XD locked up tight as a vault

[squinty]

Well, I was warned about it, but it didn't happen until now. Never a malf with my XD until today. Shot a couple hundred rounds of various types of bulk .45 ammo, including 50 rounds of dirty Tulammo. Then my pistol suffered a failure to go into battery, and froze that way. There is a live round stuck halfway inside the chamber, wedged at an angle. I can't get the slide to close or open, can't get the round to extract. Nice deep gouge in the stuck rounds brass, going diagonally about a quarter of the way around the circumference of the brass, 45 degrees diagonal to the long axis of the round, stops right at the rim. Not sure what caused that, the preceding round loading or the preceding empty brass ejecting.

How do I fix this? Anything I can do to keep it from happening again? (Like, replacing the XD with a Glock 21?)
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[MaconCJ7]

Because it's a live round, I have to suggest a gunsmith.

[MaconCJ7]

Quick question though, did you try putting the slide on the edge of a table and pressing down on the handle with body weight? That is the only "safe" way I can figure to try.

[Power Fail]

Quick question though, did you try putting the slide on the edge of a table and pressing down on the handle with body weight? That is the only "safe" way I can figure to try.

A similar, "on the range" fix I saw an instructor perform in a class when someone's Glock got jammed up good: instead of holding the grip and racking the slide (which obviously wasn't working at this point), he held the slide good and tight, reared back with his firing hand, and basically punched the tang of the grip forward with the web of his thumb. It worked.

It looks like it's going to be a matter of carefully applying more than normal force. I'm certainly no gunsmith, but looking at those pictures, I don't know what else could be done.

[northernxposure]

Quick question though, did you try putting the slide on the edge of a table and pressing down on the handle with body weight? That is the only "safe" way I can figure to try.

That ^^ - mag out, fingers the hell away from the trigger guard, toes the hell out of the way of the barrel. Don't use your nice counter top, press straight down.

NXP

[hatchtrikk]

This happened to my friends XD, only it was during reassembly. Apparently he did not have the guide rod assembly centered on the barrel lug. He lowered the takedown lever and hit the release- boom, just like yours. Springfield fixed for zero money.


Good luck!

[smokinbunta]

wow.. this sucks.. much more than the problem with my Ruger.. wish i could help, but i would also say take it to a smith?

[squinty]

This happened to my friends XD, only it was during reassembly. Apparently he did not have the guide rod assembly centered on the barrel lug. He lowered the takedown lever and hit the release- boom, just like yours. Springfield fixed for zero money.

My gun was properly assembled - and had been functioning flawlessly for about 200 rounds. I wonder what "fix" Springfield applied? Because once the gun's unstuck, I'll always be paranoid that it will happen again. If it happened during reassembly I wouldn't worry, but it happened during normal firing. If it were a jam that could be cleared by tap-rack-bang, or dropping the mag and working the slide, I wouldn't worry. But this is a confidence shaker.

I wonder about UPS policy wrt shipping pistols with live ammo in them?

[Braxton]

I am gonna have to go with the press on a counter top method for this, Failing that, Call Springfield and ask them what to do.

[MVegas]

I have to say that as an XD owner, this thread is rather disconcerting.

I wish I could help, Squinty.

ETA- Just went to the safe to play around with mine (XDm45) and I'm wondering......could it be that you're locked up against the tang safety? I basically did a press-check without actuating it, and the slide came back to stop pretty much exactly where yours is stuck. I haven't had that safely apart, but I wonder if with rearward pressure against it, the lever won't disengage it. (might be useless info, but I'm tryin man)

[raxar]

I had a similar issue with my tactical the first time I took it out (didn't have the bullets seated deep enough) I'd recommend the counter top method, just remember that you can't pull the slide back unless you have the grip safety depressed.

Truth be told my springfield has not proved itself to be a gun to rely on.

[Needles_Kane]

I'd suggest the gunsmith, but putting it in the freezer might work by contracting the metal? An experienced gunsmith would have a nice safe setup with a hydralic press, fixture and padded vice to protect the finish of your gun, probably take him a few minutes to free it up. I'm sure this happens all the time with a variety of guns.

[CharlieMike]

This happens all of the time with the M4's during BRM. The fix is just to collapse the buttstock and grip the hand guard and the charging handle and slam it on the ground while pulling down on the charging handle. This almost 100% of the time ejects the stuck round. It sounds like the same general idea with grabbing the slide and hitting the grip with the web of your hand. The weapon discharging SHOULDN'T be an issue as it is out of battery. I am sure most of the other AR instructors have seen this and done something similar (at least the other Drill Sergeants on the board). Sounds like the same problem to me.

[We'reWolf]

maybe put your hand with the web on the safety grip and than put the slide on the on a table and push with the top of the slide on the table? idk but if you do find a good way let me know

[Big B]

Call Springfield Arms.

You wont be able to ship it with a live round in it, but they may still be able to help you fix it. From what I hear their customer service is pretty good.

[squinty]

OK, based on advice from here and XDTalk, I did this:

1-Liberal application of WD-40 in bore, around slide opening and outside of barrel, and where I could get it onto the breech face, extractor, and back of round. Let it soak for 5 minutes.

2-Put a jersey cloth on the edge of a workbench, braced just the edge of the slide against the edge of the workbench, with barrel projecting down past bench.

3-With the gun in that position, grasped the butt - without putting my finger in the trigger guard! - and squeezed the grip safety.

4-Very lightly tapped my grasping hand with my other hand, "karate chop" style.

Very little force was required, I just tapped 3 or 4 times and everything slid loose. Nothing blew up, I didn't shoot off any toes or anything.

The formerly stuck round was seriously mangled and deformed. I do not believe it was deformed by my efforts to extract it. I believe it was somehow butchered on it's way into battery as I fired the pistol. In the original photos I posted, you can see part of the crease is visible from the top of the gun, through the ejection port. Here's a closeup of that detail:



Those photos were taken before I made any attempt to remove the stuck round, beyond an unsuccessful tap - rack - bang (stopped at "rack" 'cause that wasn't happening) and a drop mag - cycle slide (again, no cycling happened.)

Here's a 26 second video - photos didn't quite do justice to how deeply creased and bent this round became. IDK much about the subject, but this must make for a pretty dangerous overpressure, right? No marks at all on the primer, it never got far enough into battery to fire. If it had chambered well enough to fire with that degree of deformity, would it have caused a catastrophic failure? Did I just miss a ka-boom?

[MaconCJ7]

I think the heat/pressure would have swollen the brass back to chamber specs without much worry of over-pressure. But, I could be wrong. The gouging weakened the case, so you might have been spared a blowout as well. With the marring going all the way to the rim, I'm curious as to what cause it. That area didn't enter the breach, so it had to have been caused on it's upward movement from the magazine. Did the mag get a bent feed lip by chance?

[squinty]

I think the heat/pressure would have swollen the brass back to chamber specs without much worry of over-pressure. But, I could be wrong. The gouging weakened the case, so you might have been spared a blowout as well. With the marring going all the way to the rim, I'm curious as to what cause it. That area didn't enter the breach, so it had to have been caused on it's upward movement from the magazine. Did the mag get a bent feed lip by chance?

Feed lips are ok - I am always vigilant for signs of the magazine lips "bowing out" as that was a problem with an earlier XD, but so far not with this one.

The mag followers, however, were deeply scuffed and scarred, like they haven't been before - I expect some scuffing, but this was more than I'd expect.

[klrvagabond]

I've had a similar thing happen with my 9mm XD twice, both with BVAC ammunition that upon further inspection was clearly not resized appropriately (same range trip; assumed that the first one was a fluke and kept shooting once it was cleared- after the second one I decided it'd be a good idea to inspect every round.)
The XD seems to have a pretty tight chamber, and I'm assuming that in my case it was just a matter of BVAC using once-fired brass from a Glock or something with an unsupported chamber and not full-length resizing. FWIW, we'd shot a ton of this batch through a G19 without any issues before I started running it through the XD.
I'm thinking it was probably an out of spec round. It might have fed OK in another firearm, but given that the XD was running fine beforehand I'm more likely to blame the ammunition. Every manufacturer will have a few bad ones that slip through the cracks every now and then- just be glad it was probably a bad piece of brass and not a double charge or something.

[DarkandShiny]

If it had chambered well enough to fire with that degree of deformity, would it have caused a catastrophic failure? Did I just miss a ka-boom?

I don't believe so. If the brass were to split or burst there still should be should be sufficient pressure in the chamber to send the round down and out the barrel. Perhaps you would see a flash or smoke from the ejection port but nothing more. At worst you might see the bullet stuck half way down the barrel like a squib.

[GunTotingHippy]

Does anyone know if there's a correlation between ammo and this problem?

More specifically, are there any documented cases of this happening with premium SD ammo?

[alptraum]

Does anyone know if there's a correlation between ammo and this problem?

More specifically, are there any documented cases of this happening with premium SD ammo?

He labelled it as Winchester PDX, which is premium SD ammo.

[GunTotingHippy]

Does anyone know if there's a correlation between ammo and this problem?

More specifically, are there any documented cases of this happening with premium SD ammo?

He labelled it as Winchester PDX, which is premium SD ammo.

Damn. Missed that. Thanks.

[squinty]

The round in question was Winchester PDX "Supreme Elite" - a good SD ammo, that I've used before with no issues.
Prior to the PDX, I had fired about 50 rounds of Tulammo crappy bulk steel cased, and then some American Eagle, Remington UMC, and Remington Golden Sabre. Never mixed ammo in any mag, there was only Winchester PDX in the gun at the time this happened. Don't remember how far down it was, it wasn't the first or second round in that magazine.

EDIT: the plot thickens...
I am on Stephen Wenger's morning mailing list (great list to be on if you are interested in guns or gun politics) and the most recent update to that list had this tidbit in it:

And A Caution: I have been forwarded an e-mail from one of the nation's largest police departments noting that its firearms training unit discovered three duty rounds – .45 ACP Winchester Bonded 230 gr. JHP – “out of specification.” The e-mail goes on to instruct that pistols should be disassembled and, with a clean chamber, each round should be checked with the barrel, ensuring that it drops fully into the firing chamber and drops back out into the hand easily. Naturally, this is a procedure that is recommend for all rounds, regardless of caliber or manufacturer, before they are loaded into magazines.
--

No link though, nor was the actual e-mail published. The stuck round was indeed a Winchester .45 ACP bonded hollowpoint. It was the PDX.
So, maybe the round was out of spec? Anyone else hear anything about a recall or bad batch of Winchester bonded .45?