1911Tuner
Moderator Emeritus
500+ rounds through the GI Springer today. Due to time constraints, I fudged a little. Instead of all rounds through the OEM magazine, I used 54 of my assorted magazines that include mostly Metalforms...A half dozen Colt commercial mags that I've had for years...One Devel (!) that's long since been converted to a 7-round stick...and the others are old GI surplus that I've picked up in various insundry places along the way. Beater mags
that have all been dead reliable in my other range pistols.
The ammo was also a mixture of PMC and Sellier & Bellot Hardball...25 rounds of 12 year-old 230 Hydra-Shok. A dozen rounds of 230 Golden Saber...ANother half-box or so of PMC Starfire...Some Hornady 230 grain TC flat points handloaded with 6.5 grains of Unique. 80 rounds of handloaded Winchester 230 round nose ball in PMC brass w/6.5 grains Unique that I saved for the factory mag test on the end of the session. The balance were MFCLBR...My Funky Cast Lead Bullet Reloads...234 grain bullet and 5 grains of Red Dot. Dirty!
All magazines were loaded to capacity (7 rounds) and fired to slidelock. For the OEM mag test, the magaazine was loaded to capacity and the strings began with a round in the chamber in a 7+1 loading for 10 runs with the mag. The pistol was allowed to cool every 70 rounds, and oil was dribbled into the frame rails with the slide locked and allowed to run down at 140-round intervals...in the interest of not abusing the gun too badly on its maiden voyage.
The factory hardball was first. Nary a hiccup. Then came the hollowpoints. One Hydra-Shok produced a failure to go to full battery near the end of a rapid-fire string. A light push put the gun in battery, and it never repeated. Owing to the fact that the gun was pretty hot, it was likely a fluke.
On to the cast bullet yucky stuff. One failure to go to battery after 6 magazines while trying to induce a limp-wrist malfunction. Again, a light bump put the gun back in action. Three full magazines with a dead limp grip produced no other malfunctions, and the slide locked on empty on all three.
A failure to go to battery on the next magazine. Magazine was retested twice with hardball equivalent handloads, and the malfunction didn't repeat.
One stovepipe fail to eject around the 400-round mark. No repeats. One failure to lock the slide.GI Magazine was retested via hand-cycling, and the failure repeated with the follower shelf riding over the slidestop lug again. Magazine isolated for repair, and the failure didn't repeat with other magazines.
Ejection was straight up and over the top. Got hit on the cheek once by the last round. Brass shows telltale dings on a few casemouths that indicate contact with the bottom of the ejection port. Brass marks at the rear of the port. Indications that extractor tension was beginning to wane near the end of the test. Extractor hook is square on the bottom,
but the wall is beveled to let the rim cam the extractor open. The square corner is probably contributing to the willy-nilly ejection, which sometimes sends brass to the left of the gun. Extractor tweak is called for...possibly a replacement. the next 500 rounds will reveal more. The extractor hook will be radiused before the next session, but tension will be left alone.
I had one disconnector failure to reset near the end. The channel was cacked up with residue form the cast bullets. A squirt of WD-40, and a quick swipe with a toothbrush solved the problem.
Accuracy was good, from my standpoint, and no testing was done off sandbags. Point of impact was a little low and to the right at 15 yards...maybe 2 inches on both planes, as near as I could tell from offhand.
I hope to shoot the next 500 rounds with PMC factory Hardball. I'll detail-strip and clean the pistol before the next session, but only every 1,000 rounds after that point. I want to start fresh with known good ammo instead of the cast reloads to see if there are any repeat issues that I had today.
From this point, I think that the pistol is not a bad choice for the man who doesn't intend to shoot 25,000 rounds a year through it. Good, jacketed ammo would have probably been close to 100% reliable today...with the possible exception of the stovepipe FTE...which seemed to be an extractor tension issue.
Stand by for the Sequel...
Tuner
that have all been dead reliable in my other range pistols.
The ammo was also a mixture of PMC and Sellier & Bellot Hardball...25 rounds of 12 year-old 230 Hydra-Shok. A dozen rounds of 230 Golden Saber...ANother half-box or so of PMC Starfire...Some Hornady 230 grain TC flat points handloaded with 6.5 grains of Unique. 80 rounds of handloaded Winchester 230 round nose ball in PMC brass w/6.5 grains Unique that I saved for the factory mag test on the end of the session. The balance were MFCLBR...My Funky Cast Lead Bullet Reloads...234 grain bullet and 5 grains of Red Dot. Dirty!
All magazines were loaded to capacity (7 rounds) and fired to slidelock. For the OEM mag test, the magaazine was loaded to capacity and the strings began with a round in the chamber in a 7+1 loading for 10 runs with the mag. The pistol was allowed to cool every 70 rounds, and oil was dribbled into the frame rails with the slide locked and allowed to run down at 140-round intervals...in the interest of not abusing the gun too badly on its maiden voyage.
The factory hardball was first. Nary a hiccup. Then came the hollowpoints. One Hydra-Shok produced a failure to go to full battery near the end of a rapid-fire string. A light push put the gun in battery, and it never repeated. Owing to the fact that the gun was pretty hot, it was likely a fluke.
On to the cast bullet yucky stuff. One failure to go to battery after 6 magazines while trying to induce a limp-wrist malfunction. Again, a light bump put the gun back in action. Three full magazines with a dead limp grip produced no other malfunctions, and the slide locked on empty on all three.
A failure to go to battery on the next magazine. Magazine was retested twice with hardball equivalent handloads, and the malfunction didn't repeat.
One stovepipe fail to eject around the 400-round mark. No repeats. One failure to lock the slide.GI Magazine was retested via hand-cycling, and the failure repeated with the follower shelf riding over the slidestop lug again. Magazine isolated for repair, and the failure didn't repeat with other magazines.
Ejection was straight up and over the top. Got hit on the cheek once by the last round. Brass shows telltale dings on a few casemouths that indicate contact with the bottom of the ejection port. Brass marks at the rear of the port. Indications that extractor tension was beginning to wane near the end of the test. Extractor hook is square on the bottom,
but the wall is beveled to let the rim cam the extractor open. The square corner is probably contributing to the willy-nilly ejection, which sometimes sends brass to the left of the gun. Extractor tweak is called for...possibly a replacement. the next 500 rounds will reveal more. The extractor hook will be radiused before the next session, but tension will be left alone.
I had one disconnector failure to reset near the end. The channel was cacked up with residue form the cast bullets. A squirt of WD-40, and a quick swipe with a toothbrush solved the problem.
Accuracy was good, from my standpoint, and no testing was done off sandbags. Point of impact was a little low and to the right at 15 yards...maybe 2 inches on both planes, as near as I could tell from offhand.
I hope to shoot the next 500 rounds with PMC factory Hardball. I'll detail-strip and clean the pistol before the next session, but only every 1,000 rounds after that point. I want to start fresh with known good ammo instead of the cast reloads to see if there are any repeat issues that I had today.
From this point, I think that the pistol is not a bad choice for the man who doesn't intend to shoot 25,000 rounds a year through it. Good, jacketed ammo would have probably been close to 100% reliable today...with the possible exception of the stovepipe FTE...which seemed to be an extractor tension issue.
Stand by for the Sequel...
Tuner
