# Stoeger Cougar (Beretta from Turkey) problem



## WingZeroEddie (Feb 9, 2020)

With no particular rhyme or reason, my cougar had started jamming on me recently. I'm fairly new to all this, but this is failure to eject, right? I was worried about the barrel being dirty, but I've cleaned it very well after each use and that doesn't seem to be it. I've got a Beretta 92a1 that I was using today as well, same ammo, no problems. Anyone else have this problem? Advice?


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## berettatoter (Sep 1, 2011)

Weak extractor. Does other ammo brands do this too? How bout aluminum and nickle plated cases?


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## denner12 (Oct 14, 2017)

I believe berettatoter is spot on about the extractor. It would be the first thing I'd look at replacing, definitely looks like a failure to extract.

I would not be surprised if the extractor is worn, chipped, broken, or the extractor spring is bad. Also, you may have sludge or buildup under the extractor and or spring.

I would definitely get a new extractor and spring along with a good cleaning of the extractor channel with Hoppes and then light oil.

A relatively cheap and easy fix. If not, at least it's something you can alleviate from the equation.


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## denner12 (Oct 14, 2017)

On a further note, is this happening with all your magazines? If you have lesser quality magazines the feed lips may be letting the top round release before the round in the chamber can be extracted, but I doubt this is the issue if you are using factory mags.

But I've used promags, and cheap gun show mags with weak feed lips giving the same result. I once bought an after market 33 round mag that looked like it was made in someones garage and the rounds shot out of the magazine due to the weak feeds lips, lol.


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## fadlirya (Oct 31, 2019)

denner12 said:


> On a further note, is this happening with all your magazines? If you have lesser quality magazines the feed lips may be letting the top round release before the round in the chamber can be extracted, but I doubt this is the issue if you are using factory mags.
> 
> But I've used promags, and cheap gun show mags with weak feed lips giving the same result. I once bought an after market 33 round mag that looked like it was made in someones garage and the rounds shot out of the magazine due to the weak feeds lips, lol.


+1


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## pblanc (Mar 3, 2015)

As others have indicated, this is a failure to extract, not a failure to eject. Probably not a magazine issue although that is possible. Magazines with distorted feed lips can lead to true double feeds. That is when the pistol feeds an unfired round into the chamber and a second round pops out of the magazine behind it. That is not what you have here since there is an obvious firing pin strike on the primer of the case in the chamber.

Clean and inspect the breech face on the slide and pay special attention to the extractor hook. Make sure that the extractor can move outboard freely and is not bound in the slide. Also take out your barrel and perform the "plunk" test with the ammo you were using. Simply hold the barrel muzzle end down and drop an unfired cartridge into the chamber. It should drop in freely. If it doesn't, the chamber is either very dirty or out of round, assuming the ammo is in spec.

The rotary barrel lock up mechanism on the Cougar pistols has a tendency to bind if it gets too dry or dirty. That alone would probably not result in a failure to extract, but it could contribute to malfunctions if there were other issues.


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## WingZeroEddie (Feb 9, 2020)

Thanks for all the advice, guys, and I'll try to hit all the replies at once since I'm short on time. I was leaving toward it being an extractor issue, and that sounds likely. I'm using two different factory mags, so not likely influencing anything. It's happened with a couple of ammo brands, which didn't happen with another gun I was using, so I can't blame that either. The barrel looks perfect, but I haven't tried a "plunk test" to check for any warping. The shells do seem to fall right out when I tilt the gun, so again I'm back to the extractor. It does move and doesn't appear too dirty, but I suppose I need to look at a deeper clean combined with a new part. 
Thanks again, guys!


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## pblanc (Mar 3, 2015)

One other question. Your photos show a fired case still mostly in the chamber with the next unfired round still fully within the magazine, or so it appears. With the usual failure to extact, you see a fired case still in the chamber with the next unfired round jammed against the case head of the fired round because the slide has tried to strip the next round from the magazine and feed it.

Do you know if the slide fully cycled when you had these malfunctions? A slide that did not fully cycle might not have stripped the next round from the magazine and might not have ejected the fired round because the empty case did not strike the ejector. A failure to eject usually results in a stovepipe with brass caught in the ejection port between the slide and the barrel, but sometimes an empty case that is not ejected can get fed back into the empty barrel. This would be somewhat more likely to occur with the Cougar than it would be with tilt-barrel lock-up designs because of the straight in-line barrel and feed path.


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## denner12 (Oct 14, 2017)

pblanc said:


> A failure to eject usually results in a stovepipe with brass caught in the ejection port between the slide and the barrel.


Well, I disagree somewhat, at least when you say " A failure to eject usually results in a stovepipe." The OP's pics I would contend is just as usual and a classic failure to extract/eject regardless of the type of action in my opinion. I'm not saying your observation may be a scenario, but I highly doubt it. A "*Failure to Extract*" occurs when the slide or bolt move backwards, but the empty cartridge case remains behind in the chamber. In this situation, a new live cartridge may sometimes be forced into the base of the old case and the slide stays open and the firearm becomes jammed. In other terms "A classic double feed scenario, or if you want to get technical a "Type III Malfunction w/o a stovepipe."


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## mdi (Jan 11, 2020)

I'm not a Betetta/Stoeger expert, but is is obvious the extractor is not pulling the fired case out far enough to be ejected. Not arguing with "correct terminology", but the fired case is not being extracted fully from the chamber. I would inspect the extractor, perhaps it is not engaging the groove in the case and slips off. Extractor spring? Rough chamber? Hot, difficult extracting loads?


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## pblanc (Mar 3, 2015)

Failures to extract and failures to eject are two different things so I wouldn't lump them together as failures to extract/eject. Failures to extract are usually indicative of a problem with the extractor, but can be due to multiple other problems such as an out-of-round barrel, out of spec ammunition, and sometimes result from shooting steel case ammunition as a result of steel's lesser ductility. Screwing up the cyclic rate of a semi-automatic firearm can also result in failures to extract, as occurred with early versions of the M16 when the Army decided to use cartridges loaded with ball powder.

Some failures to eject can be related to extractor issues such as when the extractor looses control of the extracted case before the case hits the ejector. Model 1911 pistols with improperly tensioned extractors are notorious for this, but it certainly occurs with other semi-auto pistols as well.  But failures to eject that have nothing to do with the extractor also occur as a result of a poorly designed or deformed ejector, "limp wristing" the pistol, an inadequately sized ejection port, or once again an improper cyclic rate with a slide that returns forward too quickly and traps the fired case between the slide and the barrel resulting in a stovepipe. This last cause can be due to improper recoil spring tension or an overpowered ammunition load, for example.

Stovepipe jams are far and away the most common result of failures to eject and should not be confused with failures to extract. But in some instances a fired case that is extracted but not ejected can be pushed back into the chamber by the reciprocating slide. I understand that this malfunction can sometimes be called a failure to extract/eject because it is not always immediately clear whether an issue with the extractor is involved. But in order to properly diagnose the cause of such a failure, it is important to realize that many failures to eject have nothing to do with extraction issues.

Here is an article on going about how to diagnose failures to extract and failures to eject:

https://aegisacademy.com/blogs/test-blog-post/diagnosing-pistol-malfunctions-part-3-failure-to-eject

The article is not bad but I do object to the author describing some failures to extract as "double feeds". It is common to do so since in many cases of failures to extract, a fresh cartridge is stripped from the magazine and jammed into the case head of the fired case which remains in the chamber. But true double-feeds occur in which two unfired cartridges come out of the magazine during the same slide cycle, with one cartridge feeding into the chamber, and the second cartridge jammed against the back of it. I think it is important to distinguish this malfunction from the garden-variety failure to extract for a couple of reasons. First, it leaves a live round in the chamber, which is not the case with the usual failure to extract. Second, it is usually a result of a magazine problem such as deformed feed lips and has nothing to do with the extractor, whereas failures to extract are usually (but not always) due to extractor issues of some type.


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