FPrice
Member
I bought a 1950's-era Colt Sistema a few months back. It needed a new safety so I gave it to a local gunsmith who is pretty good with Colts. He fixed the safety and the sear spring, but there is one other problem we can't quite figure out.
The slide is very hard to cycle by hand. I replaced the recoil spring with a Wolff 16 lb spring, but this had no effect. The slide will move freely over the frame with the barrel and recoil spring removed so it does not appear to be a slide-to-frame fit problem. And it does not appear to be excess pressure when traveling over the hammer. And the barrel bushing seems to move freely over the barrel with no undue force required.
The gun will fire and cycle normally and reliably with hardball ammo but for the life of us we canot figure out why it feels so hard to cycle by hand.
Any ideas?
The slide is very hard to cycle by hand. I replaced the recoil spring with a Wolff 16 lb spring, but this had no effect. The slide will move freely over the frame with the barrel and recoil spring removed so it does not appear to be a slide-to-frame fit problem. And it does not appear to be excess pressure when traveling over the hammer. And the barrel bushing seems to move freely over the barrel with no undue force required.
The gun will fire and cycle normally and reliably with hardball ammo but for the life of us we canot figure out why it feels so hard to cycle by hand.
Any ideas?