FTF with Federal 147 gr HST (P30L/Obsidian 45)
Since I intend to carry my P30L with the factory SD barrel I picked up recently, I took the whole setup out to the range with a mix of 147 grain American Eagle flat-points, an LE box of 147 grain HST (my carry load), and some 115 grain S&B along with my Rugged Obsidian 45 for testing.
While the majority of the test was uneventful, I had a couple of minor hiccups with the HSTs while running suppressed. As a general rule of thumb, I load range mags 5 rounds at a time so I can break focus and "decompress." Around the third round of an HST string, my slide locked open and the round failed to feed. The magazine, an HK factory mag with a Taylor Freelance +5 extension, dropped free when released, and as best I could tell the round simply stopped short against the feed ramp. Reseating the round, reloading the mag, and re-testing resulted in no issues. However, on the next string of HSTs, the same issue occurred with the same magazine, and again the mag dropped free and the round went along just fine once I reinserted and dropped the slide.
Further testing with the suppressor on and FMJs was uneventful, and the HSTs fed just fine without the suppressor.
My thinking is that there may have been a slight "tolerance stack" that resulted in the FTF today - the extended TF magazine, combined with the deeper/more vertical angle of the feed ramp on the P30L SD barrel compared to the standard factory barrel, may have caused the failure by outrunning the magazine due to increased slide velocity caused by suppressor backpressure. However, I'm curious to see if anyone else has had similar issues with other guns, especially in the VP9/P30 family and doubly so with any aftermarket magazine extensions. I'm also wondering if a different recoil spring may be necessary, but to my knowledge no such thing exists for the P30L (I know it does for the USP; USP SDs and Tacticals in 9mm have a slightly different RSA, but to my knowledge HK hasn't ever offered a factory P30L SD or P30L Tactical).
I'm not super concerned about ammo pickiness with the suppressor since the P30L isn't really something I intend to make my "primary" suppressor host and will shoot mostly unsuppressed, but I'm curious to figure out what's causing the issue and correct it if possible.
