Hard primers in Brown Bear 115 gr 9mm and my Sig 226.

[pangloss]

A significant portion of the ammo I shoot is Brown Bear 115 gr 9mm. Last fall I bought some and experienced some light primer strikes with two different pistols. I want to say maybe 3 rounds out of 500 gave me problems. Last week I ordered another 2K rounds of Brown Bear, and over the weekend I shot up about 250 rounds of it. It seemed to work fine in my G19. In my CZ-75 about 1 in 15 rounds wouldn't ignite on the first primer strike. In the Sig 226, approximately one in three rounds required multiple hits in order to ignite. I stopped counting failures, so it could have been closer to half. The failure rate was ridiculously high.

While kind of annoying, it isn't a big problem because I can shoot other ammo in the Sig, but it does make me a little suspicious of the pistol. I bought the pistol used via Gunbroker, and as far as I know it contains all original parts. Has anyone else ever experienced a hard primer problem of this magnitude with a Sig? Are 226s known for being primer sensitive? I'm new to Sigs, so if anyone has any wisdom to share, I'd appreciate it. Now that I think of it, I've only shot Brown Bear through this 226. Hopefully I can get away from work tomorrow in time to shoot some brass-cased Speer ammo through it.

EDIT: I apologize if I started this thread in the wrong sub-forum. Upon reflection, maybe it should have gone in "Semi-Auto Pistols."

[L-2]

I've had more failures to fire, at least on the first strike, with Brown Bear ammo. These light strikes or hard primer issues have been with various brands of handgun.
I've also had light strikes with a SIG P225, which was cured with a new mainspring (aka hammer spring). There will be an increase in trigger pull when/if going to a heavier spring in a SIG with its double-action pull.

Keep a supply of an alternate brand of ammo on hand to ensure firearm reliability.
Should you want to tune your SIG to fire Brown Bear more positively, try replacing the mainspring with at least the stock weight. The stock weight of a SIG P226 will be different depending on the P226's version of mainspring base. I believe it's 24 pounds, unless there's a plastic mainspring base in which case it'll be 21 pounds.

[jwperry]

Sounds like someone put a lighter hammer spring in it to bring the trigger pull weight down.

[Mack]

I have had a similar experience although not exactly the same; I used to shoot a lot of steel case before I got back into reloading. I had ordered two cases of Brown Bear (separate lots) and experienced a failure to fire rate that was over 10 percent. I am unsure if the issue was solely primer hardness or seating depth or perhaps a combination of both. I had failures to ignite across every platform I tried it in which included a West German 228 that was well worn. I experienced the most issues with a 34 followed by a 320, and then the 228 but failures were significant enough to be useless for practice in all of them. The manufacturer/importer did me a solid and replaced the BB with Silver Bear, I did not have any ignition issues with the Silver Bear. As a reference since I got back into reloading a little less than year ago I have loaded about 20K rounds and have had zero malfunctions in any of the guns that had constant issues with steel case.

I used to shoot thousands of rounds of Wolf 9mm and never had an issue until a couple of years ago, I started to have frequent ignition issues across all my handguns with Wolf and Brown Bear. My issues with steel case actually work out for the best as it was the impetus for me to get back into reloading.

[Nephrology]

I have had similar experiences with Brown Bear 115gr 9mm in my Glocks. I don't think it's your gun. That said, your failure rate is unusually high - I would estimate mine to be approx 5%, give or take, and I use striker pistols. Might be worth changing out the hammer spring.

I didn't use to have these issues with Brown Bear - have shot many many many cases of it in the past with no issues. I've started buying Silver Bear as it's not much more expensive and quality is much improved over Brown Bear. Have had good luck with Wolf, too - some hard primers but a lower rate than Brown Bear. Tula has always been crappy and given me hard primer problems so I don't buy it as a general rule.

[LSP552]

SIGs are not primer sensitive in general. It's possible the hammer spring has been changed to a lighter weight that puts it enough low for that ammo to be a problem. I'd consider ordering a Wolf 19 lb spring and the factory spring. They are cheap and will eliminate any problem a top light hammer spring can cause. As a general rule, 226s run fine with a 19 lb spring, and that's currently what I carry in mine. I change them regularly, just because.

[JBP55]

Garbage In = Garbage Out.

[BN]

I've had more problems with light strikes with striker guns. Hammer fired guns usually work better.

A few years ago there was a bad batch of Wolf primers out there. They were very hard to set off. I still have some and use them to test guns for light strikes. O know if a pistol sets off these it will shoot anything.

I would guess your SIG needs some work.

[pangloss]

Thanks for all the info. This has been a big help. Midway says that the factory weight for the hammer spring is 21lbs, so I'll order a 21 and 19 and test them both. I did make it to the range this afternoon and shot 50 rounds Speer Lawman 124 gr through the 226. Every round fired on the first strike. Then I shot 100 rounds of Brown Bear through my Glock 19 and every round fired on the first strike (no malfunctions, no BTF). If I were just shooting Glocks, I don't think the level of problems from hard primers would even be worth mentioning. I know Brown Bear isn't the best ammo, but I bought this for $150 per thousand (plus shipping). For that price, I'm happy to use it in just Glocks from now on.

[taadski]

The factory standard mainspring weight for a newer style plastic mainspring seat is 21 lbs. For a conventional metal based (older style) mainspring seat, 24 lbs is the factory standard.