Problems with LCP

[Shipman515]

Hey ya'll. Have had an unfired LCP for a while. Just took it to the range yesterday, field stripped and cleaned today.

Now I notice that the slide "sticks" when I rack it, seems to catch a bit loading that first round. Also, if I'm not mistaken these have a loaded chamber indicator, which does not seem to be showing when loaded.

Has anyone else had similar problems?

[Mosin44az]

There is no loaded chamber indicator on the LCP. There is a view port on the right side where you can look in and see there's a round in there, shiny brass.

Don't have my LCP with me right now, I do recall a "catch" when racking the slide to load the first round.

But it works fine. Did you have any actual malfunctions, loading or firing? If not, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Kreyzhorse]

That view port is the chamber loaded indicator. If a round is chambered, you can clearly see the brass casing. As far as catching, my slide catches as the first round is chambered.

Is your LCP actually chambering the first round?

[Merad]

Are you riding the slide at all? You definitely want to let the LCP slide "snap" forward with the full force of the recoil spring to ensure that it chambers smoothly and returns to battery.

Mine was a bit tight out of the box. You might want to spend an evening doing dry fire practice, racking the slide a couple hundred times will help loosen things up. Or just go shoot it more, same thing.

[AndyWest]

Shipman, I occasionally have the same problem when I manually insert a round into the chamber and hit the slide release without a mag in. I sometimes have to smack the back of the slide. Seems to happen more often with Tipton (red, clear, springy) snap caps. I keep her properly cleaned and oiled.

Tho I've never had that problem at the range when reloading and hitting the slide release. And haven't had any cycling/feeding problems otherwise.

[Edit] I love that viewport. No indicator beats actually seeing brass in the chamber.

[BRE346]

Shipman, IMO it's not a good idea to place a cartridge in the chamber by hand then snapping or pushing the slide closed over it. What happpens is the the retractor has to spring outward to get around and hook onto the base of the cartridge. Old hands tell me that's not really good for the extractor. They advise that we mount the cartridge in a mag, load the mag, and feed the cartridge by racking the slide so that the base of the cartridge will be pushed up behind the extractor as in normal operation.

Using a snap-cap is a good idea IMO, too. That saves damage to the firing pin.

Yeah, live and learn.