Sacrilege???

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Call Springfield. They will tell you to send it back. They will give you a shipping account number to use and the RMA number... it wont cost you a dime.
Springfield will sent it back to your door. Again, no cost to you.

When the gun returns - it will be BLESSED. It will not only run, but it will run better than you would expect from a box stock gun... A step up you might say.


far Springfield's customer service seems top notch.


Not in my experience.

Maybe they've changed. They needed to.
 
Like George pointed out above, sometimes getting a bad Springfield is actually a blessing rather than a curse. The gun will get "special attention" from some pretty competent gunsmiths.
 
Cameramonkey:

I understand what you’re saying about money being tight. That something we’ve all experienced at one time or another. At this point I wouldn’t consider taking a loss by trading the gun, and I wouldn’t be in a hurry to send it back to Springfield.

The first thing you need too do is get some “dummy†rounds. If you handload, or know a handloader making dummies is easy. Simply seat a bullet into an empty, unprimed case. Or if this won’t work for some reason, order some from Brownells (www.brownells.com).

Do not; under any circumstances do your experimenting with loaded ammunition. One slip, especially with a partially assembled gun could spell big trouble.

It is important to know **exactly** how far the cartridge chambers before it stops and you have to give the slide that “little extra push.†It is also important to know if the pistol will or won’t go into battery when you insert the (dummy loaded) magazine and release the slide with the slidestop. At this point I strongly suspect the cartridge rim is binding in the extractor, but we shall see. As Tuner has pointed out, making corrections is often easy, but defining what’s causing the problem sometimes isn’t.
 
>> I think he oughta be a writer! Betcha he'd be a good'un. <<

I doubt it. My editors used to claim they bought white-out in 55 gallon drums ....
 
I was just thinking of some of the coolest cars and bikes out there...
Well cars mainly...
The coolest cars ever are from mid 60's up to and ending in 1974. I'm thinking about the GTO's and the Mustangs (BEFORE 1974!). The "Old Iron" as it's called now. Very cool cars.
I remember watching guys fiddle and futz around under the hood CONSTANTLY. If the light was red, the hood was up... adjusting the carbs and the mix and the idle and this and that... constantly.
With bikes, it's the same... I'm thinking of the rockets from Italy costing 14 grand or more, the Ducks. These bikes are not known to be daily drivers. They are well known for the frequent adjustments and tuning that they require to stay at peak performance (or even to keep running).
If you want an every day car or bike - get a Honda. Even the Honda sport bikes are pretty much Wrench Free machines.
This is part of the price for having a Hot Rod... you have to get greasy once in awhile. Same thing with pistols... If you want a Hot Rod Handgun, get a 1911... if you want an every day, never have to open it, boring gun... well there are the Glocks, that's about as Honda as you can get. All the Glocks look alike, all the Honda cars look alike.... If that's what you want, fine.
But it's kinda annoying to listen to the guy with a 442 Cutlass complain that he has a rough idle or something.
A 1911 that needs an extractor tuned? Come on now - it's part of the package. You have a hot rod - you have to tune it up - you have to make it your own with some sort of customization. At least put some fuzzy dice on the mirror. Have some FUN with it!
I'm looking for a used bike of a specific make and model... it's known to be a reliable do everything bike capable of everything and long range riding and all of that... I'm looking at some aftermarket items right off the bat... Jet kit, seat, pipe, front brake, brake line. I'm going to have a lot of fun with it when I get it.
 
A 1911 that needs an extractor tuned? Come on now - it's part of the package.

I don't really buy into this, maybe for an expensive custom, super accurate "race gun" but not for a mass market 1911!

But the sad reality is that modern management methods have made real QA/QC non-existent.

Adjusting a 1911 extractor is pretty simple, great instructions are posted on this board by 1911Tuner.

Stem bind, or undersized chambers IMHO are factory defects that should not escape decent QA/QC and should be returned for repair. If enough come back management might decide some better QA/QC is "cost-effective". OTOH testing enough to verify the extractor is "right" for a wide variety of ammo would mean we could only buy used guns from the factory.

--wally.
 
I believe that when a manufacturer sells a firearm where there is a reasonable expectation that it may be used as a weapon, that manufacturer has a responsibility to make sure that the product is well made using quality materials, and that they are correct for the application. In addition, that there will be sufficient inspections and trained and qualified workers to insure the product is reliable.

And when this isn’t the case they will say so, and advertise that the product is intended for purposes other then self defense (as a target pistol for example).

Anyway, that’s the way it used too be …

In the present instance, the extractor is indeed “part of the package†and a buyer should be able to assume that it is made from the right material, correctly fabricated and properly adjusted when the gun is assembled. Further, that it is checked during a final inspection process to be sure that it’s right.

A Browning 1911 pattern pistol is a relatively simple piece of machinery, and unlike a sport car shouldn’t require constant tinkering or adjustment to make it work. It served as a military sidearm under all kinds of conditions for over 70 years, and is still doing so in limited numbers. During that time it earned a solid reputation for reliability and to my knowledge never required any kind of “break in†before it worked correctly. It was expected to function “out of the box†and did. If today’s makers are not delivering an equivalent product it is not the gun’s fault.
 
One of the IPSC guys at the range I go to bought a Springfield 'Loaded' 1911 a while back and it was, and still is giving him trouble after two trips to SA. When he first got it, it wouldn't finish a whole mag, regardless of ammo used. He sent it back SA, got it back, and then it would go about 25 rounds between FTEs. Sent it back to SA, got it back, and now it works for about 200 rounds, then it needs a full cleaning, otherwise it starts FTEing like crazy. The range owner has the same gun, and they swapped barrels on a hunch and it fixed it totally. Ran like a champ. So there is something obviously not kosher with that barrel. With two trips back to SA's gunsmiths, that should have been fixed, no excuses.
 
Tuning Required

Wally said:

I don't really buy into this, maybe for an expensive custom, super accurate "race gun" but not for a mass market 1911!


Close, Wally...Kudos!

The plain truth is...There are a couple of things that will cause a 1911-pattern pistol to require frequent extractor tune-ups. The main one is
the material that it's made of. If the thing is made of good spring-tempered
steel, it'll likely wear the gun out before it needs anything except periodic
cleaning.

The other thing is...Does the pistol feed the way it's supposed to? The
1911...and most other autopistols are "Controlled Feed" designs...even
the ones with external extractors. That is...the extractor hook is NOT
supposed to climb over the rim. We all understand that we're not
supposed to drop a round in the chamber and let the slide fly. It
causes the extractor to lose tension quickly or to fail outright. Okay, so we never do that, and we STILL have extractor problem...even with a good
extractor. Whazzup widdat?:confused:

The magazines that we use is whazzup widdat. We love the flush-fit,
8-round magazines from various sources...Trouble is, that they necessarily
have springs and followers that are shortened to make room for that extra round. Just as important is that they have followers that are smooth-topped. That dimple keeps the last round from getting ahead of feeding position, and getting knocked into the chamber ahead of the extractor.
When that happens, the hook is forced to climb the rim. Bad JuJu. Then
when the hook doesn't climb the rim, and the slide fails to return to battery...we stuff in a heavy recoil spring that will force it to...and when it works, we think that all is well...until the extractor fails...and we run around screamin' about the "Finicky, Unreliable 1911." :rolleyes:

I have a 1942 GI Colt that I bought as a basket case back around
1977...for 70 bucks. It had the original extractor in it, and though the gun was a rattletrap, the extractor was fine. I rebuilt the gun and shot it nearly apart...welded the rails up, refit the slide, and installed a new barrel...and shot it until the slide broke two years ago. Though the gun had been rebuilt twice that I know of...the one thing that I never touched was the extractor.

When I retro-fitted an Essex slide to the gun, I had to tweak the extractor
a little to get it workin' with the new slide. By my best estimate, the gun has seen nearly 40,000 rounds since that day...and the extractor hasn't
failed to perform. The tension is still good, and the pistol rarely ever stops. I've fired as high as 3500 rounds through it between cleanings,
and it just doesn't stop. Not with top-grade ammo, and not with my funky,
nasty cast bullet reloads that are in brass that's so worn out that you can barely read the headstamps on most of it.

I use 7-round magazines with a dimple on the flat followers...Wolff 11-pound mag springs...a 16-pound recoil spring that I change every time I detail strip the gun for cleaning at 2500 rounds...and a 23-pound mainspring. During the 27 years that I've owned the gun, I can count the number of malfunctions that it's produced on my fingers and have a few digits left over. Besides the slide, the only part that has broken was the slidestop that finally gave up last summer. The lug that contacts the follower to lock the slide popped, and I knew it the first time that the gun failed to lock the slide on empty. It was just that reliable.

Old Fuff, Jim Keenan, HD and I have been screaming about these things
since we've been on the forums. When you deviate from the original
specs in any way, and your pistol chokes...stop and listen carefully. That
chuckle that you hear is the ghost of ol' John Moses Browning.:p

Ask yourself if you think that the Army would have accepted a design to give to the lads to carry into the killing fields if that design was finicky and required constant attention. Remember how long it took'em to can the French Chau Chaut LMG when it wouldn't work in the trenches? 'Bout the
third jam, and it was tossed in the mud while the crew pulled their pistols.

Cheers!

Tuner
 
The way I see it, a gun like the Colt Browning autoloader was designed when machinery was expensive and labor cheap. A guy could sit there all day filing away for $0.35.

OTOH, Guns like Glocks and Sigs were designed to take advantage of modern materials and manufacturing methods. The machines are still expensive but labor is very high.

The shysters building the Colt clones have had to cut corners and introduce cheap manufacturing processes to a gun that was never designed to accomodate them. Something has to give.

A Glock or SIG is nonpareil for a up to date pistol. A 1911A1 clone is in 95% of cases a gaudy cheap toy. To get worth taking home you have to go ^ $kilobuck unless you buy Colt. If you buy a boutique like Clark, Baer, etc. Go way above a kilobuck to get what you're paying for. JMTC
 
Unfortunately, even when you spend rediculous amounts of money on these so called 'super' 1911s, results can be mixed. Another fellow at my range bought a Les Baer not too long ago, as he has far more money than sense, and felt he needed another 1911 to go along with the 8 he already has. It's first day at the range, with between 8 and 10 mags through it, it chunked an extractor. Complete loss of the hook. An $1800 pistol that needed a repair after ~80 rounds. Not good math in my book.
 
I don't know about the "real" custom builtâ„¢ 1911A1 clones, but the garden variety Baers and Wilsons that I've checked are an inflated version of the standard Kimbers, etc. Need to go more like $3,000 to get a maybe for sure handmade one by someone who knows what he's doing, I think. YMMV
 
Honestly, I don't know if they were flush fit 8 rounders with big bumper pads, or plain longish 8 rounders, or even 7 rounders with big bumper pads. The guy is irritating to talk to. He brings new meaning to 1911 snob, so I didn't hang around and get too many details. I just noticed that his piece had stopped going boom, and that he was looking into it like there was a problem. I asked what had happened, and after he stripped it down, he said it was a broken extractor. I pretty much left it at that and went back to making noise with my "Plastic POS" as he had called it. You are probably right that it was flush 8 rounders that caused it, but for $1800, the thing ought to work with marshmallows as mag springs, and Wolf ammo as it's main diet.

And if it takes going into the $3000 range for a reliable 1911, I'd just as soon put another $1000 with it and get a custom gas gun that would probably outlast me even if I fired 10,000 rounds a month.
 
Big Pads

Hmm...Big bumper pads...Sounds like McM Shooting Stars. Yep. Those things are double whammied. Slick follower and mushy spring too.
Good that you had the last laugh. We get a few of those around here too.
Love it when one of'em is cussin' and fightin' with a "Jammin' Jenny"
while my old Frankengun beater is runnin' rings around'em after they've made a snotty remark about my old ugly pistols.:cool:

Had one down there on a Thursday that hooted at me over one of my
beaters...in a fairly friendly way on account of he was with a friend of
mine as a guest...but you could tell he was lookin' down the end of
his nose...When his pistol started to choke and puke, Jim told him
to walk over and ask me what was wrong. He had all the latest stuff...expensive "gunfightin" magazines...the works. I listened to his
explanation of what the gun was doin'...handed him the worst-lookin'
magazine that I had, and told him to go shoot. Nary a hiccup the rest
of the mornin'.:cool: He was kinda mystified...

Cheers!

Tuner
 
All this reminds me of a range trip I made a few months back. I ran into this guy who was nice encough, but he fancied himself a 'smith. Now I am NOT a 1911 (or heck any other kind of) 'smith, but even I know that when you start screwin' around with the original design of anything, expect some problems.

Well anyway he starts showin' off this stainless Colt gov't model he has "built" himself. While I am on rounds 200-207-ish on my GI-style RIA 1911 I start hearing BANG.........$#%@......TapRack.....$%#^.......BANG.....you get the idea. One of the "improvements" he had made was to add a FLGR and a recoil buffer :)confused: ). I keep shooting and when I am finished, I start walkin' back to the covered bench to see him foolin' around with it again. Looks like he has the entire Brownell's catalog strewn all over two picnic tables. Stand around talking to a few guys and watchin him fuss with it. Finally he gets done, reassembles his pistol and goes to the firing line for app. 200 rapid fire rounds of sewing machine reliability. He holsters and comes walkin' up to the rest of us, looks us right in the eye all mysitified like and says..............


" Can you believe the factory plug and spring worked better than that old school FLGR and buffer?"

I managed to keep my mouth shut, but one of the other guys standin' around popped back right with " Yep, amazin' how much better something works when you use the parts it was designed to work with huh?"

Problem is that I just know the next time I see him he will every single fad "improvement" in that poor gun all over again.

Sigh...........better his money than mine I guess.


Mino
 
I just read the first five posts or so but here are my findings...

With 1911s (compared to Glocks, SIGs and Berettas etc...) a bit of tuning and/or replacing parts is almost a given... or at least should be given strong consideration. Get yourself three good mags, a good extractor and if you have a smith install and tune the extractor, have him polish the barrel throat and ramp. Good mags, a spec extractor and slick surfaces go a long way to making a 1911 work properly.

And I must say that while we expect a gun to feed ball ammo, I've never been a fan of either of the ammos you listed. I have more faith in the consistancy of Winchester White Box and S&B myself.

It's a learning process... it does kinda suck to have a negative experience right off and it may take time to regain faith in the gun, but it is worth it... There is light at the end of the tunnel. Just might take some more effort to get there than with a G17 or a G19. I've probably owned 15 Springfields and I'd say that on about half of them, I replaced their extractors... I rarely if ever used any of their factory mags. I like McCormick PowerMags with Metal Form rounded followers. Very few problems. Their good guns, they - like most 1911 builders - cut corners that shouldn't be cut and that leads to folks having problems that rarely happen with Glocks or SIGs out of the box.
 
Great Thread! Great Replies!
Hey, it is a given as to MY feelings and thoughts on this subject.

Just remember tho', this design is a proven well thought out design. It was originally designed to be taken apart - without tools- in the combat enviroment. Mud, sand, ice , snow...taken apart and inspected and maintained.

I think we broke some stuff that was already fixed right from the get-go with progress. :D
 
Oh well, someone always has to be contrary in their experience, but I've been using the 8-round mags ever since the "Devel" conversion kits with the "shooting star follower" came out in the mid 80's. Only have had one broken extractor about eight years ago and that was after many many 1000's of rounds in a ~15 year old gun I used to shoot IPSC with. Replaced it with a gun show milspec and its been running fine ever since with no adjustments to the replacement extractor.

Three of my five newest 45s have needed the extractors adjusted (Kimber Ultra Carry, Springfield Ultra Compact, and Para P10; Kimber TLE II has been perfect, out of the box, while the Kimber Ultra Ten II came with the "new improved" external extractor, time will tell), they worked fine for two or three boxes of ammo and then started having extraction failures. Been fine since I've made the adjustments. Seems pretty clear to me that current production internal extractors are usually not being done correctly at the factory -- hence the switch to external extractors or things like Para's "Rube Goldberg" PXT contraption.

I've lots of problems with the wide body SA and Kimber HiCap mags (that's a story for another time), but I seem to have finally found strong enough springs to get 6 out of 7 working.

I like FLGR, they don't seem to do any harm, doubt they do any real good either, but I find my fumble fingers really like the rod being in there when I reassemble the gun. That's why I have 'em. YMMV.

I bought the Kimber Ultra Ten II with the money I saved by shooting Wolf these past three years :)

--wally.
 
The previous good comments by Tuner & all are worth bookmarking! - to add my $.02, the newer Colt 1991A1's have barstock, not MIM extractors, and should be more reliable than many other new 1911's in the same price range. They still may need some attention to the extractor, assuming the piece is heat treated hard enough to retain tension.

I second the comment that PMC ammo is not real clean, which may account for some of your headaches. Still, though, if the gun works fine when clean and jams when a little too dirty it sounds to me that something is a little too tight, or too rough, somewhere. Me being stubborn and independent I'd probably figure out (or more likely, guess :D) what to polish/smooth out. You may want to send it to a good smith or back to SA.

Have the old style square front grip frame? Want custom work done? Maybe this a good excuse to send it back to SA for custom work, as well as fix the feeding.
 
Exceptions

Wally said:

Oh well, someone always has to be contrary in their experience, but I've been using the 8-round mags ever since the "Devel" conversion kits with the "shooting star follower" came out in the mid 80's.

But of course! There's always the exception. I've got an early 80s production Thompson Auto Ordnance that's actually quite good...better
in fit and finish than many Series 70 Colts that I've seen, and it's accurate and reliable...and dead stock except for the extractor and ejector.

There's a probably explanation for your magazines working well...and
the answer may lie in the pistol itself. One may be that you have good
extractors.

Besides outright damage, and excluding junk, most magazine issues stem from timing...Timing of the cartridge getting to feeding position, and timing of the release as the slide strips it. Everything takes time...and even tiny
variations can make the difference between a reliable function and a headache.

Look to the recoil spring guide rod head for a possible answer. If one head
is .095 inch thick, and another is .085 inch thick...the one that is thinner will
provide more distaqnce for the slide to travel in BOTH directions before it
gets to the back of the upcoming round-in-waiting. In this example, ,020 inch more travel. That's not a lot, but I've seen it make a difference.

Years ago, I got curious about why, given two identical pistols, one would
run flawlessly with a given magazine/ammo combination, and the other wouldn't. I swapped recoil systems, and the functional reliability switched
pistols. One recoil spring or the other made no difference. The difference came with the guide rod. One head was .005 inch thinner than the other...and the thinner head made the difference. A total of .010 inch
travel...5 coming and 5 going, gave the magazine time to catch up.

Reliability sometimes comes from little things...It's where you find it. A half
coil off the recoil spring...a new mainspring...and .005 inch of slide travel..
less than the thickness of a sheet of typing paper...can make a difference.

Of course...some guys just lead charmed lives. Me? I always seem to get
the problem chillun...:D

Cheers!

Tuner
 
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