Issue with my HK45C

General Firearms Handguns - Semi Auto
1

I have an issue with my new HK 45C that I’m looking for help on; I’ve got a live round that hasn’t been fired (and is not a failure to fire) locked in the chamber and cannot get the slide to the rear to remove the round and clear the weapon.

The background: I came home from church today to a home alarm that had gone off. The alarm company had already had the police do a drive-by, but I like to be thorough. As a result, I grabbed my new HK45C, chambered a round (it had been stored inside the house with a magazine in but no round chambered), and proceeded to clear the house. In the end, it was a guilty housecat that had triggered the motion sensor, so I went to store the weapon.

When I proceeded to clear the weapon, I safed it, dropped the magazine and attempted to pull the slide to the rear, but the slide wouldn’t budge. As a result, I’ve got a live round chambered that I can’t get out. A search of similar threads showed a few similar-appearing cases, and it appears that in most cases (none of which involved an HK) it just took forcing the slide to the rear to get the weapon cleared. I’ve got pretty good strength, and pretty good grip strength, but I cannot get the slide to budge more than about an eighth of an inch before it stops. Even using a table edge hasn’t worked (the nicely beveled edges on the HK’s frame don’t help in this regard, admittedly).

The round in the chamber isn’t a round that appears to come up in any other problems. It is a Hornady 185 grain XTP round. I’ve unloaded the other rounds from the magazine, and all look good; I don’t recall anything out of the ordinary when I handled the stuck round (and I usually notice if there is something wrong with a round).

The weapon hasn’t had any other problems. I’ve only had it a few weeks and have only had the opportunity to fire it once–about 100 rounds of Winchester ammo. The weapon fired flawlessly, with no failures or malfunctions during that range trip. The chamber and barrel were clear after that trip.

I haven’t taken it to a gunsmith (a challenge since it is Sunday on the one hand and I’m new to the area on the other hand). I don’t have a nearby range to take it to and am not sure I would want to pull the trigger on it at the moment anyway). And, since it’s Sunday, I cannot just call HK customer service to ask a question…

So, short of taking it to a local gunsmith or calling the company, I’m looking for any ideas on how to get the slide back to clear the weapon. Thoughts?

2

I had this happen one time with a G23. It wouldn’t move at all. I put the mag back in and racked it and it chambered another round. dropped the mag, racked it again and cleared it. I don’t know what happened or why but it only happened that one time. had no other issues with the gun(over 2500 rounds). Dont know if it’ll work but worth a shot.

3

Assuming that you have removed the magazine, point the gun in a safe direction, make sure again that the muzzle is pointing in a safe direction (if the round goes off, there would be no damage to properties or harm to humans):

Hold the SLIDE behind the ejection port with your NON SHOOTING HAND, this would place your hand above the rear sight area, make sure your fingers only grasping the slide and not touching the frame. Hold on real tight!

With your shooting hand fingers OPEN, sharply strike the grip frame from the rear hard. Strike just below the grip tang where the web part of your shooting normally grab the frame. The force of the strike depends on how hard the round is stuck in the chamber. A light strike may not unlock the slide, too hard a strike you may knock the gun out of your hand. Find a happy medium. Sometimes one application is enough, sometimes a couple of whack is required.

Good luck and Keep that muzzle pointed toward a safe direction.

4

That was one of the first things I tried: reinserting the magazine and tap-rack. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. I do appreciate the info though.

One other piece of info: this is a “traditional” DA/SA version, with the control lever (safety/decocking) and without the LEM.

5

Just pushing against a table might not do it. You might be able to bump the front end of the slide into the table edge (you only need a small movement to free the round). Make sure you are lined up in the safest direction possible and perhaps put your whole hand including trigger finger down on the grip. A slight impact might work where more force did not. Just be super careful.
I had to do this once with an aftermarket barrel and a hand load that was a little too long for that barrel.
When you get the round out you may find a defect on the case causing it to jam. Twice this year I have found defective factory cases while loading mags.

6

Sam - thanks. Just tried your method again (I’d tried it unsuccessfully already but figured another attempt couldn’t hurt) and got it out after about a half dozen tries.

With the round out, there’s still nothing visibly wrong with the round. I’m pulling all of them out of the magazines and putting them aside for my next range trip; we’ll see how this lot fares there, but I’m just not betting it all on this lot in the interim.

Thanks again.

7

I was able to resolve my issue thanks to some timely advice from other users, but the “Search” function wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. There were little snippets of information here and there, but nothing definitive. As a result, I’m posting this wrap-up so it might be easier for people with similar (albeit rare) problems in the future to find a solution, even if the right help isn’t readily available in the form of responses from other users.

The Problem. I had an issue with a new HK 45C (though ultimately it wasn’t a problem unique to the HK, but can happen in virtually any make). I had a live round that hadn’t been fired (and was not a failure to fire) locked in the chamber and could not get the slide to the rear to remove the round and clear the weapon. Of note, this was a DA/SA version of the HK45C, with the control lever.

The Background. I came home from church to a home alarm that had gone off. The alarm company had already had the police do a drive-by, but I like to be thorough. As a result, I grabbed my new HK45C, chambered a round (it had been stored inside the house with a magazine in but no round chambered), and proceeded to clear the house. In the end, it was a guilty housecat that had triggered the motion sensor, so I went to store the weapon.

When I proceeded to clear the weapon, I safed it, dropped the magazine and attempted to pull the slide to the rear, but the slide wouldn’t budge. As a result, I had a live round chambered that I couldn’t get out. Tap-rack didn’t work (and tap-rack-bang wasn’t an option), so I went in search of solutions on the forum. A search of similar threads showed a few similar-appearing cases, though none definitive, and it appeared that in most cases (none of which involved an HK) it “just” took forcing the slide to the rear to get the weapon cleared. I’ve got pretty good overall strength, and pretty good grip strength, but I could not muscle the slide to budge more than about an eighth of an inch before it stopped. Even using a table edge didn’t work (the nicely beveled edges on the HK’s frame don’t help in this regard, admittedly).

The round in the chamber wasn’t a round that appeared to come up in any other problems. It was a Hornady 185 grain XTP round. I unloaded the other rounds from the magazine, and all looked good; there was nothing out of the ordinary when I handled the stuck round.

The weapon hadn’t had any other problems. I’ve only had it a few weeks and have only had the opportunity to fire it once–about 100 rounds of Winchester ammo. The weapon fired flawlessly, with no failures or malfunctions during that range trip. The chamber and barrel were clear after that trip.

The Question: So, short of taking it to a local gunsmith or calling HK USA customer service (neither of which was an option on a Sunday afternoon), I was looking for any ideas on how to get the slide back to clear the weapon.

The Solution: On the advice of a moderator, I effectively “reverse-mortared” the pistol to free up the slide. I made sure the magazine was out and the weapon was on safe. Then, I grasped the slide just aft of the ejection port as firmly as I could with my non-firing hand, making sure to keep the fingers free of the port and the muzzle. Then, I thrust my firing hand palm down onto the backstrap, striking as firmly as I could without knocking the pistol out of the non-firing hand (all while carefully keeping the pistol pointed in a safe direction). It took about a half-dozen strikes, but the slide finally racked to the rear, and I was able to eject the round.

Interestingly, the round still looks perfect. Same length and weight as the others, with no apparent defects. Still, I removed all of the rounds and set them aside for my next range trip. There isn’t any reason to disparage either the gun or the lot of ammo, but I don’t want to have a middle-of-the-night repeat of this situation under duress. Until I can work this ammo on the range when it doesn’t count, I’ll go with another load.

Again, I’m just posting this wrap-up in the hope that somewhere down the road it helps someone else…

8

No no no, no magazine. There is no point in having a magazine in there. And it doesn’t matter what generation, variation, version, made, model, year the gun is. If it’s a semi auto, the technique should work. IPSC shooters have done it for 30 years. :slight_smile:

I see that you finally got it out after a few tries.

9

Now I’d suggest field-stripping the gun, and use the barrel as a ammunition sizing check-insert each round into the chamber-they should freely drop in-if they don’t, discard the round(s).

Best, Jon