Beretta 92 A1 misfire

[leveled]

I got the 92A1 this last Friday,this is my first pistol purchase and have a lot to learn. I love the fact that I can easily take it all apart and put it back together without much experience. Also I have a big hand and this gun fits it well and the SA/DA and controls are very intuitive. Any way, before the first fire I did a field strip and with rem oil took off the factory grease from all parts and put it all back together. I am under the assumption that the excess grease put on at the factory is more for long term sitting in a box storage and should be removed. I was surprised that from a box of 100 count ammo I had about six cartridges that either would not fully eject or load into the chamber. Most likely I am guilty as I purchased the cheapest Winchester Ammo I could find at Walmart. It was the bulk pack 100 piece 115 Grain FMJ target loads that all come jumbled in a box. Next time I plan to use some Lawman or Federal and see what happens. I did run just a few of the more expensive Federal hollow points through and had no issues with them. Just wondering if Rem oil is good enough for lubricating parts or if I should switch to a different product? I plan on fully cleaning and lubricating the gun after each use being care full to wipe any excess oil off with cotton patches. Target shooting is the main reason I made this purchase.

[superfleet]

Take out the barrel, use some Hoppes no9, and a toothbrush and scrub the bejeesus out of the chamber. Maybe some factory preservative still in it making it sticky?

By the way I love rem-oil. But everybody has an idea of what is best. Wanna see something funny? Start a thread asking what oil is best, and watch the flames fly. I use Break Free too.

[Marquezj16]

First welcome to the forum and congrats on your new pistol.

You had what is called failure to eject and failure to feed. Winchester ammo can have it's problems. Did you happen to look at the ones that did not feed? I've had a couple that the cases were mangled. Give it another cleaning and shoot some of the ammo you mentioned. Looks like you already have a good plan. Safe shooting.

[leveled]

"New Baretta 92A1 Jamming Issues" by goingape

[leveled]

Been reading some of the other posts on this fourm and and see that I'm not alone in my experience. A person hears so many reviews of never a misfire and then it's a bit of a shock to have a different experience. With anything there is a learning curve and I am patient so next week I will give this another try and let everyone know how it goes. My recomendations to other shooters of this pistol before first fire.

Clean it throughrly. I was surprised how much black grease I got out of the barrell and other parts of the gun. I'm still finding the parts are very tight. For instance, I was watching the offical Beretta video on You tube. With this model the field strip lever is in the down position and when attaching the assembled slide and barrell it should automatically return to the lock position when pulling back and releasing the slide. Mine does sometimes but other times it only goes half way and I have to manually flip it up the rest of the way. Its getting better as I try it over and over again so this issue should go away on its own.

I was also experimenting with grip and was able to get some nice groupings with this pistol but with any thing new I was changing things up a bit.

For me, keeping both hands on the pistol with both thumbs forward works best concentrating on the right hand to fit under the beavertail is what I will stick with in future target practice.

This gun is nice in that it comes with three magazines. One poster suggested filling the magazines and leaving them over night to break in the spring. I only took two magazines with me and noticed the first time loading these it was very difficult. I was only able to get 14 rounds in the first time and was wondering if there was a plug in them to prevent more rounds. Once the magazine was emptied and filled a few times it took 17 rounds no problem. These are very easy to take apart and I suggest giving them a cleaning before first use and when field stripping and cleaning the gun after firing.

One person commented that the Winchester white box ammo while being very reliable in the past is showing inconsistencies. Have a feeling that is one of the main issues I had. The Beretta manual also points to this as the main reason of failure to eject or load a round. I purchased 200 rounds and only shot half so it will be a good test to see if it was the ammo, bad grip, magazines or still a bit gunky from the factory grease.

[Coltman 77]

With all respect OP, I'd suggest you take a basic handgun course. The NRA offers them all the time as do many local gunshops.

BTW, you should join the NRA if you haven't already. Good luck.

[LockedBreech]

I love Beretta, and believe they're very high quality pistols, but in my experience Beretta designs need to be on the wetter side of lubricated to run well. Good grip and stance + good lubrication should fix the problems.

I clean my PX4 with Breakfree CLP, then soak it in CLP for 2 hours, then wipe off excess and put Hoppes Elite oil on the rails and locking log. I've never had a failure with that approach. A friend who got a Cougar (the older version of the PX4 design, essentially), was having lots of failure to feed issues until I used the same lubrication techniques on his pistol. Flawless since then.

[Marquezj16]

in my experience Beretta designs need to be on the wetter side of lubricated to run well

My experience with the Beretta 92FS/M9 is not the same. Clean well and lubricate lightly. Follow your manual.

A 92 series is not the same as the PX4/Cougar.

[LockedBreech]

Originally Posted by Marquezj16

My experience with the Beretta 92FS/M9 is not the same. Clean well and lubricate lightly. Follow your manual.

A 92 series is not the same as the PX4/Cougar.

My experiences were also based on my dad's old 96 and my friend's 92FS. I have extensive experience with a large number Beretta products and fully understand the differences in the operation, aesthetics, and materials of the PX4, Cougar, and 92. YMMV on maintenance, but my info wasn't provided in ignorance of the gun I was commenting on.

[Marquezj16]

Thanks for clearing that up.

[LockedBreech]

Originally Posted by Marquezj16

Thanks for clearing that up.

No sweat. For what it's worth, a different friend, also with a 92FS, strongly disagrees with my wet-lubing and and follows your approach with his 92 - with good results. Always interesting how two identical-looking guns can develop different preferences for ammo, lube, etc.

Do follow the majority suggestion to try new ammo, OP. If I wanted to totally rule out bad quality ammo as an issue, I'd use Federal American Eagle.

[labhound]

I have a 92FS, a PX4 9mm and two Stoeger Cougar's (8000F 9mm and 8045). I clean and lube them all the same, clean with CLP and lube lightly with RemOil. Never had an ammo related problem with any of them regardless of the brand of ammo used (Winchester White box, Federal Champion, American Eagle, Sellier and Bellot FMJ and JHP, PMC, Fiocchi FMJ and JHP, Magtech, Speer Lawman, Speer Gold Dot). The wife will at times "limp wrist" the 92FS when she shoots it causing it to jam. Readjusting her grip cures that problem.

[hey.moe]

I've owned a 92A1 for two years. I have about 6700 rounds total through the gun, of which 6000 were Blazer Brass. I've had no failures at all and have found it to be pretty tolerant of a couple of cleaning & lube regimens that I've tried. I've changed the recoil spring once (@ about 5500 rounds) and otherwise, just shot the gun (bullseye and IDPA) and kept it clean. As far as lube, I grease the rails and a couple of other metal to metal contact points that experience high stress.

Most of the military guys (and all the special ops guys) I hear from have nothing good to say about Beretta, but under the relatively light use I give it, it's been my most reliable handgun - go figure! I'd still prefer to trust my life to one of my SIGs, but my Beretta has been good to me.

-Stan-

[leveled]

I finally got back out to the range, before I did I visited Walmart and purchased a can of CLP and the 250 round box of UMC Bulk ammo. I took my gun apart and gave the barrel, slide and spring a good dose of the CLP. This is great stuff and right away I knew it was what was missing from my pistol. The CLP sprays out as a foam and is much thicker than the REM oil. It leaves everything looking much wetter.

The CLP comes in the same size aerosol can and is under five bucks - well worth the money. I let everything soak for about half an hour and then wiped off everything I could. Out on the range I went through a hundred rounds of the white box Winchester Ammo without any problem and then continued with 50 rounds of the UMC. The gun works great now.

A couple next to me was firing their brand new Taurus copy of the Beretta 92 FS. I watched as the woman had a failure to load in one magazine and then two more failures to load in the next magazine.

I told her I've been there done that and gave what advice I could.

I will still use the REM oil as it seems it has better solvent properties to get rid of the black residue that builds up on parts. It also is better for wiping down the inside of the magazines and such.

The CLP in my opinion is a must for the slide, barrell and top of the main pistol where the slide comes into contact with the rails it rides on.

Out on the range, I took a few shots with my hands a little lower and looser on the grip a to see if it would stove pipe and I could not reproduce my first experience. This gun has very little kick and is easy to control.

I'm now very happy with my purchase.

[IZinterrogator]

The Winchester White Box 9mm ammo has a tendency to err on the lower side of acceptable case rim diameter, which leads to failures to extract when the rim slips out from under the extractor too early.

[Eppie]

Hi Leveled,
I've fired tens of thousands of wwb 9mm over the years and found them to be very economical/reliable practice ammo. It's what I use for practice, unless Walmart happens to have a better deal on Federal.

I have owned both the 92 and PX-4. I think the 92 is probably the best shooting 9mm on the market second only to the Glock 34. The reason is simple, a longer barrel is easier to aim accurately.

I want to congratulate you on your decision to clean your new gun before taking it to the range. You are a smart fellow. However, you probably did what it is normally referred to as a field cleaning.

I use Hoppe 9 for the barrel then run cotton patches through until it is clean, then I spray Remoil on a patch and run it through the barrel again. that gets additional carbon out. I also spray some Remoil in the trigger housing wait about a minute then use my compressor to blow everything out.

Field cleaning is exactly that: a field cleaning. And herein lies the rub.

The 92 is a very complex gun to disassemble down to the firing pin. You have to take out the rear sights and to make matters even worse the assembly process is different than the disassembly. I got a gunsmithing video for the 92 that showed how to totally disassemble it. I did it a couple of times and decide that it was not something I wanted to do long term, not when I could have something that was much more simple to maintain and shot even better.

Check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y780LwbwFIM

[Eppie]

I forgot to address the issue of lubrication of the slide, rails and barrel exterior.

I use a very very thin coat of marine/white grease to minimize wear on the rails, slide and outside of the barrel. Oil is good, but unfortunately it migrates if left sitting for a few hours or days, giving you a false sense of lubrication. In theory the downside to using grease is that exploding particles will also stick to it. But in practical use I haven't seen any extra dirt.

You can get marine grease at your local auto parts store for $2-3 for a 8oz tube. You can spend more on "specialized" gun products but none will be as good as those targeting automotive applications. The reason I use the marine grease because it is white and wont stain my hands or clothing like other black grease.