Calling Tuner...

[Quintin Likely]

Well, on a positive note, the Ed Brown extractor fixed a lot of my problems with the Springer. <doing the "I'm Not Worthy!" bow to Tuner> Ejection itself is still kinda all over the place, but there's no more brass popping me in the head. Ejector maybe?

I had an interesting malfunction with my NRM Commander yesterday though. A couple rounds stovepiped, sorta, the base of the cartridge was still stuck in the magazine while the bullet nose pointed straight up and was caught in the slide as it closed. This was only with two or three rounds out of a Wilson magazine. Time for stronger mag springs, you think? Ejection was all over the place with the Commander too, (obligatory stupid question time) are these things supposed to consistently eject empties in one general direction? I never really paid attention before, but I was shooting outside yesterday and it caught my eye.

 

[1911Tuner]

You Rang?

Howdy Quintin,

Your Springfield's ejector is the culprit. Unless I miss my guess,
the case mouths have a "V" shaped dent, and probably a scraped area.
The brass is kicking out at 3 O'Clock...or trying for 3:30 or 4...and bouncing off the lower edge of the port straight up, and, when you were gettin' beaned, being booted backward by the front edge of the port as the slide moved further to the rear.

The ejector in the GI Springfield doesn't lend itself to a lot of tuning.
I gave up and replaced mine with a shortened and tuned Ed Brown extended ejector. Problem solved.

The feed issue with your Colt is a typical Bolt-Over Base jam that is
most-often caused by weak mag springs and/or an oversprung slide...
but Most often the mag spring. What's happening is that the slide is
outrunning the magazine spring...usually on the last round. The breechface
catches the round in the extractor groove, and forces the butt-end down, and the nose up. If the slide hits the round farther forward on the side of the case, it produces the true Rideover Feed, in which the nose-up
attitude is less, but the jam occurs between the slide and the feed ramp,
and it tends to be more solidly wedged than the Bolt-Over-Base stoppage.

I see this type of jam most often on heavily sprung guns, especially with
slides shorter than GM-length. Commanders aren't as prone to the issue as are guns in the Officer's Model/Defender class.

The short, light slides with heavy springs move fast, and everything else has a hard time keeping up. Magazine timing becomes more critical. The
sear reset becomes more critical. The extractor tension and ejector shape
becomes more critical. The chopped 1911 deviants are doable, but sometimes it gets tedious to find the sweet spot.

You may not be able to get the problem stopped with the Wilson magazines...even with a new spring. 8-round mag springs don't have
much margin for error. Try a stock Colt or Metalform 7-round magazine with
a Wolff 11-pound spring and a flat, dimpled follower. I've "fixed" more misbehaving pistols than I can remember with that combination....much to the surprise of owners who were ready to give up on the guns as being "Jammin' Jennies". If that doesn't do the trick, order a Wolff 16-pound recoil spring and trim it form the standard 32 coils to 23.5 or 24.
Check for coil bind at full slide travel. in the 25 years or so since I've
been checkin', I've never found a new Colt Commander with a recoil spring that tested higher than 15.5 or 16 pounds. Never found a GM spring that tested at higher than 14.5 pounds.

Magazine...Extractor...Ammo. The tripod of reliability.

Luck!

Tuner

 

[Quintin Likely]

Tuner:

You called it right in regards to the ejection pattern and a lot of the brass from the Springer. In regards to the ejector, what exactly is tuned and shortened? I've new found faith in the Springer since the extractor replacement, and I'm determined to get it running right, if nothing more than for a range beater to use when I got nothing better to do. Also on the Springer, I'd like to lose the ILS mainspring housing and replace with just a plain jane flat blued mainspring housing. And (and, and, questions, questions!) I ditched the two piece guiderod...sorta. I removed the portion with the allen hex on it and the open face recoil plug and stuck a standard Gummint model recoil plug in it's place while leaving the other threaded portion in the gun. Will any harm come of this? Should I go ahead and buy the standard stubby GI spring guide as well? It functioned fine, other than the wild ejection patterns, but will any long term harm come of this?

The Wilson's I'm using are the 7 rounders with the small metal baseplate. I've got the original Colt magazines that came with the pistol, but I dunno what spring is in them. They *feel* stiffer than the Wilson's do when loading, for what that's worth. I never did try to duplicate the malfunction with the Colt magazines, we'll try that next time around. Maybe I should just chalk up the notion that my gun might not like the Wilson's? I haven't tweaked anything in the Commander, all springs are as Colt delivered. The hand cycling is a little rough, I think I'll try to smooth it out with some of your slurry when I get back into town later this week though.

 

[1911Tuner]

Questions

Howdy Quintin,

The stubby part of what's left of your guide rod won't cause any problems
as long as the end of the rod isn't impacting the inside of the standard plug. Make sure you've got the same slide travel with the plug in as you
do with it out. Same procedure as checking for coil bind.

The stock Colt magazines probably have the stock springs...Might be okay and might not. Most work okay, but cause problems when they get tired.

Replacing the ILS system is simple. You'll need a housing, standard spring... no lighter than 23#...a standard mainspring cap, and the retaining pin that fits in the small hole at the top right of the housing. Everything else is straightforward.


Since your Springer is the standard Mil-Spec, you may not require any tuning on the ejector. I thought you had one of the WW2 GI pistols.
The port is lowered and more open on the front. If you have any issues
with live-round ejection with the extended extractor, file a little straight ocross the nose until you get free ejection with hardball. Shoot the gun
and note where the brass exits...which will probably be at a forward angle
to the gun...and LIGHTLY cut a shallow angle on the right side to cause it
to roll the case off the extractor toward the back. The flat nose may cause
to to kick forward...and that may be to your liking. A matter of preference.
I like to see'em exit at about 2 O'Clock at 90 degrees or slightly forward.

After shortening, if it tends to kick the brass too straight out, file a light angle on the underside to cause it to eject on a more upward plane.
Then tune it for the ejection angle in relation to the axis of the gun.
(Angled forward...90 degrees...Angled backward.)

Luck!

Tuner