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Before firing the 3rd, check whether the slide is in full battery. .32acp is semi rimmed. It could rim lock if the top round’s rim gets behind the bottom round. When it happens the gun would misfeed.

My Mauser 1914 in .25acp does that occasionally with much less regularity. TL

Answer

Have you tried just loading three rounds to see if it does the same thing? If it works OK, try 4 then 5 etc. As stated above, it’s possible the follower/spring is hanging up at a certain point. This way you can determine where. Rick

Follow-up on question

If I load two rounds everything is ok. If I load three rounds the third will misfire. What is really weird is that the rest of the cartridges in the mag will fire with no problem. Like I said in my original post. Load eight, it’ll shoot the first two, then misfire. Rack the slide to remove and re-cock the weapon (you’d think that it would misfire again for the sixth round but it doesn’t.) Only the third round will misfire.

Do not have another magazine, hopefully I can get the owner to purchase a new mag (47.99) to see if that’s the problem. I have removed the spring and re-stretched it a bit. Same problem.

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Interesting….how would the magazine cause a misfire? Interesting, Ken

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I am thinking along the same line as TL. That somehow the third round is positioned different and maybe slowing the slide down enough to cause the slide not to go in full battery.

I would try loading up 4 rounds and slowly in a safe manner work the slide watching the position of the rounds as they feed .Look for any difference in the way the third round feeds or if it drags on the slide.

Working a semi auto slowly doesn’t work very well, so you might have to work each round faster manually watching and feeling for some difference. 😕

That would be my starting point.

Let us know what you find, always like to learn something new!

I would probably take out the firing pin and maybe remove the recoil spring that may give a better feel for any binding of the slide. Just trying to figure out a way to troubleshoot the problem. 😉 PJ

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I’d still start with the magazine, but I’d be sure to check the basics as well — head space, pin protrusion, etc. I might try loading three, firing tow and dropping the mag and inserting more rounds in it to see if the third round in the magazine is the issue or just the third round loading from the magazine. It would have to a goofy flaw in a magazine or spring to be consistently third and not first or last. Jeff

Reply  

So I purchased a new magazine for this gun. Guess what, it still did the same thing. So I backed up and started to look at the new firing pin that had been installed. I had fitted it some but not enough. I removed the slide and put a cartridge up against the bottom of the slide where it would be if installed in the frame. I put a good amount of pressure on the cartridge and moved the firing pin forward. Sure enough it caught on the rim of the case. I filed down the bottom of the firing pin body and got it fitted correctly. Works fine now. Thanks everyone for your input.

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Good work and thanks for the follow up. Rick