Went to the range to day with my P-22, PT-111 and P-3AT. Not freezing here in Houston today, nice bright sunny weather about in the high 40's. No problems with 150 rounds each through the P-22 and the PT-111. Had some major problems with failure to eject with the P-3AT using American Eagle. No problems with my carry ammo for the P-3AT as I shot the first mag +1 through the gun then switched over to the AE. Man my gun does not like this suff >. Had failures to eject at least once on every mag (5 rounds at a time). Ok, so I check the screw for the extractor. Remains tight as it is Locktighed in. After running the 50 rounds of AE through, ran my second mag of carry ammo to check. No problems with this, each fired round ejected with no problems. Anybody else had this problem with AE? I definatly will not be using it again. Jim
Hmmm, that's backwards of my P3ATs. When I had trouble with them, they generally fire the AE flawlessly, no matter what other ammo wouldn't work. American Eagle and Independence seems to work no matter what in mine, however Winchester, Remington, Magtech, Blazer Brass, Summit, and some others all hiccuped when I had trouble.
Every gun is different. Even if you have 10 members post in this thread stating that AE works fine the fact of the matter is that it doesn't in yours. Maybe you got a bad batch. I realize that .380 ammo is hard to come by, so you best option is to try another brand of fmj and go from there.
Entirely possible that the AE may be a bad batch. I have run Winchester, Remington and Parzivan as well as Gold Dots without a problem through this gun. Seems like what happened is that the slide did not fully cyle back and reloaded the casing or it would jam on the next round up like the round did not have enough power to fully cycle. May try the AE again but not for a while.
As much as I love the P3At it is one of the pickiest little outfits when it comes to ammo selection that I've ever owned. My P11 is almost as bad. Neither one like WWB, and the P11 hates Independence ammo with a passion. Just find what works for you and stick with it.
If you think the P-3AT is picky, get a new Walther P-22 If you do, break it in with a whole bunch of CCI mini mags (at least 500 to 700 rounds). Would not reliably shoot anything else for this period. Will now shoot Remington Golden Bullets and Winchester as well as some Federal (40 grain solid) The reason why I originally bought the AE was to see if the gun liked it. ;D Obviously not! Will be trying some WWB next go. Hope it works.
My P3AT has cycled every ammo I've ever fed it including AE. I even handload very light range fodder and never had a cycling issue. I can honestly say it's the most reliable gun I've ever owned. It didn't even jam during break in. But each gun has its own likes and dislikes. For instance, my PF-9 will not cycle WWB. That's just how it is sometimes.
In trying to figure out why my P-380 did not cycle the AE, the only thing different regarding the gun was my choice of grease on the slide. Used a lighter grease made for fishing reels and quite possibly did not stick as well as the moly grease I had been using. It was pretty thin. Will be trying some Speer Lawman next. (Only thing available at my LGS yesterday.
