How much lug engagement is enough?

[Peter M. Eick]

I am still playing with my gov 380 that has the peened up lugs.

I used some modeling clay and measured up the engagement surfaces and how much of the lugs are bearing.

The front lug has 0.025" engagement. The rear lug has 0.028" engagement. The clay was depressed 0.028" in both of the lugs. The marks on the barrel and the slide match these same depths. The maximum depth of engagement is 0.053" on both the slide and the barrel.

The gun is tight lockup in the linkdown oval so there is not a lot of slop overall. I did notice that the slide lugs while rounded are not peened up. The firing pin mark is centered in the ammo, and the gun hits close to point of aim. Thus the barrel is centered in the slide or at least where it is supposed to be.

The gun does operate (with the spring out) with no hitches upside down or right side up. There is no binding due to the peened metal yet.

My interpretation of the situation is I need a new barrel with more lug engagement. This I could then fit into the slide correctly.

I am just worrying about nothing? Is 0.028" enough engagement for a 380?

Any thoughts or comments?

Thanks

 

[RogersPrecision]

Peter,
I've seen peening like this on every Colt .380 that I have examined that has been shot a bit.
As far as I know, there is no solution.
Were these guns manufactured in the USA? I have heard they were made in Spain by Astra.....
Made to be carried a lot, and shot a little, I guess.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

It is a USA made gun.

Basically I think the frame slide stop hole is drilled about 0.025 to low. I guess since you have seen this on other gov 380's it must just be a slight design flaw.

I love the little gun, it carries well and is fun to shoot for what it is. I am currently chasing down a new top end so I have a spare to play with when this one wears out or I try and get it fixed up.

Thanks for the advice and comments.

 

[Jim K]

I suspect that when they tried to use that linkless system, they ran into a space problem. They could not get enough vertical movement for full lockup without setting the cam angle so steep that the gun would not function. So they reduced the lockup, maybe by drilling the slide stop hole further down. That left the gun work OK for a while, but resulted in less than full locking lug engagement. They probably thought of the gun as a home/pocket defense gun that would never be used enough to show up the problem.

Jim