Sig P938 Damaging Brass

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Overkill777

New member
My P938 is fairly new, only a few hundred rounds through it. While sorting my brass I noticed a few pieces that are damaged. It shoots and cycles just fine, I never noticed anything wrong at the range. What is causing the brass to get chewed up?

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AK103K

New member
Looks like the same problem I had with my P238. Heres what causes it......

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I was losing about 5-10% of my brass because of it.
 
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AK103K

New member
Mine was never straightened out, and why I got rid of it.

What youre looking at there was the worst case, and most of the time, it didnt jam the gun up like you see. Still, that happened enough to be annoying and I never trusted the gun for anything serious. I had about 1000 rounds through it when I got rid of it.

Id call SIG and see what they say.
 
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MagnumWill

New member
Yerp. My P238 does the same exact thing. It's had probably 500 rounds through it with no hiccups, i guess i won't look a brass-dinging horse in the mouth if it runs just fine. It's never stovepiped like the picture above. Hell, the recoil spring broke once and it kept firing all day! (It was replaced by the flat spring, which is way better)
 
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Bob Wright

New member
I'm somewhat out of my bailiwick here, but I'd suspect the ammunition is at fault. My guess is that it is not cycling the action enough to throw the empty clear before the slide starts forward. Either the load is too light, or the powder does not exert enough pressure.

Bob Wright

P.S. As far as losing brass, run the expander die into the case prior to resizing/de-priming.
 
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Overkill777

New member
AK103K you nailed it.

It is an extraction issue. I did some messing around with some snap caps. It only happens on the last round.

When extracting, the top round in the magazine applies force to the bottom of the empty case 'holding' it in the extractor until it is ejected. When extracting the final round of the magazine, it seems like the empty case drops down and gets pinned between the magazine and the slide.

I haven't had one get stuck, it seems to only get pinned enough to damage the case and then it flies out.

Hmm....

As far as the load. This happened with Blazer Brass 124 grain and Winchester white box 115 grain. I have only shot factory ammo through it. Don't really think that's it. It seems the extractor is not doing its job...
 
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AK103K

New member
I dont think its "light" loads, as it would happen with my P238, regardless what ammo was used. I used to find brass damaged as seen in the pics every time I recovered them.

The damage was usually enough that the expander die did not correct the problem, and in fact actually made it worse.
 
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oldbadger

New member
Sig P938 damaging brass

I have about 200 rdss through one of these pistols and have seen nothing like this. Please let us know how you solve this problem or if you decide not to address it at all. thanks.
 
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Sharkbite

New member
That is a problem that needs fixing. The photo of the pistol above shows the cause very clearly. If your gun is doing this but still managing to eject the brass, its on the ragged edge of not being reliable.

Reloading the brass asaide the GUN is not functioning properly.
 
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Overkill777

New member
Thanks for your input everyone. I'm sending the firearm to Sig. I really hope they get it straightened out, I like how this gun shoots.

For anyone interested I will post the results.
 
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Overkill777

New member
Got the pistol back from sig today.

First, a word about customer service. I called and explained my problem to the rep and we agreed that the pistol needed to be sent back. I gave him all my contact information and he said I would be sent a packing label with instructions. So I waited a week and got nothing. I called customer service and it turns out they had my email wrong. So they promptly send the packing label, it turns out my address and phone number are both wrong on the label as well. I think the first guy I talked to was a dud, he didn't get anything right.

Anyway once that got sorted out I sent the pistol and surprisingly it was delivered back to me in only 12 days including the holiday weekend. I'm blown away by that.

They replaced the extractor which was broken. Now that I see how it is supposed to look I see that the piece that sticks down off the bottom of the extractor was gone. It cycles flawlessly with snap caps I cannot replicate the issue. I am actually surprised how well it fed with a broken extractor.

Overall, with the exception of one of the customer service reps I dealt with, I'm really happy with how sig handled this issue. I will shoot it after work today to verify.

Thanks again everyone.
 
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Overkill777

New member
Well I took it to the range yesterday to put a lot of rounds through it to 'qualify' it as a concealed carry gun. The ejector works just fine only now the magazine drops after every other round fired. Frustrating! At this point I'm throwing in the towel. I could probably fix it but it's just not giving me the confidence in reliability I require out of a conceal carry gun. Similar story as you ak103k.
 
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Dragline45

New member
Well I took it to the range yesterday to put a lot of rounds through it to 'qualify' it as a concealed carry gun. The ejector works just fine only now the magazine drops after every other round fired. Frustrating! At this point I'm throwing in the towel. I could probably fix it but it's just not giving me the confidence in reliability I require out of a conceal carry gun. Similar story as you ak103k.
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Complain to Sig again, tell them you don't want the gun, see if they will replace it with a different gun of similar cost. Just don't by any means sell it as is with the mag drop problem. So many people buy guns only to leave them in a draw and never test them, a mag drop problem could get them killed.

I think they are neat little guns, but my experience with my cousins Sig 238 left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Frequent FTF's and FTE's.
 
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lee n. field

New member
My P938 is fairly new, only a few hundred rounds through it. While sorting my brass I noticed a few pieces that are damaged. It shoots and cycles just fine, I never noticed anything wrong at the range. What is causing the brass to get chewed up?
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My old CZ100 beat up brass pretty badly, just like that. I never did get it resolved, before I traded off that gun. (CZ-USA's smith didn't see it as a problem, as long as it cycled reliably.)

I'd be looking at the recoil spring assembly. Custom weight spring or guide rod? Swap it back to factory.
 
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AK103K

New member
I find it interesting that the models that stray from the usual SIG "P" series design, are the ones that seem to have issues. All my other P series guns were flawless, right out of the box.

I always looked at the P238 as another 1911 clone that had issues right out of the box, and didnt work, like a bunch of the others I had of other makes.

Sounds like the P938 is following suit, although you would have thought they would have had things worked out by now, as the current P238 reports seem to be better than the earlier ones.
 
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