[AirForce2]

Well after a full rinsing under sink sprayer and inspection/cleaning including firing pin removal due to the hellish sand & wind day from the first post, I'll say that there was no over greasing from factory and the day I sent them off to ruger I shot the SR40c and SR40 w/20 rds each of my reloads and 50 rds each of winches white box and no misfires from either one, but the hits on the small rifle primered loads for sure hit lighter. My guess is some metal shavings likely still in the gun new from factory was the main cause preventing the firing pin from getting a good solid hit. There is little room for firing pin travel thru the breech no matter how clean. The firing pin goes thru just enough for a perfect hit and not more. Since I forgot to measure length of orig firing pins I had no way to measure spring poundage, don't know if the new ones are any longer but visually appear same length sticking thru when fired.

I had both guns back in 2 weeks and both had firing pin group and mag insert firing pin safety block replaced. One of the guns had a few more trigger part internals replaced. I asked ruger to check the safety systems on both as well. My curiosity got the best of me and I called the AZ plant and talked to a lead tech who happened to work on one of my guns (diff initials of tech who worked each gun). I asked him did the replaced parts vary from the initial ones ie...improved, longer firing pin, higher pound firing spring, or change in spec from initial parts. The answer was "no the parts are the same exact parts, just put new ones in ie...no better or improved. He said maybe one of the parts was off or something on orig pin or spring..

I appreciated the feedback from him and the turnaround was great. I mentioned to him that I'd seen scattered issues on this same misfire problem and he seemed honest versus the "politically directed answer or misleading info some give". With this new info I decided to replace the factory firing pin springs with the Galloway Precision SR spring just to have the added confidence. Maybe it was some "new gun shavings" or "weak springs" but 2 same design guns with same initial problem while brand new xdm had none with same ammo in my opinion mean it could be improved. Since this is the only semi auto I have owned where the firing pin can only strike thru the hole what looks like the perfect amount to get a good hit, I feel especially new or with minor shavings in the area of the firing pin (which all guns is possible), these new guns likely had some "new break in" shavings that reduced the already shallow or just enough pin travel causing less force. Doens't mean most will have no problems, but I trust new manf ammo to go bang more than reloads and if you have factory ammo that ever doesn't go bang it was likely not the bullets fault for light primer hits and new ammo misfire in pistols is rarely bullet manf, yet I've had a small # of issues w/my reloads tho rare, have never had rem, win, fed, cci manf ammo to blame yet.
I also caution new SR owners about this item after gun assembly-I asked the tech "when reassembling both rugers in this order -unload chamber, mag, dry fire, removed slidestop pin, clean gun including firing pin removal assy, reassemble slide components, push down ejector, slide onto frame, insert slide stop, with closed slide then insert full mag and attempt to chamber a round, the gun fails to chamber a round causing a feed jam req mag removal and clearing live round because the firing pin potrudes thru the breech face causing the jam. Once mag is inserted, trigger fired and rack the gun again the firing pin resets and gun works as expected. In short, best to ensure the firing pin is reset and working to ensure if you just put a full mag in and then later decide to chamber live round it's not going to jam due to firing pin sticking thru while chambering. This is another quirk that I have never seen before and feel can cause a liability to us. I have never had this happen on several types of pistols during assembly before and found I could repeat this without disassembling the gun. It's likely a result of some of the additional safety features ruger has added but this was hopefully not a planned affect. To see this without disassembling gun just do this exactly each step:
1)with slide closed, an empty chamber, remove loaded mag, safety off, rack open then close slide
2)pull trigger (this does not hurt the weapon or hardened steel parts & confirmed with ruger tech, I already knew this from thousands of dry fires over years)
3)insert mag with bullet/s in mag
4)cycle slide to load a live round, gun feed jams under firing pin

I repeated this at time of writing this reply to ensure steps work on my guns.
workaround is per ruger: removed mag fully cycle slide to reset firing pin then can insert mag and cycles as normal. I don't like it and I told the ruger tech so. To many safety features causing a liability in my opinion. I will update range results and primer hits with the new galloway springs on the small rifle primers when I can. I also made my mags insert and eject easier by cutting off one full coil from bottom of each mag spring and polished the mag catch without removing it thru top of frame w/slide removed (dremel & eraser w/grinding bit) and just like same mod to my XDM full mag changes & ejects much better on ruger with one thumb. By no means am I pushing springfield as better or perfect either. All companies in my opinion make & test their guns ineffectively and are prone to problem lines, trust me I've seen some of them. In competition such as USPSA they guns that have weak areas will show themselves usually during a match requiring mods or early repairs.

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