PPQ failure to fire

[JodyH]

My wife was shooting a match this weekend with her 9mm PPQ (approx. 750 rounds through it previously with no malfunctions) and on the last stage she had failure to fire.
Near the end of a magazine the trigger felt and sounded like normal but the striker did not touch the primer.
She assumed the slide had not locked back on an empty mag, so she reloaded and finished the stage.
We retrieved the partial mag and the ejected round which had zero indication of the striker making any contact.
At the house I checked the striker channel for debris and found nothing, and everything appears to be correct.
I then did the "pencil test" with wildly varying results. One time it'll dang near stick the pencil into the ceiling, the next the pencil will barely hop in the barrel.
Something is causing the striker to have very erratic impact force.
Any ideas? My best guess is the firing pin block might be sticking or not depressed consistently.

[gtmtnbiker98]

My wife was shooting a match this weekend with her 9mm PPQ (approx. 750 rounds through it previously with no malfunctions) and on the last stage she had failure to fire.
Near the end of a magazine the trigger felt and sounded like normal but the striker did not touch the primer.
She assumed the slide had not locked back on an empty mag, so she reloaded and finished the stage.
We retrieved the partial mag and the ejected round which had zero indication of the striker making any contact.
At the house I checked striker channel for debris and found nothing, and everything appears to be correct.
I then did the "pencil test" with wildly varying results. One time it'll dang near stick the pencil into the ceiling, the next the pencil will barely hop in the barrel.
Something is causing the striker to have very erratic impact force.
Any ideas? My best guess is the firing pin block might be sticking or not depressed consistently.looking up through the mag well, check to see if the trigger bar is properly engaging the firing pin block. This has been an area of potential concern.

[JBP55]

I saw a firing pin spring in a new PPQ M2 that appeared too long as it was twisted on the firing pin similar to an S indicating binding when compressed.
It had an erratic trigger pull. I replaced the spring with an OEM Glock spring which was slightly shorter and and it is now more consistent.
It has been fired very little and has not misfired. I have not carried it (no holster) and will post if anything changes.

[JBP55]

Someone posted where Walther replaced the firing pin on their PPQ because of light strikes.

[roadsiderob]

My PPQ had a round fail to go off at the last Carry Match. The round also had a light primer strike. So far it was a singular event. I detail stripped the gun and gave it a good cleaning as it has over 3000 rounds through it with only a couple of half kitten cleanings. Got a lot of fine brass shavings out of the safety plunger, extractor & FP channel. I have also been having problems with this lot of ammo doing this in my Glocks as the ammo isn't always concentric and has prevented slide closure. The PPQ has a looser chamber and hadn't exhibited any issues, so I have been shooting this particular ammo in this gun. I'll be interested to see what you find & may re-examine my own gun depending on your conclusions.

[JonInWA]

My PPQ had a round fail to go off at the last Carry Match. The round also had a light primer strike. So far it was a singular event. I detail stripped the gun and gave it a good cleaning as it has over 3000 rounds through it with only a couple of half kitten cleanings. Got a lot of fine brass shavings out of the safety plunger, extractor & FP channel. I have also been having problems with this lot of ammo doing this in my Glocks as the ammo isn't always concentric and has prevented slide closure. The PPQ has a looser chamber and hadn't exhibited any issues, so I have been shooting this particular ammo in this gun. I'll be interested to see what you find & may re-examine my own gun depending on your conclusions.

Care to pass on to us what the ammunition was?

Best, Jon

[Red Leader]

This also happened to me. Here is what I think happened.

After several hours of thinking about the possible cause, I had no doubt that the firing pin was blocked from hitting the back of the cartridge. The trigger pull was normal, I heard a loud, audible 'click', but the primer was untouched. It was the striker safety block/plunger keeping the striker from making contact with the primer.

The next question was how/why was the striker safety failing to be disengaged? The PPQ (my version is an M2, but they are probably identical) has a fairly sensitive actuation of the striker safety, which means if the firearm is even remotely out of battery, the striker will be blocked.

Now, take a look at your extractor, underneath the claw. To my eyes, it looks very different than a standard extractor - underneath the claw, the part that engages the outermost surface of the rim has a very pronounced and dramatic 'hump', almost making it look like the extractor claw is half supported and half not. When a round is chambered, and the cartridge rim engages this hump, it moves the extractor outward and abruptly changes the chamber indicator to 'RED'. It is not a smooth or gradual transition. It is my believe that this sudden, abrupt change in pressure needed to get the cartridge moved up all the way in position to allow the slide to fully and completely close is what is responsible for creating an out-of-battery condition, which would fail to engage (cancel) the striker safety, and hence keep the pistol from shooting.

The way to tell if this is a likely cause for you is to take your pistol and load in either a spent cartridge casing or a dummy round and slowly let it into battery. How does it feel? If it is a very smooth transition and you have no resistance as the pistol comes all the way into battery, then I'd reckon this is not your issue. However, if it easily hangs up once it gets to that extractor ledge, or has any notchy-ness upon returning to battery, that is probably playing into it. Trust me, it doesn't knock the slide out much - maybe 1/8" - definitely not enough to notice in the moment, starting at the back of the slide in firing position. But it is enough to fail to disengage the striker safety. I'm guessing that some folks' light strikes may be due to this same condition, but the timing of it means that the striker is perhaps slowed down by a barely engaged striker safety. When you pull the trigger, the resistance is gone and the slide moves into the normal position, indicating that it was never out of battery.

For whatever reason, the PPQ for me is super notchy and un-smooth when chambering a round and you can easily feel it by hand. It is worse that some 1911s I've handled. This may or may not change as the firearm gets broken in more, but to see them purposefully design the extractor to suddenly apply a completely different and higher level of pressure on the the cartridge riding up as it is getting chambered somewhat baffles me. It is definitely fighting the cartridge trying to chamber.

I'd be curious to see if your PPQ behaves similarly to mine.

If it continues to be an issue, I'm wondering if (extremely carefully) stoning down that extractor transition may facilitate a smoother and more positive chambering, leading to less out-of-battery issues and hence less failures to fire.

Then again, I'm not even sure how to remove the extractor from the PPQ (seems like the pin is held in place by some sort of wedge type tension). Anyone?

[JodyH]

To remove the extractor you first remove the rear slide plate and striker assembly.
Now just next to the striker safety plunger is a small round hole, push a small (1/16") punch into the hole and press down firmly.
While holding the pin down, wiggle the extractor until it comes out
This is a spring loaded pin that will let you remove the safety plunger and the extractor.
To reinstall you need to once again hold down the spring loaded pin, just insert the extractor enough to hold down the pin then insert the safety plunger.
While holding the safety plunger in slightly go ahead and press the extractor in until the spring loaded pin captures it.
Sounds complicated but it's pretty self explanatory once you start looking at it.

[roadsiderob]

Care to pass on to us what the ammunition was?

Best, Jon

The ammo I'm having issue with is Freedom Munitions. This lot has some (but not all) rounds that aren't concentric. I doubt I could photograph it, but you can feel it. You can drop the offending rounds into my Glock chamber and as you rotate the round in the chamber, there are some positions where it will drop in and some where it will sit proud and prevent slide closure. The chamber on the PPQ is a few thousandths bigger and hadn't exhibited any issues, so I was using this ammo up by shooting it in the PPQ.

[Red Leader]

To remove the extractor you first remove the rear slide plate and striker assembly.
Now just next to the striker safety plunger is a small round hole, push a small (1/16") punch into the hole and press down firmly.
While holding the pin down, wiggle the extractor until it comes out
This is a spring loaded pin that will let you remove the safety plunger and the extractor.
To reinstall you need to once again hold down the spring loaded pin, just insert the extractor enough to hold down the pin then insert the safety plunger.
While holding the safety plunger in slightly go ahead and press the extractor in until the spring loaded pin captures it.
Sounds complicated but it's pretty self explanatory once you start looking at it.

Cool, I follow. Thanks!

[DavidS]

Hi,

Was wondering if you ever resolved this or found a problem ?

Thanks,
Dave

[JodyH]

No resolution.
I fully stripped and cleaned the slide.
It still doesn't consistently launch a pencil, but the wife's shot a couple more matches with the PPQ and it's had no malfunctions.
The PPQ is primarily her match pistol (she carries a M&P Shield) so I'm not going to spend a ton of time diagnosing unless it becomes a problem child.

[DavidS]

OK, thanks. Hope it doesn't happen again. My PPQ (w/ paddle) has been 100% flawless, although I don't shoot competitively (yet).

Regards,
Dave

[BJXDS]

My wife was shooting a match this weekend with her 9mm PPQ (approx. 750 rounds through it previously with no malfunctions) and on the last stage she had failure to fire.
Near the end of a magazine the trigger felt and sounded like normal but the striker did not touch the primer.
She assumed the slide had not locked back on an empty mag, so she reloaded and finished the stage.
We retrieved the partial mag and the ejected round which had zero indication of the striker making any contact.
At the house I checked the striker channel for debris and found nothing, and everything appears to be correct.
I then did the "pencil test" with wildly varying results. One time it'll dang near stick the pencil into the ceiling, the next the pencil will barely hop in the barrel.
Something is causing the striker to have very erratic impact force.
Any ideas? My best guess is the firing pin block might be sticking or not depressed consistently.

Old post I know but I had a similar thing happen. 2500 rounds with no issues, then it happened twice. I have only shat 100 rounds sine but no problems. Also the pencil test forme has always been just a few inches on multiple SF guns Never had one leave the barrel??

Did you ever have it happen again or care to look at it any more?

[JodyH]

Hasn't done it again and the wife has probably shot 1000 rounds since the FTF with no issues.
I've chalked it up to "shit happens".

[BJXDS]

Hasn't done it again and the wife has probably shot 1000 rounds since the FTF with no issues.
I've chalked it up to "shit happens".

DAMMMM I butchered my last post.
I was running some drills and after the fail to fire I did a tap-rack-bang so I didn't notice if it was out of battery. One time was first shot and the other was during a string. The only thing I can say for sure was both rounds on the ground were No primer strikes. What I found interesting when I got home was, even when I put the pistol out of battery empty chamber and pulled the trigger it appeared it fired. When I pulled the trigger it clicked and the slide moved forward. The next time I go to the range I will try it with a live round and see what happens.

I will see what happens, and update. Thanks

[ReverendMeat]

That sounds like the issues I had with my PPQ. Couple failures to go into battery, pulling the trigger yielded a click and moved the slide forward. First time I thought it was a failure to fire. Been a couple thousand rounds since the last one, I'm chalking it up to "break in". That or the gun works better dirty and dry.