Feeding problems

[ironhead]

I have a Springfield Armory 1911A Mil-Spec .45 cal. I estimate that less than 1000 rounds have been fired thru this gun using 5 different types of ammo. When the slide is locked back with a fresh mag in it and I release the slide lock it jams because the round gets stuck on the ramp. It has also occurred during the same mag and if I pull the slide back and let it go to load it. Has any body had this happen with this model? What should I do?
Ironhead

 

[dirtdog]

I'd try a 20 pound spring till it breaks in.

 

[1911Tuner]

I'd try a 20 pound spring till it breaks in.

Why do you hate 1911s?

Fully 95% of true failures to feed are the fault of the magazine...and more than one magazine can be at fault. Fully 95% of magazine-related failures to feed are the fault of the spring...or the follower...or both. Usually the spring.

Check the feed ramp for deep toolmarks or obvious roughness. I haven't seen a recent Springfield with that issue, but anything can happen. Don't take a Dremel to it. If it's there, sing out and stand by.

Look closely at the top of the frame ramp and the junction at the bottom of the barrel ramp. Some call it the barrel throat, but I refuse to. It's the barrel ramp.

With the slide locked back, push the barrel down and back. The bottom of the barrel ramp should sit forward of the top corner of the frame ramp by about a 32nd inch. It can be a little more...but not less. If the two are flush, that's probably where the bug is nesting. You'll need the services of a knowledgeable smith to address it. Not a complicated task, but best left alone if you've never done it.

 

[dirtdog]

Not at all, that is what I did to mine and it has never malfuctioned since.

 

[1911Tuner]

that is what I did to mine and it has never malfuctioned since.

Well...Okay.

 

[Im283]

I put a heavier spring in my RIA to help correct failures to feed as described by the the OP. It sure fixed any feed troubles I had but it overpowered the sear and would leave the hammer on half cock once in about 20 rounds or so.

I finally fiddled with the extractor and the bevel on the bottom of it. I smoothed it out and and it really made a difference. I now have the original spring back in the pistol and it runs smooth as silk.

 

[Old Fuff]

I agree with Tuner, but just for grins, remove the extractor and see if DUMMY rounds will chamber when you drop the slide. On lower priced guns (and some expensive ones) they don't make any particular effort to fit and adjust the extractor tension - and it shows. :banghead:

 

[Old Fuff]

I agree with Tuner, but just for grins, remove the extractor and see if DUMMY rounds will chamber when you drop the slide. On lower priced guns (and some expensive ones) they don't make any particular effort to fit and adjust the extractor tension - and it shows. :banghead:

 

[1911Tuner]

Just a quick note on springs. Specifically, recoil/action springs.

Springs work in both directions.

The correct spring rates were worked out many years ago by a man named John Browning and a team of Colt's top engineers. The burned a lotta midnight oil gettin' everything just right, and struck a balance.

When the spring rates are changed, the balance is upset. The time of the cycle changes. The time for the complete cycle doesn't change...but the bias is shifted. Increasing the spring rate by 25% places additional impact stresses on the lower lug feet...on the slidestop crosspin...and on the slidestop pin holes in the frame.

Egg-shaped holes and adjacent cracks are a distinct possibility.

Increasing the recoil spring rate produces sharper recoil...because that spring is where the biggest part of felt recoil comes from. It buffers slide to frame impact shock at the end of the travel, but that comes with a price. That price is increased speed as the slide returns to battery.

Increasing the slide's return speed makes magazine function more critical, leaving it with less time to get the next round onto feeding position, and can knock the round out of the magazine ahead of the breechface...which is loss of control...which can cause malfunctions and broken extractors.

Increasing the slide's speed on the return causes the trigger to nudge the disconnect a little harder...which can produce hammer followdown to half-cock with heavy steel triggers...and even sometimes with light alumium triggers. Sear damage occurs.

There are several reasons for not using a heavy recoil spring...and not a single one in favor of it, with the exception of these .45 Super and .460 Rowland hot-rod kits that are floating around...but that's meat for another argument, and there are better methods for delaying and slowing the slide in recoil without the drawbacks of overspringing it.

 

[dirtdog]

20,000 rounds latter and not a single problem

Sorry 2 pound spring increase ain't going to break it.
Geesh .

 

[1911Tuner]

Sorry 2 pound spring increase ain't going to break it.
Geesh .

You might be surprised at what can break prematurely due to added stress...even a little added stress. You'd also be surprised at the things I've seen over the last 44 years of fixin' things on these pistols that their owners have busted tryin' to outsmart 'ol John Mose and his dream team.

You wrote:

I'd try a 20 pound spring till it breaks in.

The normally accepted standard spring rate these days is 16 pounds...but even that's a bit oversprung by the original design specs. A 20 pound spring is a 25% increase. Do the math and figure the stresses.

Bottom line:

If the gun is right, it'll feed and go to battery with a 10-pound spring. If it requires a 20-pound spring to do so constitutes a band-aid fix...and that means that once the spring has taken a set, it may not provide reliable function any longer...and that may crop up when you least expect it...or when you most need the gun to work.

There are several things that will keep the pistol from feeding and going to battery...none of which have anything to do with the recoil spring unless it's completely worn out...and even then it shouldn't be a factor.

You should be able to remove the recoil spring and hand-feed the rounds by pushing on the rear of the slide with a fingertip. If it won't do it...your gun needs attention.

 

[Old Fuff]

Sorry 2 pound spring increase ain't going to break it.

USGI field armors were issued a plug gage, for the express purpose of checking the slide stop hole in the frame. If they detected the hole was out-of-round or oversized because of battering the pistol would be withdrawn from service. Sometimes the damage wasn’t detectable by eyeball, but it was there, nevertheless.

On any list of why today’s 1911 pistols aren’t reliable, the practice of some users to tamper with the springs – any springs – outside of specification, should be added near the top. Colt, Browning and the U.S. Army spent a decade (1900 – 1910) perfecting Browning’s pistol design, and about 7 of those years (1904 – 1910 were focused on the .45 automatic. But it would appear that some think they know more about what makes pistols run then those who originally made it.

Somehow I find that to be questionable…

 

[1911Tuner]

To expound on Fuff's post a little...and to make it clear that I'm really not raggin' on dirtdog, even though it may have seemed so...

(It was late, and it'd been a long time since 0400.)

I know that dirtdog had a positive result with overspringing the slide, and truly feels that it "fixed" the problem...but it didn't. It masked the symptom of the real problem without addressing it.

I don't care what you...speaking generally...do to get a specific result. Whatever floats your boat and all. If you can stuff the coil spring off a '57 Chevy into the gun and make it run, have at it.

What I do think about is that...at some later date when this thread is long buried...some guy who is reluctant to ask in an open forum, and who is looking for answers finds it...and thinks that it's the answer...and does it.

It's a physical, mechanical fact that stressing a machine beyond its design limits will cause a problem sooner or later. Not a matter of "if" but of "when" it will occur. That spring, accelerating that relatively heavy slide places impact stresses on parts when it returns to battery. We all understand that releasing the slide at full speed without ammunition present is hard on pistols.
Doing that probably increases the impact stress by about 20%...and that works out to 20% reduction in the service life of the involved part...no matter how you do the math.

Nowhere in the original specs will you find 16 pounds as the standard spring rate. Nowhere. What you will find is the number of turns of a specific wire diameter. The original was 32 and 3/4 turns of .043 diameter music wire. Comparing that to Wolff springs...that works out to be approximately 14.5 pounds at full compression as installed in the gun. So, even 16 pounds is a bit too much.

Jumping that up to 20 pounds is close to a 30% increase in slide speed...momentum...and impact when it all hits the stop. Let's take a look at just one part of the gun that's affected. The lower barrel lug.

Remove the barrel and swing the link into the in-battery position with the slidestop crosspin through the link. Press the pin into the radius formed by the lug feet and look at the area of contact for a minute. That tiny bit of steel is what stops the slide...and don't forget to consider the barrel's mass.

Then take a look at the slidestop's holes in the frame...and consider that those are what provide the abutment for the slidestop pin. I've seen steel frames crack at the bottom of the holes. I've seen holes wallowed out from repeated impact so badly you could literally watch the slidestop walk back and forth in the frame when hand-cycling the slide. I've seen lower barrel lugs crack at the front. I've seen many lower lug feet deformed and broken from the front...which indicates that the damage was done in stopping the slide. Note that these things have been noticed in modern pistols as well as older, WW1 and WW2-era pistols.

On a final note...Not all pistols are created equal. There are soft frames and overly hard frames. There are aluminum frames. The wallowed holes and cracks adjacent to the holes are seen in many Colt LW Commanders with relatively few rounds through them...some with as little as 3,000 rounds.
Almost without exception...these guns were oversprung because somebody heard from a gunshop commando that it was necessary for proper function and reliability. I've been checking springs for a long time in new, stock Colts.
I've yet to find a new Commander with the OEM spring that tested at more than 16 pounds...and most run to about 15. No Government Model has tested at 16 pounds. Owing to the fact that Colt has been building the GM non-stop for close to a hundred years...and the Commander for nearly 60...I have to at least consider the notion that they probably know a little more about it than Ranger Roy down at the neighborhood Gander Mountain.

Apologies to the OP for letting this go so far off-course...but it needed to be addressed. The feeding issue with your gun is very likely simple in origin...and likely either caused by the magazine or the extractor setup. We'll try to walk you through it.

 

[dirtdog]

I put a heavier spring in my RIA to help correct failures to feed as described by the the OP. It sure fixed any feed troubles I had but it overpowered the sear and would leave the hammer on half cock once in about 20 rounds or so

]

WOW

how does a recoil spring affect a sear ?

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My guns get used I am not worried about wear - they are not safe queens.

 

[Old Fuff]

When people start fooling around with the pistol’s internals, with little knowledge about how they really work, a lot of unintended consequences can happen.

A stronger recoil spring will cause the slide to slam into battery harder. If you combine this with reduced hammer hooks (to get a better trigger pull) and reduced sear/disconector spring tension, the trigger can bounce against the disconector, which in turn can hit the sear, and the hammer will be jarred enough to fall to half-cock, but (hopefully) not further.

But don't bet on it...

 

[1911Tuner]

And, again expounding on Fuff's notes, if I may.

It's a physics thing. Newton 1A states that an object at rest tends to remain at rest. Consider the trigger.

When the slide hits bottom and stops suddenly, it transfers its momentum to the frame...which snaps forward in the same direction of travel. Meanwhile, the trigger is doing its best to obey Newton 1A and stand still...while the frame is moving forward. The frame's sudden snap forward causes the trigger stirrup to bumg the disconnect...which transfers that momentum to the sear...and the sear rotates.

Because there isn't a constant pressure on the trigger, the sear spring pushes it forward again via the disconnect. The sear can reset, and does so...and the half-cock notch catches it.

But there have been times that the half-cock notch hasn't caught it. If you're lucky, the pistol only doubles. If you're not lucky...imagine if you will, a
2.5 pound, .45 caliber submachine gun with a cyclic rate of about 1500 rounds per minute...that you're probably holding loosely in one hand because this normally occurs when dropping the slide after a reload.

It's one of those things that ya gotta be there to see. Pretty exciting stuff, but it does tend to scare the soup outta everybody close enough to need hearing protection.

Pistols with steel triggers are more prone to this than aluminum triggers because of the inertia of the heavier trigger. Not so much of an issue with ordnance-spec hammer hooks and sear angles...but could get a little prickly with short, squared hooks and heavy breakaway angles common to trigger jobs. That's why it's pretty much SOP to install aluminum or even plastic triggers in such guns. Much easier to get the pull weight they want without problems with lightened triggers. No guarantees though. I've seen guns with light triggers and stock hammer and sear sets do it, too.

Okay. Back on topic. The OP wants to know why his pistol fails to go to battery. Gotta run tend to the dogs. Somebody will be along shortly. If not...I shall return.

Woof!

 

[1911NM]

Just kinda back to topic myself after an interesting read. Thanks Tuner and Fuff. I wanted to reiterate quite a number of feed issues with 1911's can be cured by trying different magazines. My Kimber really likes Wilson Combat, and will run decently with Tripp Research, but dislikes Chip McCormicks.