to load(make ready) the weapon. Either upon releasing the slide to insert the first round or, while pulling the slide rearward, the first round ejected through the ejection port instead of being picked up by the slide and moved to the chamber. That screams bad magazine to me. That is, as long as he had the magazine properly inserted. YMMV

I'm saying read his description of the guns he already owns.

"I've always handled my semi-autos like this so my 1st shot is single action"

.....later in same post...

"This time it chambered a round & the gun was instantly in battery, but then all my SA/DA pistols do the same ~ the only difference being my 1st shot will be DA on my regular guns vs SA".

Nothing in that engenders much trust from me that he knows what he's doing.

If the mag is really bad, why didn't the round go flying when he dropped the slide on the loaded mag versus him racking the slide?

 

[outrider58]

I'm saying read his description of the guns he already owns.

"I've always handled my semi-autos like this so my 1st shot is single action"

.....later in same post...

"This time it chambered a round & the gun was instantly in battery, but then all my SA/DA pistols do the same ~ the only difference being my 1st shot will be DA on my regular guns vs SA".

Nothing in that engenders much trust from me that he knows what he's doing.

If the mag is really bad, why didn't the round go flying when he dropped the slide on the loaded mag versus him racking the slide?

I did catch that as well.

I'll admit his writing isn't quite clear in some respects, but his description of the malfunctions seemed pretty clear. IDK

 

[DanseMacabre]

That's crazy talk. If you're using the range's hardware and it's malfunctioning, the instructor telling you to load and make ready should be entirely before any firing occurs. The malfunction should have been an occasion for mag out, slide back, gun down, live round off the floor, and the RO watching while the pistol was again made ready ... and THEN the counting starts. There's a lot wrong with everything you went through there.

Yep agreed. I was shocked at what waw happening. And all 3 rounds went over the table onto the range lane. I didn't dare try to sneak another round into the mag because I was at the end lane & the range instructor was standing right behind me. They were very adamant about limiting ourselves to 5 rounds in a mag. Had to take them as losses.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I knew how many misses I could get. I couldn't be sure if I passed until I was actually scored. My one & only real miss was at short range immediately after my 3rd malfunction after panic set in. I went from enjoying myself & having total confidence I'd have a perfect score to a nervous wreck within minutes. I was dreading having to pay again for the course & delay this process further, but luckily it all worked out.

 

[DanseMacabre]

I'm saying read his description of the guns he already owns.

"I've always handled my semi-autos like this so my 1st shot is single action"

.....later in same post...

"This time it chambered a round & the gun was instantly in battery, but then all my SA/DA pistols do the same ~ the only difference being my 1st shot will be DA on my regular guns vs SA".

Nothing in that engenders much trust from me that he knows what he's doing.

If the mag is really bad, why didn't the round go flying when he dropped the slide on the loaded mag versus him racking the slide?

I know what I'm doing. And it is exactly as I wrote. Every hammer-fired semi-auto I own is single action/double action. This was literally my 1st time shooting a striker-fired semi-auto that's SA-only. Trying to discover if the top-most round in the mag ejecting upon being racked is a malfunction or my misunderstanding of how SA semi-auto striker-fired pistols are supposed to work seems pretty legit, all things considered.

I've been shooting for 35+ years. I do confess I have been slow to jump on the wagon with tupperware polymer pistols. In fact for 2+ decades I refused to even consider the possibility. I prefer my pewpews be steel through & through, & have a bit of heft & weight to them. However, the need to conceal/carry is making these micro subcompacts appealing.

 

[DanseMacabre]

Did you shoot it at all other than the qualification? If so, did it behave then?

Newp that literally was my 1st time shooting one. I had decided the night earlier I wanted to buy one after handling one from the range's "For Sale" case. I was shocked at how small & slender the gun is & that they managed to get so much capacity out of it. I was also realising my 1980s-1990s era pistols are all probably a tad too big & bulky for CC.

However, I am going to rent one this weekend (probably the same one if I can find it), & try to figure out what was causing the malfunction. I also need to decide if I really want a Hellcat Pro or maybe I need to explore other micro subcompacts. I just have yet to even hear a single person hating on that gun so I'm 99% onboard with buying one.