Please advise me on a Nelson conversion problem

Hello,

If you have time, would you please advise me on an equipment problem? My Nelson conversion is failing to feed. It is always on the second round. It fires once, then fails to feed. Regardless of whether I load five or ten rounds, it will fail to strip the second round from the magazine. And, it's never the third, fourth, or fifth round. It's always the second one. I tried three different magazines and it happens with all of them. I also tried changing out the main drive spring to an eight pound spring, then I tried a seven pound spring, and the problem has not gotten any better or worse. I tried taking the magazines apart and cleaning them and oiling the spring. It kept the problem at bay for about 50 rounds, but then it started back up again. What do you think the problem is?

Hi,  Need more info.  What ammo are you shooting?  What frame/lower is the Nelson mated to?  What exactly do you mean by "failing to feed"?  Describe the "failure".
Cheers,
Roddy

Did it happen with any other frame or is this your first frame you mounted it on? Same thing happened to me on a new frame but not the old one. I'd say it's mag release related, either try a different mag release or modify the slot on the magazine. I called Larry Nelson and he will walk you through on trouble shooting it. Do make sure you have your pistol and mags with you when you call him.
 They really bend over backwards to help, very nice of him. Their number: 480-699-8040
Stan

Yes, call Larry.
And

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t10865-nelson-unit-phantom-source-of-problems?highlight=Nelson

Sounds like a magazine release problem.  Again more info is needed, what are you calling a failure to feed?  Photo or complete description of the problem will give a better chance of a resolve.

james r chapman wrote:Yes, call Larry.
And

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t10865-nelson-unit-phantom-source-of-problems?highlight=Nelson

Thanks for sharing my post. After talking with Larry about all that and polishing that edge on the slide, he incorporated that into the new units. Units are marked with a number on the barrel to let you know what version, or iteration they’re on as they make minor changes or tweaks to the design. I believe they’re on #8 now or maybe #9. I spoke with Larry at Camp perry - it was really nice to finally meet him in person. And new units are radiussed better in that location to mimic the way a marvel is radiused. Does this solve everyone’s problems of failure to feed ornextract? No because we all use different springs and frames so each gun has to be tuned to run by itself. But it’s nice to know that they’re open to suggestions and info from a shooter who’s not a gunsmith. They took what I had to say, investigated it, and made a change. Big brand companies probably wouldn’t give me the time of day but Larry works with shooters to make sure you’re happy and that is priceless to me when dealing with this sport and guns that cost so much as it is.


As to the original post here in this thread.. I find it odd that the gun won’t pick up a specific round out of the magazine. Like it’s always number two.. but you could try making sure you have the right hammer spring, recoil spring and look at your slide to see if you have the edge I deleted from my gun too. With these conversions it about finding what it takes to get the slide to move at the right speed to function. Not too fast and not too slow. How do we figure that out? Try it, try it again, and keep trying till it works. Fortunately there are somematandards tomstart with that should work. 18 or 19 pound hammer spring and an eight pound recoil spring ought to work.

However - it may not be a spring issue at all. Might try a magazine release/catch that allows the mag to sit higher. Sometimes - depending on the frame/mag catch - the mag doesn’t sit high enough and we see feed issues.

Good luck.

I think the 2nd round is under the most mag spring pressure and changing the radius relieves some of the resistance.

When I first got my Marvel it choked on the second round right out of the box for the first few magazines, then ran fine.

Strange thing is, if I have it off of the frame and put it back on it does the same. Even just pulling a bore shake through it while on the frame, it will choke on the second round for the next few magazines, then run fine again.

A friend saw mine and he too bought a Marvel. I saw him a few weeks ago and his does exactly as mine does.

l just know to never clean it before a match, or to run three or four magazines through it if I do to get it running right.

Something about the second round regardless of ammo...

Mine when I first bought it choked on the second round.  I bought some gsg metal magazines and never had the problem again.....ever. Plastic mags gave me fits.  Can’t explain it but it works fine now with metal mags.

Mine does it on both the Marvel plastic and GSG steel magazines.

I would take 6 rounds and only load the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th. No 2nd round. Problem solved!

Definitely call Larry. He'll solve your issue.

I shot next  to Daniel at the match in question
..we tried an 8 and 7b recoil.spring as well as two new Nelson Mags i had with me.. the 7 lb spring got him through the last match but that has now failed apparently. If memory serves he's had the conversion for a while before the problem appeared..  the failure he has is that the second round is simply not stripped fron the mag.  Like a classic short stroke of the slide. I only saw it fail on the second round of a 5 round string. Jim is right about that round pressing the hardest on the slide thus more drag.

We had limited time to diagnose the issue as i had my own equipment "challenges" last weekend.

When I first got my Nelson conversion I had a similar problem. 
I noticed that the first round always seemed to eject weaker than the rest and would cause it to short stroke and not pick up the second round in the magazine. 

I asked a question about it here https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t4039-mainspring-weight-for-conversion. 

I changed the recoil spring and lowered the mainspring to #19 and that helped

I had a similar sounding problem with my Marvel. It's an older unit and has always run perfectly on dedicated Rock River frame.  It started not stripping the second round out of the magazine.  At first it was intermittent but then got worse.  I changed out the magazine release with my wad gun and the problem went away.  Eventually I got a new mag catch from the guys at Perry so both guns are back to normal parts.
It's an easy fix to try if you have spare 1911 around.

Good luck.
John

Thank you all for your help. By the way if you haven't met Mr. Glenn, he's a helpful person. I wouldn't have been able to compete in that EIC match without him. The only way to get my Nelson to stop malfunctioning was to replace that recoil spring, disassemble the pistol and the magazines, clean both thoroughly and apply a large amount of CLP oil. I oiled the ammo too. I put so much oil in everything that it was flying off the pistol as I was shooting...it was a bit much but I think all that oil is what barely kept it from malfunctioning. I ended up getting a gold pin. That was a tough match, with a lot of high scoring shooters, especially from the Georgia Army guard unit. I thought I was going to place, but they shot better than me and I think they took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

But I need a more permanent solution to keep this pistol cycling reliably. I'm going to call Larry and ask for help, as you suggested, and I'll also buy some of the steel magazines.

I'm shooting with a 9 mm Range Officer which I had to file down the ejector in, because it was too tall to work with the Nelson. And I'm using CCI SV ammo.

Maybe a temporary fix would be to load a high velocity round as the first round, and have the rest as CCI standard velocity. Maybe that would give the slide enough energy to overcome the friction. The first round is loading ok since I'm pulling the slide all the way back and releasing it, manually. The second round is hanging up, probably because there is too much spring tension, and thus too much friction. I'm trying to think of the science behind the problem.

I'm also going to bring an empty cardboard box with me, with the lid removed. I don't reload since I only shoot .22, but I noticed that the man to my right had to put up a chickenwire screen to defelct my brass. I'm going to use a box and stand it up on its side to trap my brass next time.

If your RO has the ILS mainspring or even a std mainspring you definitely need a lighter mainspring.. a 19lb should work fine and not affect the pistol when shot as a 9mm

jglenn21 wrote:If your RO has the ILS mainspring or even a std mainspring you definitely need a lighter mainspring.. a 19lb should work fine and not affect the pistol when shot as a 9mm

Yup. Also, the Brownells brand 22 conversion magazines work quite well with my Nelson. The spring tension on them is a little lighter.

Dave

What does it mean "mainspring?"

The “mainspring” refers to the spring driving the hammer. It is found in the “mainspring housing” at the rear base of the frame. The spring underneath the barrel is the recoil spring. Both of these springs affect function.

The lighter mainspring fixed it!
I shot a whole 2700 today with not a single malfunction.

Have you tried calling Nelson?  They are not always easy to catch but when you catch them they are just great to talk to and my impression is that they really know what they are doing.  They helped me out over the phone and they don't seem to want problems like yours existing with their product.  Good luck.  I haven't had your problem.

Daniel's problem was ultimately resolved by the use of a 19lb mainspring. Or at least it.was last time we talked

I had a similar experience with my Nelson and CCI SV , 1070 fps,when new. It would choke on the second round at least half the time. I was shooting in a timed event where extreme accuracy was not needed but a ftf was a game changer. I solved the immediate problem by loading a HV round on top of each magazine. Then the second round would feed and fire every time. A switch to Eley SV, 1090 fps, fixed it. The extra 20 fps made the difference. I have not gone back and tried CCI but it will probably work ok now that everything is broken in. (20,000 rounds).

CO1Mtn wrote:.........I tried taking the magazines apart and cleaning them and oiling the spring. It kept the problem at bay for about 50 rounds, but then it started back up again.......

If this is a fix, but it lasts for only about 50 rounds, that sounds like good clue for where to look.  

If the gun is repeatedly not loading the second round, and you remove the magazine, clean and oil the spring, then re-assemble, and if it now works for 50 or so rounds, it sounds like something is "changing" with the magazine.  Does this happen only with one magazine, or with many?

There might well be other problems, but this sounds very suspicious to me.