Interesting Call to Colt

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If I may, how did you ascertain that the hammer spring was heavier in the Colt than in other brand 1911s?

two ways. the hammer is much, much harder to pull back than others and we took the MSHs out of a few 1911s and compressed the mainspring directly with a punch and the Colt was much stiffer than the others. The spring even looked heavier duty.
 
If'n it were me, I wouldn't worry about it. You're getting wrapped around the axle for nothing.

I agree. I am not going to lose any sleep over it. I may play around with some different mainsprings. I may not. The gun functions fine and is much more accurate than I was expecting. I went back to the stock nylon MSH for now until I am confident the problem has gone away. I had planned on going to range and running a couple of hundred rounds through it, but I spent my whole day dealing with incompetence at Best Buy's customer service. I'm convinced the only way to avoid dealing with bad customer service is to quit buying things. As I choose not to do that, I am at the mercy of oblivions. Best Buy has been OK for the most part. I have purchased a computers, two laptops and plasma TV within the past year and I've only had problems recently. Today I made two trips, drove four hours total and burned through a lot of gas dealing with them. To their credit, they gave me a $50 gift card; after I asked them to comp me for my time and gas.
 
That said I would have handled the subject as the Colt representative did by requesting that you return the firearm for their inspection.

I am very slow to send a firearm back for warranty repair or any work for that matter. I have a Marlin 336 that needed work and it took six months to get it back. It was even lost at one point because Marlin was in the process of moving their factory after the takeover and had "misplaced" my rifle. To Marlin's credit, they replaced the wood with their highest grade Walnut, but now it is so pretty I am afraid to use it.
 
The mainspring forces the hammer down on the firing pin; we all know that. But another thing that it does is maintain pressure on the hammer as it bears against the recoiling slide, giving some resistence to the slide during the firing cycle. This gives some support to the lockup of the gun when the hammer isdown, and later affects the velocity of the slide in its rearward AND forward cycle. You can lighten the mainspring and still have the firing pin strike hard enough, but you may be adversely affecting the velocity of the slide, and thus wear and tear may be higher. All things to think about.
 
I've had good customer service from Colt. My first Series 70 Repro had the trigger pad brazed on crooked. I called them up and explained the situation and emailed them a picture of it. They sent me a new trigger in the mail. This was about ten years ago though.
 
Besides Hammerdown, Wolff Springs' site lists the standard as 23 pounds, among other people & places that agree.

Re S&W, Colt isn't entirely alone in CS info (or lack of it).
I've gotten bad info, incomplete info, and no info at all from S&W on phonecalls, including one part order they put through complete with credit card info that never showed up. The part was apparently out of production when they let me order it. :)

Ruger will be vague at times, too.

It's an unfortunate situation that seems to be spreading through the industry, and it's sad that you can no longer call a maker up and get help over the phone on simple questions about their own products.
But, it's not just Colt, and I no longer expect any real knowledge from anybody who answers a CS number for a gunmaker.
Many times they don't have a clue, other times the legal department won't let them go any farther than "Send it in".
I'm pleasantly surprised when a call-taker actually does know the answer to my questions. :)
Denis
 
I expect hammer spring is not on the parts list, but mainspring is and rather common knowledge, especially with a few keystrokes. :)
 
The Colt customer service rep could have just googled the answer.

Now I see why gun companies aren't building more guns. It's because they're spending half the day answering questions.
 
Why do you feel it necessary to fix what ain't broke ? Colt makes the finest production 1911's on the market hands down .Been doing it for a hundred years . How many phone calls do you think they get from folks that don't have problems just questions they offer to take a look at your pistol if you thought you had a real problem what else should they do. That little girl answering the phone does'nt know anything except how to answer the phone you could have really got Lucky and talked to a machine.
 
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The Colt customer could have just googled the answer.

This would work as well. Many companies restrict who has access to the Internet due to security and productivity issues, among others.
 
Why do you feel it necessary to fix what ain't broke ?

That was my whole point in calling Colt and asking if the extreme difference in hammer pull and mainspring tension is normal or if I MIGHT have a problem. If they could just say "Yes, Colt designs their manispring to have more tension for reason "A" or "No, there should not be that much difference between our mainspring tension and other 1911s" I would have been satisfied, but to say "You need to send it in" as her immediate response and not be willing to forward me to the next tier of service is not acceptable. As another poster said, she is causing potentially unnecessary work for the repair guys, wasting Colt's money on shipping costs two ways, and also keeping my pistol tied up for weeks or months. I have no intention on fixing what ain't broke, but I would at least like intelligent life on the other end of the line or at least a willingness to pass me on to intelligent life.
 
that i will do. seems like a non-invasive course of action. what is the best tool to use for this? Sandpaper in 600 or 900 grit rolled up or one of those cone or cylinder dremel bits wits with the same grit sandpaper or stone in same grit?
 
The problem is having a polymer MSH that won't sand like a metal one. If you want something similar to the others buy a Wolff 20 lb. replacement spring and see how it goes. If, after changing springs you're not satisfied, consider a replacement housing and polish work.
 
Yeah, I don't really see your spring binding up in that nylon MSH unless there's some serious mold flashing in there or something. You should be able to feel it bind just by pushing down the spring in the housing with a punch on the mainspring cap.

My stock Colts have hammers that are harder to cock than some of my others that have been worked on. One of these guns has a 19 lb. mainspring in it, and it's noticeably lighter than on the stock Colts. I'd say you should just order a 19 lb. mainspring from Midway or Brownells or directly from Wolff and that will give you the feel you are looking for. They are cheap.
 
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