It's Troubleshoot Wednesday!

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1911Tuner

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Okay 1911 fans...here's one for ya'll to ponder while I have a
Run Go-Do hump day for octegenarian MamaTuner.

This one happened to me when I was 15...circa 1967.

Found a USGI barrel at a show that I snapped up for a paltry 10 bucks.
Needed it to upgrade a Rand that I had just gotten through with, and all that I needed was a decent barrel to replace the pitted one. This one
was like new, and I was one happy lad.

Brought it home...dropped it in...and the trouble started. The pistol
went together just fine...but when I yanked on the slide, it moved about
a quarter -inch and stopped. Yankin' harder didn't help. 25 yanks later, it unlocked and the slide moved freely to the stoppin' place. My second
mistake was lettin' it go back to battery. Wouldn't unlock. Held it up,
down, sideways, pushed on the hood...nothin'. Quarter-inch of slide
travel and it hit the wall. Sweat was drippin' off my punkin head...I now
had a gun that wouldn't cycle...wouldn't come apart...couldn't be loaded, and couldn't be shot even if it could be loaded. Panic set in.

The ol' man had dropped me off at home and went to deliver a Garand
trigger group that he had gotten for a pal...He got back an hour later and discovered me in a major snit. Took him 2 minutes to determine why the gun wouldn't work, and 10 seconds to get the slide back to the takedown notch. Longest 2 minutes-10 seconds of the year for me...This gun was to be mine and mine alone. I rebuilt it on my time and on my dime...all by myself, and the reward for my efforts was that this one was MINE!

Why? Why? Why? :p One of our pros will probably nail it in 2 minutes...
I'll let all the replies accumulate before revealin' the answer this time.
Details at 6 or thereabouts, so there's no hurry. It all happened on a Saturday, and nobody was pushin' the smith to get the gun fixed...so get yer thinkin' caps on and take yer time...:cool:

Hint: The link was correct. The barrel fit into the slide was good, with no
excessive downward play and no excessively tight lockup. When the slide moved, the barrel would start to unlock and would drop for a short distance...just not far enough to disengage the lugs.

Hint 2...If I hadn't been so impatient to get the gun together, I would have spotted the problem in about 10 seconds by doing a couple of quick pre-checks before slappin' it together.

Luck!

Tuner
 
First off, what are you doing posting this at 3:25 am?

Now, I have an excuse being up at that time (just got back from Qatar, so I am on Middle east time mentally, time for lunch by the way, to bad the sun is not up yet).


Anyway, I am not a smith, not even an attempt at one, and have yet to ever completely disassemble any of my 1911's because I am to much of a chicken, so please don't laugh.


Could it be that the pin that holds the link to the barrel was coming out and jamming against the sides of the frame? That way you could not move it back very far. My bet is your smith released the tension on the barrel and jiggled it back into place. You then would have to stake it in to keep it from happening.
 
0325 Hours

Howdy Peter,

First...Thank you for your service to our country. Most of us appreciate it more than you guys can imagine...and the ones who don't are of no consequence.

Second...I'd never laugh. Time ya learned to take that pistol
down to the bone. A lead-pipe cinch. I'll help ya any way that I can.
Just sing out when you're ready. We can do it via E-mail or go to the phones if need be.

Third...Nope. The link is correct...Should have clarified that it was correct in every way, including the pin bein' press-fit. The barrel didn't have a link or pin on it when I bought it, and I installed both parts prior to the problem.

As for the time...I'm normally up before 0400 every day. If I get more than
4 hours a day in the rack, I've wasted too much time snoozin'.:cool:

God bless and Godspeed, young lion. We need more of your kind.

Tuner
 
Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not one of the "fighting" boys who are serving the country over there. I can certainly understand the confusion though. My hats off to the real Heros and Fighters who are there protecting the freedoms of humanity and protecting idiots like me who were there on business.

I figure there are 2 reasons to go to Qatar or the middle east in general. Since I am was not there to fight a war, I must be there for another reason.

OIL, "black gold", "Texas tea" or as I put it "that cheap stuff you put in your car that is cheaper then the water you drink".

I work for an international oil company. I was working offshore Qatar acquiring data for my company to try and continue to supply the world with oil for the future. It is a hard job that few outside the industry really understand how difficult it is to find and produce the oil the world and the US needs to run the economies.

My job is to acquire the information or geophysical data that everyone else in the production chain will use to figure out where to put the wells that will discover the oil and gas. This means that I (or the other guys in our group) are some of the very first ones into areas and tend to be there before the safety nets are in place. Basically I view my job as like a house of cards. I screw up, and the house falls because with bad data you cannot figure out where to drill.

Just keep in mind when you buy a tank of gas about the guys like me who are going all sorts of "not so nice" places to help find it and produce it. There are not many of us left in the industry doing it anymore.



Now back to the problem after that commercial for the oil industry and our "Professional Soldiers" (who I am very very proud of).



I will get in touch with you on how to take my 1911's down. My oldest is my Les Baer PII which has about 6500 rnds down it and is around 9 years old now. Let me email you in a bit when I am back on "Local time".

On the time, I understand, I like to normally get up ag 5:00 local time, just right now I am still thinking Doha time, so I was up a 1:24 local time.


So the link pin is not the problem.... HMMMM.........
 
Disappointment?

Not at all sir...if you're an American in the Middle East, you're in harm's way, same as a Marine grunt in "The Raq". You're there to find oil so that we can have it? You're serving your country. The difference is that you can't shoot back if you're fired on, unless you've got clearance to go armed.

Whenever you're ready to have at that Baer. I'll edit this with a link that'll
give ya a read-up on it. Stand by...

Here'tis...

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=56796
 
Nope, no guns. Company policy that we cannot go "armed".


Sure would like one though at times. Like when we encountered a wild tiger in the brush (them things are DANG BIG when there is now bars between you and it!)

Or just cruising around back country Jakarta or even Lagos. Recently one of my co-workers had a "slight run-in" with pirates in Nigeria.


So far no problems for me, I guess I am just lucky.


I do feel bad though, I was going to try follow the recent "tradition" of trading my business class seat with soldiers in coach if I could find a soldier on board. Not one on my flight from Dubia to Gattwick and none from Gattwick back to the states.
 
Dayum, but I love these...

Okay: because I'm assuming the older pitted barrel worked and cycled fine, and from your hints, I have to assess that it was the new barrel. So. What could it be? You've stated that the lockup was not overly tight, and the link was fine, With a 1/4 inch of movement, there's really little movement of the barrel, but more of the slide. I grabbed my Rock Island, and looked at the movement of the upper through the 1/4 inch distance you mentioned, and came up with this: I have to guess that the G.I. barrel had just a little bit more outside diameter than the original barrel, and was binding up against the barrel bushing as it started to unlock. The fix? A different bushing that fit a little looser, allowing slightly more play, and freeing up the barrel to continue to drop out of lock.

As a second guess, I would go for the Slide Stop being just a little large for the new link, (I got the part name right this time!) binding it up and preventing it from moving freely, stopping barrel movement. But I like the first guess better.

Even close?

..Joe

PS: Couldn't you have removed the bushing to get the barrel to move freely when it was all bound up?
 
Joe's thinkin' cap is on...

Howdy Joe,


Your assumption about the old barrel was correct...The gun did function perfectly with it in place. In fact, the gun had been fired the day before.

Your method of getting the gun to unlock was also spot on. PapaTuner
removed the plug, recoil spring, and bushing...allowing the barrel to tilt
far enough to disengage the lugs. I was in a panic, and didn't even think of that. Kudos!

The problem wasn't the barrel diameter...and it wasn't the locking lug height. The link was the same one that was on the other barrel.
The beginning of the barrel unlock timing was good...Full linkdown timing
couldn't be checked due to the barrel not unlocking, but checked within
spec after the problem was identified and fixed.

The fix took about 3-5 minutes. The gun functioned perfectly after the fix.

:cool:
 
PapaTuner removed the plug, recoil spring, and bushing...allowing the barrel to tilt far enough to disengage the lugs.
Click to expand...

I know you just gave us another hint there, but I'll be damned if I can make it out.

Unless... Could the legs of the doohickey that the link is pinned into been too long, hitting the frame and not allowing the barrel to drop low enough to unlock? Filing them down just enough to allow full unlocking wouldn't take too long...

Last guess fom the rank amateur. After this I let the guys who know what they're doing answer.


..Joe
 
Only Two?

C'mon guys...Jeff, Peter and Joe the only three stickin' their feet in this one?

Jeff...The spring guide was in the gun. Standard USGI stub guide. Probably
Remington Rand manufacture, but since the gun had been arsenal rebuilt a time or three, there's no tellin'.
 
Peened locking lugs on the surplus barrel. A peened, raised edge on the locking lugs will allow the barrel and slide to move together, but when the barrel links down, the raised edge catches on the edges of the recesses in the slide.
 
Whatever the cause I was going to say locking lug engagement as well. If it's more than a burr I would think it would have taken more than a few minutes to correct though.
 
First guess is Long link , If I read your reply earlier correctly , you said the link was fine.

Break front corners of locking lugs to match those in slide ?

Barrel Overhang ? Catching on mag . You had to cut that 1 /32 gap?

It ain't the FP stop on this question either....just wait...FP stop will be the answer on one of these puzzles someday - and I'll get one right.

:)
 
Mo' Details

Nope Steve. The barrel was in like new condition...I would venture a guess that it had never been in a gun. There was no damage...no burrs, dings, unusual rough spots, and no indication that a moron had been at it with a hammer and a Dremel. The barrel didn't overhang the ramp...a fact that was confirmed after I got it hung up and the ol' man got it back apart. If I had checked for that, I would probably have spotted the problem...but in my youthful excitement over scoring such a cherry barrel for a sawbuck...which was pretty cheap even then...I didn't really check anything that I should have...and I KNEW better. After all...I had been sitting at an armorer's knee for nearly 3 years by the time I was 15.
I just had to learn to have a little patience.

What was that about fools rushin' in where angels fear to tread?:D
 
Troubleshooted

Okay...Not a lotta bites on this one.:( Are these not fun any more?

Joe nailed it on his second try. The lower lug feet were too long...and the
wrong dimension was in the feet themselves, rather than the whole lower lug being out-of-spec. They actually extended nearly to the edge of the slidestop pin, and the fix was done with a 6-inch mill file...probably smooth cut. It's been a while.

Thefeet hit the frame and wouldn't let the barrel drop low enough to
disengage the locking lugs.

Good call Joe!

Two valuable lessons on this one. Never count on a drop-in part to do that...and patience is paramount. That the barrel dragged as it slipped into the frame should have been my red flag...but I ignored it and pressed on. Mistake.

Cheers all!

Tuner
 
I should have known that. Similar thing happened to me with a surplus barrel. In my case, the barrel would unlock and the slide would retract, but the very bottom outside edges of the lower lugs would drag and bind inside the receiver. We learn from experience, but I may be the exception to that rule.
 
Does anyone know how Colt delivers the barrels to the line?

That is, individual fitting of the guns is done at what points on the parts?

Could you have gotten a fresh barrel from a supplier?

Geoff
Who has some experience with Ancient GI handguns.

:cool:
 
Hand Fitting?

Howdy Jeff,

Colts...and Springfields...and Kimbers have very little if any hand fitting done...and it's pretty much been this way since the production rush of WW2
when Ordnance engineers determined that the 1911's tolerances could be looser. This did away with most of the fitting operations so that Rosie the Riveter and Joe the Housepainter could be trained to assemble the guns
with minimal skill and time involved. Most parts adhered to the specs, but once in a while somethin' would slip through the cracks and required hand-fitting instead of select-fit/drop-in assembly... and the Drop-in part was born.

Parts with oversized/undersized critical dimensions are often referred to as "Hard-Fit" or "Gunsmith Fit" parts. Prior to the watershed of WW2, Colts were made to tighter tolerances, and many parts did require a certain amount of hand fitting. The barrel that I wound up with may have been one of the pre-war barrels that never made it to the assembly line, and had extra metal on the lower lug feet to allow it to be fitted to a specific frame and slide. I remember that the vertical lockup was very good
for a GI surplus barrel, so that very well could have been the case.

No...The only barrels available to a 15-year-old would have had to to come from either Colt or a military armory...or a gun show.

Ahhhhh...Those were the days! New firing pins were a buck a copy or 10 dollars a dozen. Sears were 2 or 3 dollars...Of course, minimum wage was
about a dollar an hour, and my father made the princely salary of about
65 dollars a week as a tool and die maker for Western Electric.

At least the parts were plentiful.:cool:
 
Tuner these threads are definitely fun.... I was hoping I'd read far enough to see no one guessed the problem.... My computer at work is trashed, so I only get to surf in the evenings, and that's not always everynight.

Keep up the good work, I hope to catch another troubleshoot thread in time :).
 
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