Dogs, below is a copy of an email I sent to Springfield Armory. I was (and guess still am) very concerned.


I had an interesting and disturbing occurrence at the range today while sighting in my New RDS on my Hellcat. I was shooting Wolf Gold 124gr brass cased (ball) ammo, so there was no +P loads. On the 5th shot out of the magazine (after firing a full 50 rounds), the gun locked up. There was a live round in the chamber but the gun would not fire and the slide WOULD NOT come out of battery.

Upon inspection I noticed the recoil spring assembly (yes factory) had came out of the gun forward approximately 1/4 inch or just a bit more. I could physically push the assembly back into the gun about half that distance.

Nothing worked. The slide would not move backward, nor would the barrel move reward nor “tip down”. After pushing on the recoil assembly I was finally able to get a small screwdriver into the “loaded chamber” slot and get the slide and barrel to finally separate enough to get the barrel to tilt downward far enough that I was finally able to get the action to function normally. I hand cycled the gun approximately 20 times and The slide would rack back normally, the barrel would tilt down correctly and the trigger would finally work. I have NOT tried to fire the gun again with a live round to see if it will function normally.

Have you had any reports of this happening to other guns? I am greatly concerned as this is my CCW gun and after working in Law Enforcement for 25 years (and finally retiring) I religiously carry a gun as I know the evil that is out there.

Any information, you can give me would be very greatly appreciated. Perhaps all that is needed is a newer recoil spring assembly.

For your information I only have 200-250 rounds through this gun with only 25 being “duty” loads.