Nelson issue

I shoot a Nelson with Aguila pistol match. Never had a problem with this combo. I run the lighter spring... I believe 8lbs. Recently it started to have a few failures and I’m not sure if it’s ammo, magazine, or extractor issue maybe. Typically on the first round of a mag one of two things happen. One, it fires and cycles properly but the next round is still in the mag and doesn’t chamber. Or two, it fires but the brass never leaves the chamber. Any guidance on what to start looking at? Thanks

My Marvel will do that on very rare occasions. When it does I clean the chamber with a bent brass brush and the problem goes away.

lablover wrote:My Marvel will do that on very rare occasions. When it does I clean the chamber with a bent brass brush and the problem goes away.

Funny enough That’s the first thing I did. Maybe timed for a deeper cleaning

I found sometimes my grip puts pressure on the base of the magazine not allowing loading of the next round.

I’ve only had it happen when temperatures drop. Dropped down a pound on recoil spring and worked perfect again.
Jon

Jon Eulette wrote:I’ve only had it happen when temperatures drop. Dropped down a pound on recoil spring and worked perfect again.
Jon

I did that a month or two ago because of that reason. But I’m at the lowest spring weight. I might try different ammo next

Could try a lighter mainspring, if the lower is dedicated. What are you running right now?

Dave

You can use smith 41 springs in them wolff has 7 and 7.5 lb springs

Do the "plop" test and see if a round will drop completely to the rim and fall back out under its own weight.  If not clean the chamber until it will and see if the problem goes away.

A new recoil spring solved that for me on my Marvel.

I have had mine not feed the second round a couple of times.  I thought the mag was fully inserted, but it was only 99.9% inserted.  A light push got it firmly seated.  I try and take some care not to rest the pistol on the mag base when at the firing line.

The slide may be losing energy due to tough extraction of round one and not cycling far back enough to strip round two.

As others have said, check the chamber.  Even if recently cleaned, you may have some lead shaving in there or debris around the extractor preventing it from grabbing as well as it should or in the cartridge rim recess cut in the breech face which keeping the hook from getting around the edge of the shell casing.

One often overlooked condition with the conversions are that the main spring is just as important as the recoil spring.
The action must cock the hammer and I found reducing to an #18 main spring solved much of the exact same issue for me.
I also found that the slide was riding on the hammer and had to compress the spring during cycling thus slowing the slid still more.
I contoured the hammer face so that it still hit the face of the firing pin but no longer rubbed the slide during cycle.

G

I had similar problems when I was running CCI SV and Aguila SV in my Nelson, mostly in cold weather. I was shooting a steel match where gilt edge accuracy was not as important as reliability so I loaded a high velocity round on top of the magazine, no more first round fte’s. When I went to CMP Eley ammo, all of the problems went away no matter the temperature. Accuracy is as good as CCI.

What jglenn and KC said