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?
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."
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.
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