Hi fellas………thought I’d post up some information about my Tanaka G17 and how I was able to turn mine into a great firing model, which it certainly wasn’t when it came out of the box.
When I first got mine, I took it out of the box, inspected it for proper lubrication and proceeded to load it up and give it a go. I had heard the Tanaka G17 was a pretty good firing model, so I had high expectations for performance.
I immediately had misfires (failure to fire) and failures to autoload/return to battery. I was maybe able to squeeze off a total of 10 rounds with no more than 5 or 6 of those being consistent and without any issue (as my memory recalls). In very short order, I had broken my first barrel – the integral feed ramp had broken away and the model was rendered useless until I could get a replacement barrel.
I chalked it up to being new and tight, hoping that everything would be good after it bedded in and the parts mated – slide to frame to barrel, etc. or just plain bad luck!
So, I got a replacement barrel, lubricated everything again and tried another time. Same results, only this time one of the jams resulted in the slide getting cracked!!!
Well, I had a choice to bin this thing or figure out what the heck was going on………..I decided on the latter and tore into the model. This time I paid close attention to everything as I inspected the parts during disassembly.
So, I am on my 3rd barrel now and checking things for fit and function. It seemed to me that the cartridge noses were hitting the feed ramp on the barrel at such an angle that autoloading was not smooth and creating stress on the barrel ramp. This would also be slowing down the slide due to the lack of smoothness in this part of the cycling process. Actuating and cycling by hand seemed to be acceptable, but sometimes I had to help the slide into 100% full forward position. I came to believe that the violence and speed of the action when firing was probably amplifying these inefficiencies and causing issues. That was my theory anyway and so I set out to improve this.
It seemed like the mag spring was quite weak and it was remotely possible that when the cartridge was being stripped from the mag by the slide, that it was not fully into its highest position. Not sure if this was an issue, but I did go ahead and replace the Tanaka mag spring with a cut real G17 mag spring to slightly increase the tension on the rounds.
Upon close inspection, there was excessive interference between the barrel hood area and the sides of my slide. The tolerance was simply too close and it was hanging up a bit more than it should. Interestingly enough, I found that the original barrel that had broken did not seem to have this clearance issue when I checked it. Just a note to anyone who does have to replace the barrel or slide, they may have to be slightly fitted to each other.
So, I have some micro-fine specialty modeling sandpaper that I sanded the sides of the barrel hood and a little on the inside of the slide until I felt good about the fit and clearances. I did not remove a lot of material, but did so checking fitment as I went. I can’t remember what grit I used, but it was probably 6000+ for the final passes on the parts, which left no evidence of the process.
Another possible culprit in all of this mess/something to be improved was the recoil spring guide and plunger. When the plunger was depressed into the recoil spring guide, it was inconsistent in rebounding and sometimes just did not return as it became lightly stuck in a partially compressed position. I think this affects the barrel stability and consistent tilt action during the autoloading process.
So, I chased the recoil spring guide opening with a drill bit and sanded/polished the sides of the plunger until the fit was very smooth and reliable.
I lubricated everything, buttoned it up and gave it a go! No problems since!
Hope this info may help out others out if they're experiencing any issues with a Tanaka G17. It seems to have worked for me.
Sun Dec 31, 2017 4:12 pm
