help. 1911 problem

[willyjixx]

out at the range today with my colt mkIV series 70.

i was shooting Winclean .45 235gr

i get a misfire an it locks back kinda half way. cant figure out why so i drop the mag an clear it. i lock it all the way back an then try to release the slide to closed battery. it only gets half way when it stops. closer inspection shows the plate that holds the firing pin in has came loose an lowere 1/2 way down.

how in hell did it do this. it was clean an well lubricated. ????

is this a freak accident? kinda normal .................

or a time to overhaul at a gunsmith incidident?

 

[Cactus]

Sounds like it's time to get a new firing pin spring. If this does not solve the problem, you should replace the firing pin stop with one that fits tighter.

 

[Jim K]

The advice from Cactus is correct. What happens is that when the gun is fired the slide kicks the hammer back, out of touch with the slide (I know the pictures in the books don't show this, but it is true). If things happen in just the wrong way, the hammer is not touching the firing pin stop and the the firing pin is still forward, so the recoil of the pistol upward leaves the firing pin stop trying to move down (see Mr. Newton on this). In a given gun, this tends to happed with some ammunition more than with other types.

A stronger firing pin spring returns the firing pin faster and almost always fixes the problem.

Jim

 

[willyjixx]

stands to reason an sounds cheaper than a Gunsmith!

thanks fellas. wolf here i come.

 

[1911Tuner]

Awwww, Shucks!

See what I get for goin' ta bed early?I miss out on the good ones.

This one gave me a chuckle. One of the guys from the range...which is
nearly an hour's drive from me (Highway time) knocked on my door with
a new XSE Commander that was locked up from the same problem.
(He lives 45 minutes from the range in the OPPOSITE direction) He
was all bug-eyed and upset...thought something' in the gun had busted.
"Can ya fix it? Do ya think you can fix it???"

So I eyeball all serious-like

Now, understand...I woulda popped in a new spring and sent him on
his way, 'cept for the fact that he's one of these young upstarts who reads books and figgers that because he can detail-strip the piece and get it
back together without parts left over...Well, ya'll get the picture.
I was helpin' a guy get an extractor problem worked out one fine mornin' back last October, and he walked over and told me that I was doin' it
all wrong...and that the extractor would break in less than a thousand rounds from doin' that...Told me that I had to have Wiegand's little
fixture to do it right. Showed me a busted (MIM) extractor to prove it.
Then he proceeded to pick up my fresh-built pistol to examine it...without
askin'...and let the slide go from lockback with the mag out.

I told him that if he did that again, that he had just bought it. THEN we got
into a discussion about how it wouldn't hurt anything...:banghead:
So I rolled my eyes and got on with the job at hand before I lost my temper. THEN he tells me that if Iwant to learn a littlemore about the
1911, that he'll be glad to help....I think it was that little smirk on his
face that did it.

Why did he come to me? Jim Tosco was on the range the day it happened,
and gave him directions to my house...The kid was so panic-stricken, he
drove straight up without even makin'sure I was home.

Anyways...fast-forward to the busted XSE...I told him that I probably could,
and that he could come back for it in a week. I replaced the spring, and
un-buggered the firing pin stop where he had repeatedly pulled the slide
back and let it fly, tryin' to get the pistol back in battery. Took
the pistol with me for the next range trip to "test-fire" it Brought it back
home and detailed itand cleaned itup.( Hey...I'm not a total jerk. It
was the least I could do after shootin' it 100 times) Called him..collect...
to tell him that the gun was okay. (Went ahead and replaced the FP stop,
just because I was feelin'guilty for yankin' his chain so bad) Didn't charge
him a dime except for parts.

When he asked what was wrong, I gave him a lame explanation about
the link's geometry bein' a little outta whack causin' it to stop the slide
and all, (He had also given me an explanation on how important the link was for correct lockup) but it was all fixed now and he could trust the gun again...Yeah, I tuned his extractor for him too, because I was feelin' REAL bad at this point. I may tell him the truth next time I see him...I dunno.
He sorta had it comin' I guess... What do ya'll think? Should I come
clean or let it go?

 

[Delmar]

Tuner-why not invite him to check out THR? I could easily forgive his lack of understanding as to how a 1911 operates. I'm still learning things 34 years after my first issued pistol-thanks to you and many others here on TFL

However, the boy needs some serious education in the ways of grabbing others property and mishandling it! Try that with the wrong person and he could easily be wiping a bloody nose!

I kind of know how you feel. I have a friend at work who is pretty much a gunstore commando. He did not know how to properly handle a 1911-letting the slide fly on empty chambers and such, but he has a good heart so I have spent some time with him both on and off the range and he is getting the picture.

All depends on if the kid is worth it, in the end.

 

[1911Tuner]

re: The Kid

Delmar said:

All depends on if the kid is worth it, in the end.

Yeah...I reckon he is.

Got another one...niece's boyfriend. He's a WSPD recruit that never
handled a gun in his life until 3months ago, and now he's our resident
expert. (My brother-in-law is a WSPD rising captain who just shakes his head and grins) Says he lets the slide slam on his Sig all the time...Amanda
reports that he sits around watchin' TV and does it a lot. Real macho stuff.
I told him it would break his gun...His reply was that I had a lot to learn
about autopistols, and that he would be glad to help me...

Well...we can only hope that when the gun breaks, it's not on the street.

The kid with the Colt XSE is salvageable. THR will do him some good.
Bad Brad is beyond help. His mind's made up and he won't allow a fact
to interfere.

Onward....

Tuner

 

[willyjixx]

ok...........


why are you not supposed to let the slide slam shut on an empoty chamber?

gee. i feel kinda smart. when it was stuck half locked i just made sure it was clear and empty an visually checked it out. thats when i noticed that little firing pin stop half way out. pushed it back up in there an no more problems. gonna replace that spring anyway though.

thanks again fellas!

this is my 1st 1911 an its well used. figure if i keep this one runnin for a while i might get another one.

 

[1911Tuner]

Slammin' it

willy asked:

why are you not supposed to let the slide slam shut on an empoty chamber?

Howdy willy,

Remove the barrel from your pistol and slip the slidestop pin through the link. Pivot the pin back into the concave radius of the lower lug's
feet. When the slide slams to battery with ammo in the gun, those
two little feet and the slidestop pin absorb the full shock of that 15 ounce
slide propelled by that 16-pound spring.

If the feet get beaten rearward, the barrel linkdown timing will be delayed.
If it gets done often enough, it can be delayed to the point of peening or
shear off the locking lugs on top of the barrel with damage to the slide too.
The lug feet can break, or the whole lug can crack.

It causes the slidestop pin to elongate its hole in the frame, and can break the pin or crack the frame adjacent to the pin hole.

Move to the hammer and sear. The slide bangs home, jerking the pistol
forward sharply. The hammer tries to obey Newton's law to remain at
rest, and the sear/hammer hook engagement is broken. The hammer "bounces" off the sear, and back on again. This can damage the
sear's primary angle, and it doesn't do the hammer hooks any good, weither. Done often enough, something can break, but it's usually
the lower barrel lug or the slidestop pin that lets go first.

When the gun feeds ammo, the slide's forward momentum is slowed by
the round striking the top of the feed ramp, and the barrel throat. The
magazine tension adds to the resistance too. The rim being forced under the extractor also bleeds off a little energy, as does the frictional resistance of the breechface against the rim. Finally, the chambering
offers a bit of resistance, and by the time the round is chambered and
the slide is in battery, the impact on the lug/pin interface is about one
foot-pound, distributed between two feet...assuming that the feet are
bearing evenly on the pin...which most aren't unless they've been
fitted.

As a rule, whenever somebody does this to one of my pistols, I shoot'em in both feet as a gentle reminder.

 

[willyjixx]

i never would have known.


now is this with all auto loaders? or is it a 1911 thing.

thank you though. i have a bad habit to break
is it okay to practice racking an dry fires with snap caps or dummies? (the round type not the 2 legged! )

 

[1911Tuner]

All or...

willy asked:



now is this with all auto loaders? or is it a 1911 thing.

It's the same on the lower lug/slidestop issue, and all other designs suffer some impact damage. While the linkless designs...like the High-Power
will tolerate it a bit better, it's still not a good thing to do.
----------------------------------------------

thank you though. i have a bad habit to break
is it okay to practice racking an dry fires with snap caps or dummies

Yep. Snap caps and dummy rounds have the same effect as live ammo.
The plastic snap cap will have less inertian resistance than a dummy round,
but the difference in slowing the slide would be negligible. The main
mechanism is friction.

Cheers!
Tuner