Ready for a novel?
So if anyone has followed the saga of my shadow 2 I've definitely had some issues even though this gun is awesome. For the most part they've been ironed out but I've got a couple thousand rounds down range and wanted to go over some of the issues I've been facing and see if I'm handling them correctly.
I had a lot of failure to eject my first day. After extractot reassembly this issue seemed to fix itself. I made some spring mods from CGW (11 lbs recoil and 11.5 hammer and extended firing pin) which had a drastically positive effect on my trigger feel. However, I've still had intermittent FTE.
I'm wondering if the intermittent FTE is due to my lube choices or ammo choices or both. From the beginning, I started using moly lube (CGW) on the rails as recommended here (oil everywhere else internally) and didn't have any issues for a long while. I'm am very liberal with all of my lube. After some shots and dry cycling it comes out the back of the rails and everything. I just wipe it and keep going. One day I switched to a PTFE grease (for guns) on the rails and the FTE returned (just one night for some training). I went back to the moly and everything was fine again.
This week I shot some Winchester steel case through the shadow 2 and had MANY FTE's during a training session. Every 2 shots or so. When this happened I had recently done a cleaning and used only gun oil for lubrication (as recommended by someone who said I should ease up on the lube until my gun breaks in in a few thousand more rounds)
When I cleaned it out afterward there was A LOT of carbon chunks stuck in the extractor groove. I assume this caused some of the FTE problem from the dirty ammo.
My issue is, my gun shouldn't be finicky. I completely disagree with the whole "my gun will only cycle this ammo" mentality. My gun should work, every time.
So to add to this, I always basically dump oil into the extractor because I don't want carbon chunks causing too much friction creating the FTE's. It seems to either work sometimes or not matter at all.
Should I not lubricate the extractor area so much? I know the oil can attract stuff but I keep that area really wet and figure being that wet it shouldn't have too much crap in it. Should I buy a new extractor from CGW? Today I put in a new extractor spring.
I know steel case ammo is dirty and a bit harder on the gun but I see people with shadow 2's that have run flawless for thousands of rounds with very few cleanings and I find it unacceptable to have so many malfunctions on mine. I also don't want to send it to CZ because it'll take 6 weeks and there's no guarantees they can recreate the issue.
So, how do you treat your shadows? Should I keep heavily lubing the extractor? Not at all? Use grease in there when I disassemble? Should I get a new extractor and see what that does?
On a separate note, I notice my recoil spring buffer looks pretty smashed in after shooting some 125 and 147 gr loads. They weren't hot or anything but do any of you think I should up the recoil spring weight or is it all good and the buffer is just doing its job?
So if anyone has followed the saga of my shadow 2 I've definitely had some issues even though this gun is awesome. For the most part they've been ironed out but I've got a couple thousand rounds down range and wanted to go over some of the issues I've been facing and see if I'm handling them correctly.
I had a lot of failure to eject my first day. After extractot reassembly this issue seemed to fix itself. I made some spring mods from CGW (11 lbs recoil and 11.5 hammer and extended firing pin) which had a drastically positive effect on my trigger feel. However, I've still had intermittent FTE.
I'm wondering if the intermittent FTE is due to my lube choices or ammo choices or both. From the beginning, I started using moly lube (CGW) on the rails as recommended here (oil everywhere else internally) and didn't have any issues for a long while. I'm am very liberal with all of my lube. After some shots and dry cycling it comes out the back of the rails and everything. I just wipe it and keep going. One day I switched to a PTFE grease (for guns) on the rails and the FTE returned (just one night for some training). I went back to the moly and everything was fine again.
This week I shot some Winchester steel case through the shadow 2 and had MANY FTE's during a training session. Every 2 shots or so. When this happened I had recently done a cleaning and used only gun oil for lubrication (as recommended by someone who said I should ease up on the lube until my gun breaks in in a few thousand more rounds)
When I cleaned it out afterward there was A LOT of carbon chunks stuck in the extractor groove. I assume this caused some of the FTE problem from the dirty ammo.
My issue is, my gun shouldn't be finicky. I completely disagree with the whole "my gun will only cycle this ammo" mentality. My gun should work, every time.
So to add to this, I always basically dump oil into the extractor because I don't want carbon chunks causing too much friction creating the FTE's. It seems to either work sometimes or not matter at all.
Should I not lubricate the extractor area so much? I know the oil can attract stuff but I keep that area really wet and figure being that wet it shouldn't have too much crap in it. Should I buy a new extractor from CGW? Today I put in a new extractor spring.
I know steel case ammo is dirty and a bit harder on the gun but I see people with shadow 2's that have run flawless for thousands of rounds with very few cleanings and I find it unacceptable to have so many malfunctions on mine. I also don't want to send it to CZ because it'll take 6 weeks and there's no guarantees they can recreate the issue.
So, how do you treat your shadows? Should I keep heavily lubing the extractor? Not at all? Use grease in there when I disassemble? Should I get a new extractor and see what that does?
On a separate note, I notice my recoil spring buffer looks pretty smashed in after shooting some 125 and 147 gr loads. They weren't hot or anything but do any of you think I should up the recoil spring weight or is it all good and the buffer is just doing its job?