Citadel 1911 9mm, broken ejector and strange barrel marks...

[ThePenguinKnight]

My wife got me a Citadel 1911 in 9mm about 3 weeks ago. I really like the gun. I looked it over when I first got it, but apparently not quite close enough.

I used the pistol in the local 3gun match over the weekend. I had only shot it about 25-30rds through the gun before that, but my wife wanted to go with me to the match, so I took the unproven pistol for myself and let her use my old reliable SW99. The Citadel shot very well, very accurate and its fairly nice trigger made it fun to shoot. It had 4 Failure-To-Extract malfunctions, which really hurt my time on one stage (3 FTE in a row, and otherwise I was rocking it :banghead, but I figured that was due to the ammo as I've had similar malfunctions in another pistol.

Anyway, got it home and cleaned the 1911, and noticed the back end of the ejector was flopping around. This being my first 1911, I had to look up the parts diagram, and I am guessing that the rear nub that holds the ejector on straight has broken off. Is this a common issue with 1911s?

Pic (blue arrow points to extractor rear nub hole, that I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be able to see):


Well, I figured that was annoying but not too big of a deal.

Then I got to cleaning the barrel. Upon close inspection, I saw what looks like steps or cuts in the rifling. Looks like shallow circles cut perpendicular to the bore. I've looked down a lot of barrels, but this is the first time I've seen this.

I snapped some pics:




These ridges, steps, cuts, or whatever they are appear several times down the length of the bore, with the one closest to the muzzle being the most pronounced.

Has anyone seen something like this before?

Despite the funny looking rifling, the pistol is plenty accurate. I only have about 125-150 rounds through it overall, but I really like the pistol except for these couple really minor issues.

I plan to take it to the gunsmith to see what he says, but I figured I'd ask here too. Didn't find much online except ringed bored from squibs.

I contacted Armscor and they said to send it in, which will probably happen after the gunsmith sees it. I work later than business hours the next couple days anyway, so shipping it tomorrow isn't going to happen regardless.

Thank all.

 

[rcmodel]

Your ejector has a broken rear pin.
No big deal unless they used lock-tite to hold it in instead of the standard 1911 cross pin.
Then the broken stud will be hard to get out without drilling and possibly damaging the frame.

The barrel is ruined, when it was reamed before rifling.

The reamer had a chip out of a flute, or, a big sliver of metal under a flute when the bore was reamed.

They need to replace both on their dime!

Call them and whine like a whipped dog until they agree too.

rc

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Thanks rc

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

I sent my citadel to Armscor for service. They took a week, then called and said that they found several problems and wanted to replace the gun. They claimed that in addition to the problems above, the slide was out of spec. Since they didn't have another Citadel slide, they offered me a completely new Rock Island Armory to replace my Citadel. At the time I thought it was an upgrade, so I took them up on it.

They had their gunsmith look the new pistol over and the receipt says they "tuned" it. I asked for my spare magazine and the wood grips from the old gun back. Below is the old, followed by the new:




The two pistols are very similar. The Citadel had larger serrations on the slide, as well as forward serrations, and wood grips, and a smooth front strap. The RIA has vertical serrationson the front strap, small sserrations on the rear of the slide only, and black rubber grips. The RIA trigger is a touch heavier than the Citadel's was, but is still crisp and seems like a good trigger-- I may see about lightening it at some point, but I'm not too concerned. I also got the wood grips from my Citadel back, so I will probably swap those on there.

The real big difference is the slide. I was worried I wouldn't like the small rear-end serrations, but I do. Gives a more classic look and I like it. Also, with the smaller RIA logo only on the rear, and the giant slab of empty space, I have plenty of room to get the slide Lazer engraved =). My wife is already coming up with ideas lol.

I hope the new one shoots as well as the old. Despite the bad barrel and apparently out of spec slide, it shot well.

Armscor made me happy. I'll report back how the new pistol shoots.

Thanks again, RC

 

[rcmodel]

What a deal!

They done good on you!

rc