Beretta PX4 Storm - Underrated is an Understatement!

[MSparks909]

Thanks for the update and explanation! I wish there were a better way to judge the age and remaining life in a recoil spring so you could be sure to know when to replace it. It seems like one of the biggest maintenance guess works around.

I'm pleased to hear about the validation requirements for the Px4. :-)

Log your rounds fired. I keep track of all of mine on the Notepad app on my iPhone. Uploads it to the Cloud so I’ll never lose count even if I break my phone. Something to consider.

[arcfide]

Log your rounds fired. I keep track of all of mine on the Notepad app on my iPhone. Uploads it to the Cloud so I’ll never lose count even if I break my phone. Something to consider.

I agree that's a great thing to do, but it wouldn't help in this situation. I'm not saying that it's too hard to just say, "I'll replace every X rounds/cycles." I'm saying that you don't actually know what that's giving you for the effort. There appears to be know way to easily determine where the spring is in its life cycle in terms of pressures exerted on the other parts. For example, just because Beretta designs the Px4 to go 20,000 rounds without a parts breakage doesn't mean that it's a good idea to go that far before replacing any parts.

In the case of the locking block and the recoil springs, it's not at all clear how the life of the locking block is related to the life of the recoil spring. It seems like increasing recoil spring replacement interval size should have an effect on the long term life of the locking block, but it's not clear that this relationship is proportional. So, if we changed recoil springs every 5,000 rounds, would the locking block last 4 times longer than it would have if we had only replaced the recoil spring every 20,000 rounds?

Moreover, every spring is slightly different. You can imagine getting a slightly bad spring that wears out a little bit faster than another. Unless the spring is wildly out of specifications, there's no clear way to determine that you are increasing overall wear with that weaker spring.

It would be nice to be able to see the relationship between recoil spring replacement intervals and the long term lives of certain parts, but there doesn't seem to be a way to measure this except through statistics, which would be very expensive in this case.

I do know that the trigger spring tends to break on my Px4's somewhere in the 15,000 to 20,000 cycles range based on dry fire. This has happened consistently with all the springs I've used.

[DAB]

After 20,000 rounds, at say 20 cents each, you have spent $4,000 on ammo. Just buy a new pistol.

[Screwball]

Log your rounds fired. I keep track of all of mine on the Notepad app on my iPhone. Uploads it to the Cloud so I’ll never lose count even if I break my phone. Something to consider.

I use AmmoBase on my iPhone...

Keeps track of round counts (can also include failures), ammo prices, and how much/what ammo I have on hand. DropBox backed up.

When you shoot, can also write stuff about the shoot. Allowed me to document any issue that came up, like my Mossberg SRII that had the wrist crack within 9 months into owning it. Patterning details on shotguns. Testing of ammo for crimp jump on my 9mm converted S&W Airweight.

Used to keep a log in a notebook, but solvent did it in. Prefer the electronic and backed up version.

I am very interested in the locking block failure. Unreal that it kept going. Makes me feel comfortable with my PX4... even though I’m probably not getting that high with round counts.

[LangdonTactical]

I do know that the trigger spring tends to break on my Px4's somewhere in the 15,000 to 20,000 cycles range based on dry fire. This has happened consistently with all the springs I've used.

That is very interesting. I have yet to break a trigger spring in any of my PX4s. Do you have pictures of it when it broke? I would think that the double leg design would allow it to keep working when it was broken, but maybe not.

Also, how many of them have you broken at 15,000 to 20,000 cycles?

[arcfide]

That is very interesting. I have yet to break a trigger spring in any of my PX4s. Do you have pictures of it when it broke? I would think that the double leg design would allow it to keep working when it was broken, but maybe not.

Also, how many of them have you broken at 15,000 to 20,000 cycles?

I'm not putting my Px4's through nearly as heavy a dry firing regiment as I was, so I don't think I'll see another trigger spring failure for a while, but the next time I see it I'll try to take a photo of it. I'm afraid I don't currently have any photos of the last breakages.

I believe I've broken two or three. They lasted almost exactly one year from the time of replacement to the time that the next one broke. This happened both on the standard springs and the SD springs. I was a bit concerned that I was doing something wrong or that something was defective, but some reflection indicates that the most likely result is simply that I was wearing them out from dry fire. While I don't get a lot of live fire practice in, I estimated that during the time when I was seeing these breaks, I was doing between 15 - 75 double action dry fires per day with the pistols. I'd say most of the time it was more like 30 - 50 trigger pulls per day. This was a relatively regular habit of mine for a few years with the Px4, so it made sense that I got the trigger spring failures at almost the exact same time each year (I think within a few weeks of each other).

I haven't broken enough of them to clearly establish a very solid pattern, though a part of me wants to do lots of dry fire with the Px4 just to see if I can predict it down to a nice, precise interval.

The double leg feature of the spring does in fact keep the trigger lasting longer than it would otherwise. One of the legs would break, and the trigger return would feel weak and get a little creepy, maybe a bit squeaky, but still function. After a significantly less number of pulls, the other leg would also break, and the trigger would fail to reset. I think it was probably within another 200 or probably quite fewer pulls that both legs would break. I don't have the exact numbers I'm sorry to say. After this happened the first time, I was on the lookout for it the second time, and I caught the trigger breakage before the second leg failed completely.

If I recall correctly, the breaks were very similar to one another when they did break. I think the facture occurred in one of the coils of the spring, which resulted in one of the legs and part of the coiled spring essentially resting limply while the rest of the spring tried to work. If you shook the pistol you would hear the rattle of the broken off coil and leg.

I suspect that maybe one of the reasons that you may not have broken a spring yet is because your firing cycles look different than mine. Given the high rates of real rounds that you're putting down range, I would have to assume that you are shooting in single action significantly more than I am. For me, most of the cycles on my Px4 were dry fire with full trigger motion in double action, so that probably stressed the springs more than would lots of single action fire. It's also not clear to me what the effect of life fire vs. dry fire has on the springs. Given the high rates of dry fire that I was doing, and the low amounts of live fire, at best I was probably somewhere in the range of 75% double action and 25% single action.

[LangdonTactical]

I'm not putting my Px4's through nearly as heavy a dry firing regiment as I was, so I don't think I'll see another trigger spring failure for a while, but the next time I see it I'll try to take a photo of it. I'm afraid I don't currently have any photos of the last breakages.

I believe I've broken two or three. They lasted almost exactly one year from the time of replacement to the time that the next one broke. This happened both on the standard springs and the SD springs. I was a bit concerned that I was doing something wrong or that something was defective, but some reflection indicates that the most likely result is simply that I was wearing them out from dry fire. While I don't get a lot of live fire practice in, I estimated that during the time when I was seeing these breaks, I was doing between 15 - 75 double action dry fires per day with the pistols. I'd say most of the time it was more like 30 - 50 trigger pulls per day. This was a relatively regular habit of mine for a few years with the Px4, so it made sense that I got the trigger spring failures at almost the exact same time each year (I think within a few weeks of each other).

I haven't broken enough of them to clearly establish a very solid pattern, though a part of me wants to do lots of dry fire with the Px4 just to see if I can predict it down to a nice, precise interval.

The double leg feature of the spring does in fact keep the trigger lasting longer than it would otherwise. One of the legs would break, and the trigger return would feel weak and get a little creepy, maybe a bit squeaky, but still function. After a significantly less number of pulls, the other leg would also break, and the trigger would fail to reset. I think it was probably within another 200 or probably quite fewer pulls that both legs would break. I don't have the exact numbers I'm sorry to say. After this happened the first time, I was on the lookout for it the second time, and I caught the trigger breakage before the second leg failed completely.

If I recall correctly, the breaks were very similar to one another when they did break. I think the facture occurred in one of the coils of the spring, which resulted in one of the legs and part of the coiled spring essentially resting limply while the rest of the spring tried to work. If you shook the pistol you would hear the rattle of the broken off coil and leg.

I suspect that maybe one of the reasons that you may not have broken a spring yet is because your firing cycles look different than mine. Given the high rates of real rounds that you're putting down range, I would have to assume that you are shooting in single action significantly more than I am. For me, most of the cycles on my Px4 were dry fire with full trigger motion in double action, so that probably stressed the springs more than would lots of single action fire. It's also not clear to me what the effect of life fire vs. dry fire has on the springs. Given the high rates of dry fire that I was doing, and the low amounts of live fire, at best I was probably somewhere in the range of 75% double action and 25% single action.

Great information and I will keep an eye out. It is also good to know that the spring keeps working for a while after one leg breaks. That was exactly what I would thinking would happen and the reason I think it is a better design than most trigger return springs. I did replace mine at 20,000 rounds, but have not replaced it since.

I do shoot a ton of DA shots. I don't dry fire as much as I used to or as much as I should. But I always start every string of fire DA and many of my training exercises are DA only, decoking for each shot. But I likely do not shoot as much DA as you would in Dry Fire.

Again, thanks for the information.

[arcfide]

Great information and I will keep an eye out. It is also good to know that the spring keeps working for a while after one leg breaks. That was exactly what I would thinking would happen and the reason I think it is a better design than most trigger return springs. I did replace mine at 20,000 rounds, but have not replaced it since.

I do shoot a ton of DA shots. I don't dry fire as much as I used to or as much as I should. But I always start every string of fire DA and many of my training exercises are DA only, decoking for each shot. But I likely do not shoot as much DA as you would in Dry Fire.

Again, thanks for the information.

I feel that I should also provide a disclaimer here. While I believe that I was able to get more trigger pulls after the break, due to the double leg design of the trigger spring, I only feel like I'm pointing out the obvious in saying that actual experiences for others may be, and even, are likely to be, different. The design seems to allow for some additional functionality, based on my very limited experiences, but I could just as easily imagine the spring breaking in some way didn't get this benefit. I only say this to state the obvious, in case someone just assumes that relying on being able to run on a single leg of a spring will be good enough. My personal recommendation based on my experiences would be to replace the return spring after 20,000 rounds, as you did.

[LangdonTactical]

So today I shot another 525 rounds, 6 different types of ammo and that pushed me over 47k. I am now sitting at 47,035 rounds through the full-size gun. So almost exactly 3000 rounds to go, which should be about 6 trips to the range at this rate, maybe 5 if I push it a little longer in each session.

10 total stoppages now. Only one breakage, which did not shut the gun down, but did likely cause two of the stoppages. Two fail to feed early on that I believe were shooter induced. One slide stop early, shooter induced. One fail to feed, likely with the broken locking block. and 6 failures to eject, two with a .40 caliber extractor and one with a broken locking block.

So far I am really happy with the results and I don't see any reason we should not just sail through to 50K.

[Bigghoss]

I'm saving up to get a Compact Carry mod 5 but I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for the right deal on a 9mm fullsize in the meantime.