I have made three range trips in the last month and while shooting my G17, gen 4, I have had approximately 10 FTF’s in approx 400 rds fired. Using new Freedom Munitions 115 gr 9mm. Ammo was purchased in a large lot in April of 2015.
G17 has a Pyramid trigger, with 4.5 lb spring and OEM striker. All of the FTF’s had what appeared to be solid primer strikes. 8 of the 10 rounds fired on the 2nd try and 2 were duds.
Today, I fired a 50 AE and 50 S&B 9mm…no issues. Rate of fire was mixed. Some rhythm drills, some slowly fired shots for accuracy, etc.
Before shooting this lot of FM 9mm, I had maybe one FTF in 1000ish rounds, using a mix of AE, Federal, Magtech, PMC, Blazer and Detroit Bullet works reloads…
Looking for some insight…
Anyone had FTF issues with either:
*Freedom Munitions 9mm, or
*G17 w/ Pyramid trigger
I had a couple of hard primers in a batch of their RTP 115gr RN, in or around Dec 2014. Gun was a stock gen4 G19. Notes indicate that at least one fired on the second strike. Several more had bullets seated to visibly different depths, which went unshot. This was in a batch of 7-10k total as I recall, both RTP and their regularly packaged reman.
Last month three of us attending a Pat Goodale handgun class, firing just shy of 3K 115gr REMAN ammo without any issues. Ammo was purchased from them in June of this year.
It seems as though there are a disproportionate number of bad experiences with Freedom Munitions ammo. Enough so that I declined a really good deal on 1k of their 7.62.
I note that you said this ammunition is from April 2015. In March 2015 I attended an OP SEC training/Bruce Gray pistol class where two shooters had three squibs between them with freedom arms 9 mm ammunition. The two shooters did not know each other, and had purchased their ammunition separately, from different lots, specifically for attending the class.
Also in the beginning of 2015 shooting friend of mine had serious issues with freedom 300 black rifle ammunition.
No doubt about that! Going forward, will pay the extra $.02 to $.05 per round for more reliable ammo…
I had some concern about the fire control in G17, but this seems to be an ammo issue, not a firearm issue
I purchased new 9mm 115g from them earlier this year for a tmac class. I managed to tough it out for about 200 rounds and had so much trouble I had to shelve the G34 and went with the G41 for the remainder of the course. My G34 also eats everything else I feed it and had same results in my G19. Overall not impressed and wasn’t worth the few extra bucks I saved. I have several hundred rounds left and haven’t touched it since. I’ve reached out to them via my professional email account and haven’t heard back. The rounds all seemed under powered which caused ejection problems.
No issues with “new” FM here. I have 9mm, .40, .223 and .300. Recently ran 5 mags of 115 gr. through a 9mm conversion barrel in my Glock (Storm Lake).
That G22 also has a 3.5# connector, Ghost upgrade springs and stock (17#?) recoil damper spring on a SS guide rod. I’d read after placing my order that there were some issues with the 22 slide being heavier than the 17 and not cycling lighter ammo properly. I haven’t seen it in nearly 100 rounds, but that does not conclude anything for me. I’ll watch it, but for now, it’s a fun gun to shoot!
Possibilities:
Maybe they’re using “hard” primers? Some tend to be harder than others. I bought 10,000 Tula primers which have a reputation for being harder than domestic primers. 9998 went boom, two FTF. All my pistols, revos have standard mainsprings.
If they’re remanufactured maybe they’re not seating the primers fully. This leaves a cushion on the first strike, typically they fire on the second.
I had two squibs from two separate lots, after shooting thousands of rounds without issue. No longer use their products as I have lost faith in them as a company. Not impressed in how they handled my issues.
Freedom Munitions had a non-descript recall on a few lots of 9mm from March, but I think it was all from their reman, not new. This was a very small recall and unlikely to be your problem but check for lots;
I think this is pretty much settled.
However, based on how the glock fcg works, once the rear of the trigger bar has been cammed down out of engagement with the striker, it cannot move back up and drag on said striker while it moves forward unless you release the trigger fast enough to make it happen.
Therefore, the only way for the trigger bar to cause misfires would be for it to be shorter than spec, and release the striker from a closer position to the cartridge than a stock one, which would produce a lighter strike.
If so, it would do this every time, not occasionally. You would notice the lighter strikes as soon as it was installed.
This is provided your new trigger did not use the factory bar.
So far I’ve used about 7k rounds of their new and remanufactured 115g 9mm through a shield, g19, and vp9. I guess I’ve been lucky since I haven’t had any problems at all. About 2200 rounds were used in classes (Proctor performance pistol and Pannone covert carry). I was using geco in a previous local class (insight training) and had hard primers so that’s when I switched to freedom. I have a case of their hush 147g and hope I don’t have these issues
I did have some feeding issues with their 100g 380 ammo in a Sig p232 but read that 100g can cause issues in general.
My father uses it a lot, also runs into problems with FM a bunch too…FTF’s and occasional bullet seating. So now he spends the time to inspect rounds…sorta defeats the purpose.
I use blazer brass/AL FMJ for training and have put many thousands of rounds out over several years with not one problem.