New PSA Dagger

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Eddiejoe

New member
So, I finally broke down and bought one. It was a good price and came with extra magazines.
I dry-fired it a few times, and the trigger got a bit better. Then I took an empty new magazine and topped it off with one snap cap.
It would not go completely into battery. I managed to rack the slide and got the dummy out. I have used these same ones before in SIG, Springfield Armory, Taylor's, and a few others and had no issued.

I tried it again with the same snap cap (because it will be different this time), and it jammed again. This time, I had to take it to the gunsmith, who took it in back, came back not a minute later, and had removed the snap cap. He recommended using a Dremel on the "case mouth."
I got home, disassembled the gun and found that a live round goes all they way into the chamber.

Is this a defect in the barrel, or can there really be that much difference in chamber dimensions across several manufacturers?
 
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jetinteriorguy

New member
When you say you disassembled the gun and the round chambered, do you mean you just dropped the round in the barrel and it chambered fine? If so it may just be a feeding problem with the snap cap. I’d first clean and lube the gun, then take it out and see if it functions properly with live ammunition. If it works fine then don’t sweat the problem with the snap cap, perhaps you’ve used the snap cap so much it’s somehow damaged and won’t feed properly or it just doesn’t work with these particular mags. I wouldn’t judge a guns functionality based on a snap cap.
 
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MarkCO

New member
jetinteriorguy said:
When you say you disassembled the gun and the round chambered, do you mean you just dropped the round in the barrel and it chambered fine? If so it may just be a feeding problem with the snap cap. I’d first clean and lube the gun, then take it out and see if it functions properly with live ammunition. If it works fine then don’t sweat the problem with the snap cap, perhaps you’ve used the snap cap so much it’s somehow damaged and won’t feed properly or it just doesn’t work with these particular mags. I wouldn’t judge a guns functionality based on a snap cap.
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DITTO
 
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Lurch37

New member
I tried it again with the same snap cap (because it will be different this time), and it jammed again. This time, I had to take it to the gunsmith, who took it in back, came back not a minute later, and had removed the snap cap. He recommended using a Dremel on the "case mouth."
Click to expand...

I take that as the smith found a burr or something on your snap-cap that is causing you problems?
 
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Eddiejoe

New member
I inserted the snap cap manually into the chamber, and then a live round. It was obvious the live round seated further into the chamber. I'll try live ammunition this weekend and update you all.

Thanks for the advice!
 
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44 AMP

Staff
How is it that so few people realize that snap caps are NOT dummy rounds??

Yes, most of the time they seem to work as such, but they are not made to be used for trouble shooting or function testing, they're made to be snap caps. Some of them (even undamaged) will not give you the same results as actual correctly made dummy rounds OR live ammunition.

If a gunsmith suggests you take a dremel to the snap cap, then he's found some part of it buggered up enough to prevent it fitting properly.

But even when not damaged in any way, a snap cap is not guaranteed to show you the gun is functioning correctly, even if it fits in the chamber just fine.

I know this from personal experience with a friends gun and snap cap. I forget the maker's name, the snap cap was one of the purple metal ones, not plastic.

The gun was a 1911 from Turnbull. My friend had it for about 6 months, took it to the range every month, fired two mags from it, brought it home, each time. Gun worked fine.

UNTIL the time he didn't finish the mag and went to eject the 230gr ball round. The gun jammed up tight, with the round extracted from the barrel but wedged tight into the slide just below the ejection port opening.

Since I had been trained as a Small Arms Repairman during the time the 1911A1 was the service pistol, he asked me to take a look at it.

Using about 3 hand (so it seemed) and a small screwdriver I was able to pry the jammed round loose (and it fell out down the empty magwell.

We tested the gun with his snapcaps. Worked normally, the snapcaps ejected when the slide was cycled. Tested it with 200gr JHP (taking adequate safety precautions) and those rounds ejected normally when the slide was cycled by hand.

230gr ball ammo would not, it jammed up tight and froze the slide just short of being able to engage the slide stop and lock it open.

The snap cap was the same size and bullet profile as the ball round, but the snap cap ejected and the ball round jammed in the slide.

Inspection of the gun determined it had been assembled with the wrong ejector. Instead of the proper GI profile ejector, it had one of the "long nose" ones, and while it worked fine kicking out fired empties the difference in where the ejector contacted the case as the slide moved back did not allow 230gr ball ammo to be ejected. Shorter rounds ejected properly, the snap caps ejected properly but live 230 gr ammo would not.

The gun went back to Turnbull, and came back fixed in a week, all on their dime, along with a phone call from their VP apologizing for the mistake, saying the gun should never have left the factory in that condition, and that somebody wasn't going to have a happy Christmas that year.

Point here is, that while snap caps usually function well enough as dummy ammo for function testing, they aren't made for that and it is possible to get an erroneous result if you use them for that.
 
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MarkCO

New member
Agree with post 8 and 9.

I don't own, or use Snap Caps at all. But I have at least one dummy round of all of my calibers. I usually use a nickel case and a red powder coated bullet. I leave the spent primer in place and they go in a bag that only has dummys and it is in a locked cabinet.
 
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