AMT Hardballer Longslide - Any info on this pistol?

[expat_alaska]

My take, if you will oblige.

I have shot a Longslide (Irwindale) that belonged to a friend in the 90's that performed very well. All factory, no gunsmith work. It was a bit muzzle-heavy, but that is never a problem for me.

I also own an AMT Hardballer 5" (Covina) that I bought outside of a gun show in 1992, with 2 factory stainless mags for $150.

When I got it home, the perfunctory safety checks were made: cocked and locked, upon pressing the trigger, both the thumb safety AND the hammer dropped. After disassembly, I found that the sear pin was bent. (Covina AMT's were notorious for soft stainless; not so much with the Arcadia pistols, and the Irwindales were even better).

I replaced the extractor, sear pin, hammer pin, thumb safety, and hammer strut with blued carbon steel parts, and throated the barrel. It will chamber and fire just about any .45 ACP HP loads, including long ago handloads using the infamous Speer 200 gr JHP "flying ashtray". As has been mentioned previously by others, it does like to be run wet. It has been my HD/SD/Truck gun since then. It ain't pretty, but it always runs.

Pay no attention to the ClipDraw device. I am 64, wear suspenders and no belt, don't want a holster, and live in the boontoolies. It works well for carrying around the house or the farm, and I don't seem to go much farther than that.

 

[TRX]

> spots

Most of the parts of the various AMT pistols were made by investment casting. AMT didn't do any of its own; it spread the manufacture out among various subcontractors.

Porosity was a common problem. I don't know whether it's endemic to small stainless castings, or just at the price level AMT was paying. Anyway, a lot of parts got TIG welded to fill cosmetic pits. Sometimes when you see a "spot" it's from the filler rod.

 

[ThusEver2Tyrants]

Update**

Shot it today. First round fired fine and felt great. After that jam after jam. Stovepipe...fte

Tried both mags

Got to the point where the slide wouldn't even go back into battery. It took it down and put even more lube on rails. Had trouble getting it back together...the barrel just seems to fit really tight into the slide. Once I got it back together I tried to rack it and the slide would hang up about a half inch back...

The slide would not go back...

I put it up and when I got back home I tried again and it would rack fine...but i can feel it's not smooth like it should be

When fitting the barrel back into the slide it seemed really tight fitting

What should I do ???

 

[Acera]

What should I do ???

Take it to a smith that specializes in 1911s.

Where do you live? If near Houston, I got a guy for ya.


.

 

[ThusEver2Tyrants]

Take it to a smith that specializes in 1911s.

Where do you live? If near Houston, I got a guy for ya.


.

Eastern NC...can anyone recommend a good 1911 pistol Smith in the Raleigh/Eastern NC area. I'm actually in Greenville nc

 

[Mainsail]

I had one back in 1985ish and loved it. I ran aircraft grease in the rails (I was a jet mechanic at the time) and never had a problem with galling.

When I crosstrained to Flight Engineer I was in school with guy that had never fired a handgun, and was worried he wouldn't be able to qualify when it came to shooting one. So I took him out with the only gun I had brought to OK, my AMT Longslide Hardballer. I had showed him the features of the gun and how to shoot it- chambered a round, but before I handed it to him I flipped the thumb safety on, and remembered I had neglected to explain that feature to him. So I pointed the gun down range, showed him the safety, and told him it wouldn't fire with the safety up. Pulled the trigger, BOOM!.

The safety sheared off and flew away; probably in Mexico somewhere now. I took it to Lawton to Adam's Guns and it turned out he was a certified AMT repair station. He fixed it and told me that all the internals were 'in spec' however they were all at the lower (minimum) spec'd size and the tolerance stack-up allowed the gun to fire. AMT fixed it PDQ and I later had it throated and polished, then sold the gun on consignment in Charleston SC.

 

[Confederate]

AMT was an early adopter of stainless steel for semi-autos, and they carried a lot of the burden of figuring out what worked and what didn't. Frame rail galling was a consistent issue with them, with lube as the primary (albeit temporary) solution.

You're spot on in this. Before manufacturers figured out that they needed to use different types of stainless (otherwise they would bind), these problems plagued these guns. Using aggressive glops of lubricants helped, but it wasn't a permanent fix.

One thing I believe might work is to have the gun had chromed. This not only looks like stainless steel, it doesn't wear and it's self lubricating. It should let you use minimum lubricants while protecting the non-stainless parts of the gun and the finish. It's not very expensive (I had mine done by Mahovsky's, and they did a fine job.) The problem is in the types of stainless steel, I believe, and that may be a good reason to look into the hard chroming process.

What do you think?

Here's my oft-posted Beretta 70S photo, after Metalife hard chroming. (If the OP goes this route, it should be after -- not before -- a gunsmith works on it.)

 

[Confederate]

Update** Shot it today. First round fired fine and felt great. After that jam after jam. Stovepipe...fte. Tried both mags. Got to the point where the slide wouldn't even go back into battery. It took it down and put even more lube on rails. Had trouble getting it back together...the barrel just seems to fit really tight into the slide. Once I got it back together I tried to rack it and the slide would hang up about a half inch back... The slide would not go back... .

Please check with the forum before you do these deals!

What kind of lube did you use? It has to be kind of thick. Gooey.

 

[Mainsail]

Please check with the forum before you do these deals!

What kind of lube did you use? It has to be kind of thick. Gooey.

If you want the read about preventing galling in stainless steel, this article is long but exposes the weaknesses of most common lubes. The company makes torque couplings for take-apart bikes, and the threads would gall easily. This is why I'm running Krytox on my Legion P229.

http://www.sandsmachine.com/grease_t.htm