edrice
June 4, 2008, 04:14 PM
A neighbor of mine had told me about his prized Kimber Custom 1911 and promised to show it to me. After several years, he got around to doing just that. He doesn't shoot much and it was a fluke that he ended up with the Kimber.
But he brought it over in a nice Bianchi bag and set it on the counter and naturally the first thing I wanted to do is check its status - loaded or no? So I removed the magazine, which had nothing in it and tried to cycle the slide... and tried... and tried. It was going nowhere and I even tried pushing arms against each other but it was locked up tight and I couldn't get it to budge.
Since it had a full-length guide-rod, in the Bianchi bag was the little removal tool for pressing down the recoil spring plug whilst turning the bushing, and the plug would push down but the bushing had only the slightest movement, and that was turning with a fair amount of torque.
But I don't like to force things, so I ended up spraying WD-40 down into it and waited for it penetrate before trying again and after a time the bushing gradually began to come loose and the gun would finally disassemble.
My neighbor looked on in amazement not realizing just how safe the bad guys would have been had they decided to visit. He told me that he hadn't even gotten it out in about 5 years and I'm imagining that maybe this was the original grease (or cosmoline?) from when he bought it new that had just dried out and siezed. Solvent produced some mighty black residue from the inside of that bushing. He had only fired it when he first got it and the barrel still had debris from that.
Anyway, I cleaned it up for him and relubed it and got three nice Cohibas out of the deal. This is just a heads-up for letting firearms sit along time unused, especially if they are for home defense purposes, which his was.
Ed
But he brought it over in a nice Bianchi bag and set it on the counter and naturally the first thing I wanted to do is check its status - loaded or no? So I removed the magazine, which had nothing in it and tried to cycle the slide... and tried... and tried. It was going nowhere and I even tried pushing arms against each other but it was locked up tight and I couldn't get it to budge.
Since it had a full-length guide-rod, in the Bianchi bag was the little removal tool for pressing down the recoil spring plug whilst turning the bushing, and the plug would push down but the bushing had only the slightest movement, and that was turning with a fair amount of torque.
But I don't like to force things, so I ended up spraying WD-40 down into it and waited for it penetrate before trying again and after a time the bushing gradually began to come loose and the gun would finally disassemble.
My neighbor looked on in amazement not realizing just how safe the bad guys would have been had they decided to visit. He told me that he hadn't even gotten it out in about 5 years and I'm imagining that maybe this was the original grease (or cosmoline?) from when he bought it new that had just dried out and siezed. Solvent produced some mighty black residue from the inside of that bushing. He had only fired it when he first got it and the barrel still had debris from that.
Anyway, I cleaned it up for him and relubed it and got three nice Cohibas out of the deal. This is just a heads-up for letting firearms sit along time unused, especially if they are for home defense purposes, which his was.
Ed