The title of this page mentions 9mm but the .45 Dissent and .45 FE Banshee also uses the same FP as the 9mm. I just don’t shoot .45 as much so have not encountered failures yet. So the fix I document here also applies to .45ACP.
Bear in mind I had FP failures with the original spring loaded ejector Banshee’s as well. Back then I switched to a Titanium FP which never broke even after 40K rounds. The old spring loaded ejector Banshee uses a standard AR15 FP.
Fast forward to today, the 9mm Dissent and FE Banshee’s use a new design as pictured below but you can see I have had many failures and it isn’t just me. I’ve seen several posts on the failures. A couple threads referenced below.
As you can see above, a standard AR15 is the same overall length as the Dissent / FE Banshee FP but I think you should have a ‘shoulder’ to match the factory pin.
What you see pictured is a stainless spacer I got from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5WGJ469?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
These are 4mm ID, 8mm OD and 6mm height.
With my calipers, I measure a depth of .033″ from the face of the bolt with a brand new bolt and factory FP.
With those 6mm high bushings they should be a little too high but I’ve seen with some FP’s they work with no mods but again, you need to do your own due diligence.
Why a Titanium FP?
- I am eliminating the use of the FP spring which you can see has been another point of failure. My thought process is that a standard AR doesn’t have a FP spring but I think CMMG added one to prevent slam fires. Titanium being lighter should help prevent that vs the steel FP that CMMG uses.
- Note that pistol primers are easier to set off than rifle primers. Since we are talking 9mm here, they would have been loaded with softer pistol primers not rifle primers.
I have not had any evidence of slam firing with this setup.
Where to get the Titanium FP’s?
The black one pictured was from here: https://www.totalwartactical.com/product/ar15-titanium-firing-pin-aerospace-grade-5-high-quality-lightweight-upgrade/
However, they have not been in stock for a long time.
I also got some from from HKparts.net but the OD was too large and had to be modified to fit even a mlispec bolt. This leads me to say that you really need to do your own due diligence to measure the amount of protrusion you get with your factory pin and make sure you are not exceeding that with your Titanium pin and spacer combo as there are dimensional differences with various FP’s out there.
If you do a Google search you will find several Titanium AR FP’s for sale. You just need to again check your protrusion yourself with whatever FP and spacer you acquire.
Some other options given to me by one of my customers:
“With this bushing I get .32 firing pin protrusion with a BCM firing pin and .29 with a ICRW titanium firing pin. My FE Banshee OEM protrusion is .34 so its within the AR15 .28-.36 range. So little to no modification/trimming at all to the bushing!” https://www.mcmaster.com/92320a808/
This same customer also sent me this:
https://www.mcmaster.com/92320A521/
https://www.mcmaster.com/9452K15/
This bushing measured 4.74 mm in length. Reducing it to 4.5 yielded perfect results.
Firing pin protrusion without compressing the O-ring was .15 making a OOBD impossible.
Firing pin protrusion with O-ring compressed is .28-.32
I have not tried his suggestion of using the O-ring. I have been running custom bushings I have made on my lathe but recently starting use one of the cheap bushings I got off Amazon.