Rounds not feeding from magazine - causes?

[reckoner]

Today at an IDPA match, I had a malfunction that I had never seen before. A round did not feed properly from the magazine, and instead, the bullet end was shoved downward into the magazine, with the primer end sticking upwards. See the attached picture for a dramatization.

• Gun: Beretta 8040 (.40 S&W)
• Ammo: Remingon UMC FMJ
• Happened twice with two different magazines, one old, and one relatively new. Both are factory mags.
• Happened both times in the middle of the magazine
• Has not happened before in the ~10 years I've owned the gun
• Magazine feed lips look good

The only thing I can think of that might cause this is that the night before, I swapped out the hammer spring with a lighter Cougar D spring. Can this cause a magazine to misfeed in this manner by screwing with the recoil timing? Should I install a stiffer recoil spring to make up for the lighter hammer spring? Or is the hammer spring a red herring?

What else can cause this type of malfunction? Dirty magazines? I rarely clean my mags.

Thanks for your help.

[Chaos47]

My very uneducated guess would be that the follower is getting stuck (possibly dirty mags) allowing the rounds to take a nose dive.

Is it just the top round and none of the rounds below it?

[reckoner]

My very uneducated guess would be that the follower is getting stuck (possibly dirty mags) allowing the rounds to take a nose dive.

Is it just the top round and none of the rounds below it?

Yep, just the top round.

I'm not sure if this malfunction happens consistently for all rounds in the magazine; both times it happened, I dropped the mag and inserted a new one.

[cineski]

Clean your mags and see if that fixes it. If not, I'd replace the magazine springs with new and or beefier ones. That's a classic symptom of weak magazine springs.

[JTROKS]

Usually USPSA and IDPA shooters will install +10 mag springs not lighter springs. If you did not have that problem before you made the change more than likely the light mag springs are the cause of the problem.

[zfields]

Clean your mags and see if that fixes it. If not, I'd replace the magazine springs with new and or beefier ones. That's a classic symptom of weak magazine springs.

+1.

[9mmepiphany]

A round did not feed properly from the magazine, and instead, the bullet end was shoved downward into the magazine, with the primer end sticking upwards.
[*]Has not happened before in the ~10 years I've owned the gun

This isn't an uncommon stoppage and is usually referred to as the top round nose diving into the magazine...it might have been made more dramatic by your ejection of the magazine (they commonly will drop lip first due to the weight of the cartridge column)

If you have gotten 10 years service out of the magazine springs, you're way ahead...it is time to change them. I'd recommend the Wolfe +10 magazine springs....USPSA competitors change their magazine springs at least yearly. Cleaning your magazines at the same time would be a good idea...I usually clean mine once a year. Competition mags get cleaned more often...at least every other match

[reckoner]

Thanks for the replies. I cleaned all my mags today and they were pretty filthy. I'll order some new mag springs from Brownell's and hopefully that'll take care of that.

[zfields]

Thanks for the replies. I cleaned all my mags today and they were pretty filthy. I'll order some new mag springs from Brownell's and hopefully that'll take care of that.

Order the +5% wolf ones if available.