How to checkout an Autoloader thread request

[Peter M. Eick]

Over on the revolver page, there is a nice sticky for how you would check out a revolver to figure out if it was a good buy or if there were problems with it.

Can one of you more experienced guys write up a similar checkout guide for say a few of the basic autoloaders? Once we get the thread, can it be "sticky-ied" for future reference?

I was thinking about say a 1911 thread, then a 75clone, beretta and glock.

I think I have most of them down pretty good, but a real expert could do the rest of us a big favor by explaining the details for an inspection.

Thanks!

 

[larry starling]

Peter there is such a article on WWW.coolgunsite.com is there any way we could contact them and get there article to use over here?

 

[Bobby Lee]

Basically if you buy a pistol with a modern design made by a well known company that is known for their quality most of the time you will get a good reliable gun.

The majority of people can clearly see that something like a Lorcin is junk but there are a few brain dead types that can't see things like this.

Such a "checkout guide" would not help them.

 

[wally]

Be intresting to see, but with autoloaders probably the only way to be sure you are not getting someone else's "problem child" would be to shoot a box or two of ammo through it before buying.

For example, my new Kimber BP Ten II 5" had tons of feed failures where the round would not slip under the extractor. A mag with a stronger spring didn't help. A rap on the back of the slide would not overcome the jam so it didn't look like a "break-in" issue. Since its an external extractor model I was thinking I'd need to send it back to Kimber to get it fixed when I noticed "waves" of light and dark on the breach face when I wiped off the soot. So I cleaned the gun and polished the breach face and now 200+ rounds problem free with the original mag and some P14 Mec-Gars I enlarged the mag catch notch on.

Short of extreamely expensive measuring equipment I don't see how this kind of near microscopic interaction of tolerences could be found out without actually shooting the gun, and is I suspect the reason some guns are ammo sensitive. I suspect if it could be done cost effectively the manufacturers would do it to reduce returns and complaints.

So overall condition, general "feel" and a lack of signs of home gunsmithing is probably about the best you can expect to do if you can't meet at the range, do some test firing and then hand over your cash.

--wally.


Edit: The checkout section at CoolGunSite.com is a good start, but IMHO if this is new info to you I'm not sure buying used autos is such a good idea at this point in your shooting/collecting hobby. Also doesn't mention a check for extractor clocking, or loose firing pin retainer -- two things that will likely cause problems when you actually shoot an otherwise perfect gun. Of course until you've handled more than a few "good" ones, its near impossible to know how loose is too loose.

 

[The Drew]

All you can really do in a store is check for "function" meaning that the gun doesn't fire when safety is on, slide moves smoothly, hammer doesn't follow the slide down on a non DAO gun, and hammer drops when trigger is pulled...

Aside from that, most problems with auto's are only apparent when firing... Extraction and feeding issues being the most common...