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Weird problem.

The Mrs. has a very nice Browning Buck Mark Camper. I bought it second-hand, but it is immaculate. She has fired a thousand or so rounds through it with no problem except the occasional failure to fire (about 1%), which is normal for .22LR. We have been using Remington Golden Bullets, which seem to the the best currently available.

Today she was doing failure-to-fire drills, ejecting rounds that had actually not been fired; and the slide locked up in the closed position. All my strength (which is not impressive) could retract the slide only about 1 millimeter.

Before this occurrence, she had probably fired 200 rounds in about 20 minutes (steel plates quake in fear at her name ). The ambient temperature was around 90°F and the sunlight was intense. The pistol did not feel much hotter than ambient.

So we went home. I researched the issue on the internets and could find no similar account.

Then I retracted the slide in the usual way, and it operated normally. The chamber was empty.

I cycled a number of rounds through the pistol. Being at home in town, I could not fire them.

Any ideas?



- Jim

Did the top round in the mag look damaged at all?

I just picked up the ejected, unfired round and put it back in the box, so I don't know. Nothing jumped out at me.

- Jim

That's the only thought that I had, is that somehow there was a FTF and the round in the top of the mag somehow jammed the slide....

It was not an actual failure to fire. Just me saying, "cycle the slide now."

- Jim

Did you remove the magazine before trying to cycle it at home? I would also guess something in the magazine jammed the slide and removing the magazine fixed the problem. I have never had a problem like that with my Buckmark, so I am just guessing.

I don't know anything about the Buckmark, but, was the safety on? It appears from the photo you posted that the safety blocks the slide. If it was on, or just barely engaged it could have blocked the slide.

srothstein wrote:Did you remove the magazine before trying to cycle it at home?

My wife dropped the magazine after she couldn't pull back the slide. The magazine was out when I was trying to work the slide, and it was not put back in until I was cycling the pistol after it miraculously recovered.

I thought that a round had been chambered at the range, before the slide jammed, and I was very nervous about having a pistol in an unknown condition in the car on the way home.

The safety was not on during all this excitement, and I made sure that it was fully off.

It is on in that photo because I prefer not to take photos of situations that look unsafe.

- Jim

I have the same pistol minus the cool grips and I have never had that particular issue. My slide was a little tough to pull back when I first go it, and it also would make my fingers sore from the aggressive serrations on the slide, but never anything like you described. Clean it good and try it again...good luck.

Thanks.

I should mention that the grip of a Buck Mark is quite large, larger than the grip many of larger-caliber pistols. It's meant to be a bulls-eye pistol if that's what you want to do with it.

The standard rubber grip makes it bigger than it needs to be.

These wood grip stocks are more trim and are readily available online.

- Jim