Pardini SP1 Problems

[JulianY]

I had a series of miss fires during a match this afternoon, and I am wondering what may be the cause. The gun is brand new (about 400 rounds)

what happened is the gun went click, but the round did not go off. on closer inspection there are pin marks on the back of the round, but insufficient to fire it ( image below)



Does any one have any ideas what might be causing this?

It was a slow fire event and new batteries.

I know Paul T has some problems with his pardini but I dont know what happened

The gun has Rink grip? a search shows Dick Poore had problem but others comment favorably

any ideas

Julian

[Steve Swartz]

Not familiar with the Pardini but generally a few things are fairly frequently found:

- slide not going fully into battery (binding, return spring, etc.)
- broken firing pin spring
- broken firing pin
- broken hammer spring
- binding hammer
- binding firing pin

Usually (well, yeah) with light strikes we are looking at a mechanical and not an electrical problem. One of the more common issues with aftermarket/nonstandard grips is the slide rubbing against the grip material somewhere causing insufficint force to drive the round compelety into battery.

Steve

[Richard H]

Check your firing pin I have seen the exact samething on another Pardini, the firing pin was broken about the halfway point.

[JulianY]

Check your firing pin I have seen the exact samething on another Pardini, the firing pin was broken about the halfway point.

Can that be posible? the 4 rounds were not the last 4 but something like shot 9, 15, 35 & 37

The thing is brand new ! the only time it has been fullly dry fired ( as oposed to an electronic click) less that a dozen times mostly at the wepons control.

I will have a look though

Julian

[JulianY]

I Striped down the pin housing and the pin looks just fine

it's clean inside well mild dirt from normal firing but noting to worie about

I notice that the rim has to be seeted in the recess, if that did not happen properly than it could produce a similar effect.

julian

[Laserdot]

Could be the ammo. If you have a chamber that is on the tighter side, the round may not be seating properly resulting in a light hit. I would take a box of ammo and drop each round into the chamber and sort them according to size. Remmington brand seem to be sized smaller but I have had 1 or 2 rounds with bad primers per box. RWS have been the best in my gun but they are expensive. RWS use a soft wax lube that allows them to seat more easily.

[Peter O]

I experienced something similar last evening - I got a couple of shots off, then just "click". After taking the thing apart and checking the firing pin (it was fine), I realized that the hammer was stuck down. The electronics were trying to release it, but it wasn't springing forward. I suspect there's some crud in there, even though I've only shot a bit more than 1 1/2 bricks of ammo and have kept it reasonably cleaned. I'll tear it down this weekend and let you know what I find...

[David M]

Your photo's suggest that the very light strike on the unfired rounds is possibly an inertia strike, firing pin just touching the case as the slide is closing (firing pin spring allowing the pin to go forward a little as the slide stops).
A light hammer strike with the slide not closed normally appeard deeper than these dents.
Check next time to see if the hammer has fallen, after the misfire slowly pull the slide back and feel for the loading of resetting the hammer. If it is electronic also just try pulling the trigger again, the solenoid may not be releasing the sear.

[Peter O]

I agree with David M - I was seeing the same thing when my SP1 misfired - I believe the light strikes are caused by the firing pin inertia.

When I disassembled mine yesterday, I was expecting the hammer / sear assemble to be dirty.

What I found was a misaligned shock buffer. There is a nylon piece at the rear (just above the electronics) that cushions the slide's reward travel. It is a circular disk, with one side trimmed flat, and a plug to support the disk. The flat portion "should" align with the frame, directly above the sear. Mine was rotated about 30 degrees, so one side was poking down and preventing the solenoid from raising the sear sufficiently to release the hammer. When I removed it, it was seated pretty tightly, so I'm not sure if it was originally installed incorrectly, or if it rotated through use. I guess it must have moved a bit, as there were no misfires at first, then there was the odd one that a second trigger pull would fire, and then it pretty much stopped working. BTW, it is an annoying piece to reinstall. In either case, it will be worth keeping an eye on it to see if it moves in the future.

Good luck with yours...

Peter

[Mark Briggs]

Glad to hear you got this sorted out, Peter. When Brian called me last week from the range I provided a few tips at the time but omitted the orientation of the buffer as a likely cause. Very pleased to hear you have repaired it.

[JulianY]

I agree with David M - I was seeing the same thing when my SP1 misfired - I believe the light strikes are caused by the firing pin inertia.

When I disassembled mine yesterday, I was expecting the hammer / sear assemble to be dirty.

What I found was a misaligned shock buffer. There is a nylon piece at the rear (just above the electronics) that cushions the slide's reward travel. It is a circular disk, with one side trimmed flat, and a plug to support the disk. The flat portion "should" align with the frame, directly above the sear. Mine was rotated about 30 degrees, so one side was poking down and preventing the solenoid from raising the sear sufficiently to release the hammer. When I removed it, it was seated pretty tightly, so I'm not sure if it was originally installed incorrectly, or if it rotated through use. I guess it must have moved a bit, as there were no misfires at first, then there was the odd one that a second trigger pull would fire, and then it pretty much stopped working. BTW, it is an annoying piece to reinstall. In either case, it will be worth keeping an eye on it to see if it moves in the future.

Good luck with yours...

Peter

Thanks, for the heads up on that one, I will keep an eye on that one.

Well just for the record, the ammo I was unis was pistol king.

In frustration and trying to find a problem I striped the gun , the magazines, cleaned everything, but found nothing. a few days later I took in down the club and put 300 rounds through it trying to repeat the fault with no success.

Today I shot a match faultlessly gun wise ;)

I am going to put it down to Murphy for the time being. but is suspect that my reassembly had something to do with it.


Julian

[top end]

Any tips or tricks for replacing the buffer in a pardini? For future reference.

[Peter O]

Mark - I never got a chance to thank you for the advice and assistance - it was very much appreciated!

As for replacing the buffer, once the electronics module was removed, I just poked it out with one of the supplied allen/torx keys :~) In retrospect, I might/should have given it a bit more consideration first, but, Oh Well.
Getting it back in place involved a bunch of jiggling, shaking, (cursing) and finally using a pair of small needle nose pliers from the rear to grab an edge and try to roll the buffer to get the plug oriented correctly. Then I had to find something with a long enough shaft to prod the plug back in place without rotating it. This would probably appeal to people who like dexterity puzzles - me, I can do without it...
A pair of angle-nose tweezers would likely make the task a lot easier, as you would be able to hold the frame with the "barrel" pointed upwards, drop the buffer in, then grab the plug and maneuver it in to place.

Cheers,
Peter

[anol64]

I agree with David M - I was seeing the same thing when my SP1 misfired - I believe the light strikes are caused by the firing pin inertia.

When I disassembled mine yesterday, I was expecting the hammer / sear assemble to be dirty.

What I found was a misaligned shock buffer. There is a nylon piece at the rear (just above the electronics) that cushions the slide's reward travel. It is a circular disk, with one side trimmed flat, and a plug to support the disk. The flat portion "should" align with the frame, directly above the sear. Mine was rotated about 30 degrees, so one side was poking down and preventing the solenoid from raising the sear sufficiently to release the hammer. When I removed it, it was seated pretty tightly, so I'm not sure if it was originally installed incorrectly, or if it rotated through use. I guess it must have moved a bit, as there were no misfires at first, then there was the odd one that a second trigger pull would fire, and then it pretty much stopped working. BTW, it is an annoying piece to reinstall. In either case, it will be worth keeping an eye on it to see if it moves in the future.

Good luck with yours...

Peter

This is quite common that the shook buffer rotates, the distributor here in sweden solves it by countersink the hole (i´ve been told), after it was done on my HP i havent had the problem.

[Peter O]

Anol64 - Interesting, thanks for that. I guess this really is worth watching, as the gun went from functional to "click" pretty quickly...

Peter

[mstuhr]

Howdy,
Many may be different, but here is why my SP does it.
Mine is sensitive to lube. Even different case lots can differ as I had one case of ammo that worked and replaced it with another of the same kind that wouldn't.
I knew it was ammo related and thought it was several different things before I located the problem.
I also chamber checked all of my ammo only to find it failing when fired.
Here is what I found and in this case it was the case lube on this batch of Aquila SV.
When the slide cycles and picks up a fresh round to feed, the next round in the mag pops up above the lowest part of the slide/bolt. When the slide/bolt closes on the fresh round the bottom of the slide/bolt pushes the next round in the mag back down below the lowest part of the slide/bolt scraping the lube loose to fall or easily rub off in the chamber when fed for the next shot.
I had noticed a drag mark on ejected bullets/cases but I assumed they were getting the mark when chambering. They get it while the round ahead of it is chambering, from the bottom of the Slide/bolt and that loosens the lube, in my case fouling the gun up on the next shot.It doesn't take much.
A change of ammo solved this. The last case of this was not a problem so in my gun it looks to be a crap shoot when buying ammo.
The ammo I shoot now gets a mark from the slide/bolt but the lube does not break up or flake off.
Hope this helps
Mike

[Chris]

If I remember correctly when I replaced my buffer I put a small dab of grease or something sticky on the tip of dowel and placed the buffer in place and then pushed it home. been working ever since.

[ken4all]

I had the same problem this weekend.
Wanted to shoot my very first 25m pistol match.

Started with a 96/100. But then 10, 10, 10, shot didn't go off, 9, shot didn't go off,8 shot didn't go off... then I just quit.

I never had misfires and used this amunition (SK pistol match) for several hundreds of shots.

Think I'll have to open my SP1 to check.
Does anyone have a guide on how to proceed to take out the electronics etc... it's not described in the manual.

[tenex]

I've put several cases of RWS target through my Pardini without a hiccup, but at $500 + a case, I've decided to try something else. I bought a brick of Eley sport (the Mexican stuff) and had several failures to fire, with apparent light strikes (just like original poster).

I'd try some RWS, just to see if the problem goes away. I'm going to try shooting CCI std vel, it seems to work in my gun (but not some Pardini's).

hopefully it will work, otherwise I have some CCI for sale!

Steve.

[Chris]

I have been having some similar issues with light strikes. I finally decided it was the ammo. I have some 15yr old Lapua Midus I have been using. For the past several years there has been oxidation on the bullets. Well finally the oxidation has gotten bad enough where the slide will not close completely and so when this happens I get light strikes and nothing happens. Not sure what I am going to do with the remaining case I have of Lapua. The 15yr old RWS and Eley work just fine.