Hit the Range today with the new 19# recoil spring and steel guide rod. Worked out well, helped my pin wiping issue a little. Still have slight pin wiping, going to try replacing the firing pin springs. I think they may be a little old and worn down a bit. Thinking about polishing the firing pin and pin chamber while I'm in there, would anyone suggest against this?
On to the range report, wish I had pictures to go with, but no camera and don't know how to properly do that on this site.
Decided to experiment today, bought 1 box each of Federal 180 grain FMJ [great deal at wal-mart] and Blazer Brass 155 grain FMJ [my usual practice round/house brand]. Had a couple of jams with the Federal rounds. Not sure if it was the round itself or the feed ramp needing some TLC/polish. The Blazer rounds ran just as smooth as ever. Went much better than my first trip, although I nearly halved the target distance. Last time at 30 yards, my spread was just retarded, about a good 20 inch spread. I blame myself and not the weapon seeing as I'm a new shooter and still very nervous and shaky.
This time, after putting about 50 rounds down range, hit the target [14inx20in] about 35 times at 20 yards. Most of the time I had a spread roughly 8-9 inches in diameter. Again, I blame myself and not the firearm. I really need to sight it in, but need to get a bit more steady before I do. It does seem to hit fairly low though, raising my rear sight helped a bit. I just need a little work, money, and time. Very glad for the new recoil spring, she locks up really tight, and the recoil has dropped significantly. I know it's not too much, but I did notice the steel guide rod added a bit of weight to the muzzle, which I really like. This firearm has always felt excellently balanced, but this just fine tuned it a little. A quick shout out to OldCoastie for the many informative posts about the G19 guide rod, fits fantastically and makes for a tighter smother action when racking the slide. Many thanks go out to you, good sir.
Now, my question is about the jams. With the Federals, it seemed to jam with the rear of the cartridge elevated more than the front. For now, I'll refer to it as nose down. Now when it was jamming nose down, the nose seemed to get caught on the edge of the feed ramp, with the primer getting pinned on the bottom of the slide. [breach face???] I've never seen this before, every jam I've ever seen during a "chambering phase", has been nose up, with the round being pinned vertically between the back of the ejector port and the top rear of the barrel. I don't know what may be causing the nose down style jam, whether it's the round itself not cycling right, or an issue with my feed ramp. It's fairly difficult to clear this type of jam and is very worrisome [sp?], PLEASE ADVISE, VERY CONCERNED.
